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The 2012 Vietor Cup: An Annual Backgammon Mainstay

by Steve Sax
28 September 2012

Steve Sax

After the boondoggle in the bay area, I made a concerted effort to improve my backgammon play at the 2012 Vietor Cup. I did this by re-employing certain methods which helped me at the Giants Invitational in Chicago in 2011.

First of all, I played some practice matches against XG using the clock. Since time management was a big issue for me in San Francisco I decided to focus my efforts in using more of the clock and not rush difficult plays.

In addition to playing XG, I also played Justin Nunez some clocked matches either on a board, or on XG using the clock settings.

I also played quite a few online un-clocked matches at GridGammon for the following purpose. I find it better to play people rather than the bot for several reasons.

First of all, you will get real life type cube actions to decide upon. If you are playing a "bot" then it will double you when it gains any amount of equity by doing so, completely bypassing psychological determinants and human emotions.

After all, in the tournament I wasn't going to be playing a bot, I was going to be playing people. A person will tend to give a more difficult cube to decide on as he or she will double when it is a more tough choice.

One of the reasons is that if they are a good player they will factor equity and volatility with respect to any bluff value

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