La Vida Gammon In Vegas

by Dr. Martin Short
9 December 2000

Welcome to Vegas baby! Home of brilliant lights, 24-hour gambling, the stars, the shows, a sick amount of wealth and the largest backgammon tournament in America. Having only played for a little less than two years, the excitement of a big tournament is definitely still there.

It starts off with my wife and I taking the elevator up to the tournament room with Kit Woolsey, saying "Hi" to a friendly Jake Jacobs and standing kind of star struck as Bill Robertie and Paul Magriel float about the room discussing tough positions and offering advice.

Even before the tournament starts the dice are rolling as money games and chouettes pop up everywhere. At any point during the tournament there were plenty of experts you could watch and catch a glimpse of world class play right there in front of you.

Carol Joy Cole has the Backgammon Boutique set up with books, software, dice, novelty cubes, and pure decadent luxury boards ranging in price from $100 to $1000. So after trying not to drool on the boards I pick up a set of precision dice, a couple of books and it's off to the sign up table. Big tourney, big money and big registration fees. I sign up for the doubles (a first for me) and enter my wife and I in the beginners bracket. Ok, so I'm not exactly a beginner but this is only my third time playing on a real board and the game is a little different playing face to face with someone with money on the line than it is online.

We are a product of the recent online craze, which is partly responsible for the record participation this year. We met players from Netgammon, MSNZone, Gamesite2000, FIBS, Yahoo as well as a large contingent from GamesGrid which boasted a turnout of more than 70 of their members. There was a lot of handshaking and recognition and I was able to put a face to at least 20 online nicknames I see everyday on the computer, and ended up drinking and playing with several of them over the weekend in chouettes for beer or small money.

Thanks to the recent boom of online gaming sites and readily available backgammon information from online magazines like GammonVillage, tournament participation is skyrocketing with online players looking to test their skills over a real board.

There are plenty of ongoing events you can jump into for a nominal fee. Jackpots, blitzes and mini-matches galore. So I tried my luck in a two-point mini-match and took a quick beating from a charming lady with skills to match. After watching a few pros go at it I retired to the casinos where my luck was no better.

On Thursday, the action begins and I was fortunate enough to win my first three matches and stay alive in the main bracket. While I was playing, if I thought I was a stronger player than my opponent I tried to mix it up early and make the game more complex. With a lot of "Nackgammon" practice on GamesGrid I tend to do OK from behind if I have to. Here is a position that came up in my third match.


		Pip: 151
		Game 1 7 point match Green-White: Score 2-0
		Pip: 177

#		Ply	Move	Equity
	1	3	24/21 23/21	60.03%
	2	3	24/21 13/11	59.59% (-0.44%)
	3	3	24/21 6/4*	59.56% (-0.47%)
	4	2	23/21 8/5*	59.84% (-0.19%)
	5	2	23/21 6/3	59.75% (-0.28%)

Playing Green, Snowie says my double hit with 8/5* 6/4* was a decent size blunder. My game winning chances didn't decrease but I lose twice as many gammons. In some cases though when playing a weaker opponent who is slow with the cube and afraid of a backgame, you can get away with a play like this. Here I figured I was already behind, I need an inner board point, and I want to stop them from either making another quality point or escaping those back checkers. Against a tough opponent though it looks like locking up that anchor on the opposing four point is the way to go.

I have to admit I was a little nervous about the Doubles competition. First of all, he entry fee of $300 is a little pricey for me. Secondly, it's stacked full of world-class players and finally it's single elimination, one loss and you're out.

My partner was Thomas Hanlon (a talented player and friend whose nick is "qwerrk" on GamesGrid) who put me in a good frame of mind with "lets play our best, have fun, and let's win it!". And so it started.

If you are unfamiliar with doubles, it's just two minds against two minds. One person rolls for each team and you can discuss your checker plays and cube decisions. The advantages are that your partner will often see plays you don't and help you weigh the pros and cons of tough plays. The disadvantage is that you can disagree on a play and then have to figure out which one to make.

Thomas Hanlon (L) and Martin Short in Las Vegas. Photo by Thomas Hanlon

One of our first opponents was truly annoying, confrontational, talked a lot of trash and was overall extremely unpleasant to play. He underestimated our playing ability however and my ability to throw his trash right back at him and we ended up with a very satisfying win. This was the first time I've been in that kind of situation and it's important to stay calm and focused on the plays and not the opponents.

Friday brought me another win in the main bracket and then I ran into a good opponent who got some timely double 1's bumping me down to the consolation bracket with a 6-7 loss. Once you get bumped down to consolation its long road back to the finals and the money. I won my next two matches (now 5 points) putting me well on my way. In the Doubles competition we ran into last year's finalists and it was tooth and nail all the way. Here's a position that may have made the difference. We had been doubled to 2 earlier and managed to scramble our last checker out and turned it into a race.


		Pip: 86
		Game 1 7 point match Green-White: Score 2-2
		Pip: 82

Cube action equity
3-Ply	Money equity:	0.340
	0.0% 0.0% 67.0% 33.0% 0.0% 0.0%
1.	No redouble	59.49%
2.	Redouble, take	58.85%	(-0.65%)
3.	Redouble, pass	64.46%	(+4.97%)
Proper cube action: No redouble, take			11%

In real life you don't have a handy button that counts the pips for you and in this case we made a mistake. Playing Green, we counted the race as 82-90 in our favour, which would make it a redouble and a pass. The race was actually 82-86 making our double an error and their take clear. My golden arm won out and despite a valiant comeback, we managed to put the match away. That miscount could have cost us, so be careful counting those pips!

The next doubles match pitted us against another championship calibre team and again it went down to the wire in the final game with us coming out on top. My wife wasn't quite as fortunate in Backgammon and was relegated to the "last chance" bracket and the slot machines, which turned out to be far kinder!

Saturday turned out to be my best as I won all three of my consolation matches putting me in the final on Sunday. I'm in the money! My first cash in a tournament so I was pretty stoked. The Doubles day started off great with a win in another close match with some tough opponents putting us in the semi-finals with a chance of money and a lesson in "Hedging 101". Hedging in tournament games occurs when the players make an agreement to split the money allotted giving the losing team a bigger chunk of the change. For example, if the split of $10,000 in prize money gave $7,500 to the winner and $2,500 to the loser, the players could agree to hedge $1,000 meaning the winner would give $1,000 of their prize money to the 2nd making it a bit more equitable for the loser with a $6,500/$3,500 split instead. Another type of hedging involves future earnings. In our Doubles semifinal, the winner was assured $5,000 for 2nd place and could get as much as $12,000 for 1st. After making it so far into the bracket it would be a travesty to walk way with nothing so we agreed the winner would pay the loser $1,500.

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