Beyond The Obvious

by Douglas Zare
1 July 2009

Douglas Zare

I recently played some backgammon online, and found one opponent who was remarkably polite and generous. He made the largest EMG checker play blunder I have ever seen, and I have sifted through the errors made on an entire backgammon server.

In the second game of the match, my opponent led 8-0 to 11, and doubled me in a position where I was a cubeless favorite and had an immediate efficient redouble. In fact, resigning a single game was better than doubling, as his equity for double/take was actually -1.9. Because of what he took in the first game, I waited until it was a solid 1.7 pass before recubing.
 

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Article text Copyright © 1999-2010 Douglas Zare and GammonVillage Inc.

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2.

Subject: Re: Beyond The Obvious

From: tobaksa   

Date: 07 Jul 2009 23:02 EST

Hi Doug:

I agree, it's a terrific article.

While not perhaps in the same class as the error you mention above, I once saw a match between two Giants wherein, at the unlikely score of 18-away, 16-away one of them made a 25% MWC error.

Best,

Jake

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