I checked gammonpress today and saw it has a new site.
I like to bring this news to the community here.

It even has a few articles and it seems video's might come too.
great news!

I also have a question for Bill Robertie.
Why on the list of books you sell, have you pulled Advanced Backgammon vol1 and vol2 from the list?
Are you out of copies? Or are you planning on doing a new edition of these classic backgammon books, which I think (correct me if I am wrong) you once said you wanted to do sometime?

Advanced BG 1 and 2 have been out of print for some time. They were actually dropped from the old site a couple of years ago.

They won't be reprinted because we could never sell enough to cover the printing cost of even a modest print run. Once a book gets a wide reputation on the web as being "full of mistakes", it's a goner.

That's too bad. There is so much to learn from these (and many other older) books for an "active" reader. Bill, did you consider producing an "assisted" version of the books with updated analysis based on current XG rollouts?

The formula used by the 2nd edition might overcome these problems. What if a 3rd edition were greatly expanded and contained rollout data for every position? The rollouts would go a long way towards eliminating errors.

The fact that Advanced Backgammon is a classic in backgammon publishing might work to your advantage. An updated classic, guaranteed to be mistake-free, might become a must-have for serious players. It might outsell a new book which had a different title.

Adding new material is an essential part of this idea. That way, there would something for those who have done rollouts of the existing problems. Otherwise, those readers would be less interested in a reprint.

Another idea would be to produce an e-book for the main market, and contract with an on-demand printer for those who wish to buy a hardcopy. Those printers print one copy at at time, and only after a book has been ordered. That what Chris Bray has done with his "Wind" series.

At the end of the day, Bill, you are a better judge of the market than I. If your opinion is "no-way," then I suspect you are right.

Mike

What I'd really like to see is an app for 501 problems. The book is great, but difficult to read, flipping back and forth all the time. An app would be perfect, and needn't be restricted to just the 501 problems.

I Agree with the app

Myself also. Mobile devices are ideal for playing through a set of problems. Perfect for quick study of a few when you have that 10-20 minute wait somewhere. Also in this format it is much easier to push out additional batches of problems. This could be an ongoing moneymaker.

What say you Mr. R?

Interesting idea. Suppose I created 50-60 new problems on a particular subject (say blitzes or holding games) and packaged it as a phone or pad app. What would people pay for something like that?

Put another way, what price would stop you from buying it?

For me, the answer depends on the depth of the analysis. A terse treatment along the lines of that given by "501" would be less valuable than something akin to that of Advanced Backgammon.

It would also depend on the app itself. Are we talking e-book or flashcard app with links to analysis. If the latter, how sophisticated would the app be in tracking previous performance, and using that to select problems. Would it link to a larger database at thegammonpress? And so on.

Mike

Apps in general are priced pretty well, and have to be pretty unique/special to rise out of the few buck range. However, with decent explanations, performance tracking, and regularly updated problems, you are perhaps looking at a special app.

This is the point: if you create for every subject (blitz race holding etc) a group of positions (say 20) for a total of say 200 position (in total in the app) explained like in 501 bg problems (with a XG rollout) for a Price around 10 dollars for that app it would Be ok imo and i surely buy it.

Weak players only look at the rollouts and the scale given by XG, and they remains weak weak weak. In reality its ONLY the reasoning behind that really matters, even if in that position the move is slightly worse than the one given by XG. And that reasoning can only Be given by a Truly expert, and thats the stuff that serious players is looking for.

Well said Fllecha.

Speaking for myself, numbers hurt my head (not to say I don't put effort into the maths, its just that its difficult for me).

The explanations in 501 are brilliant. Its all in plain english and helps me to understand WHY. Once i get the reasoning, I can begin applying it.

Looking only at the teaching approach 501 by far is superior of any other book on bg, even superior of others Bill's book.

Here why: any concept is analyzed separately and there is focus on it and the explanation is simple and efficent.

If you analyze an entire game you may lose focus and you dont learn that much, bg is not chess

$4 would be an easy take. $7 would be close. $10 would be a pass.

Are we talking about publishing the whole 501 initially? For that, I would obviously pay what the book itself costs. Looks like $19 on Amazon right now. Maybe a little more, for the convenience. Then buy more new problems priced as above.

Or are you talking about publishing 501 in batches sold separately?

Maybe you could partner with XG mobile. With a framework already there, might be easier to add in a problem solving module.

Also agree with Kamba, the text explanations are the real gold. Anyone can run positions through a bot, but understanding why is worth so much more.

Thanks to all for your input.

Just to be clear, the copyright to "501" is owned by the publisher (Cardoza Publishing), so any such app or series of apps would have new problems and solutions.

I'll nose around over the next couple of months and see how feasible this would be. I'm currently editing a new book by Kit Woolsey and writing a new one of my own, so time is limited. But we'll see. Sounds like a doable idea.

Wow thats great news.
Can you tell us something about those two new books?
Subject they are covering? Expected release dates?
Or is that information still private?

Humm, it is not so useful to get only 50 position analyzed for say 4-5$. Since useful backgammon publishing is not that frequent id prefer get more even paying more. So a fair thing should Be like 9$ for 200 position and this should Be a massive take nobrain

Yeah, probably the price per problem should be lower for larger sets. For sets under 100 problems I would be happy with about 10-15 problems per dollar. For (say) >300 problems, maybe more like 20-25 per dollar. Hard copy of 501 currently lists for 26 per dollar so this seems reasonable.

You might try contacting Fred Gitelman at bridgebase. He published bridge problem sets in e-format back in 2000 or so, and did reasonably well with it. He might have some tips.

i think a flash card app would be cool, and because its not print media new flash cards could be dumped into the database of app at anytime.

then charge a subscription fee of $5/mo and add X amount of new cards every month. This way it can evolve over time into a big useful resource.

Definitively NOT this, it would Be like a spam cell phone ringtunes. Please not Monthly fee.

Excellent news about both books. You and Kit have superb abilities to explain things thoroughly and clearly.

you mis understood me or i didn't explain it right-perhaps both.


if there was a subscription based flashcard app that you open when you want to there would be X number of flashcards in different categorizes-there is a app like that now, that i use and its helped me a lot.


my idea was for the owner of the app to add more cards anytime he feels like it, or open up new categories, expand it on a consistent basis. This way the users of the app would always see new cards, more things to learn,


There could be a feature where you flag a card you have memorized so you dont see it again, the flagged cards would go into a file that you could go back to anytime and see if you still have it memorized. not deleted just flagged as "known". this way the cards you see are always fresh and not polluted with the same cards over and over. This way the more you use the app, the more customized it is for you.


The reason I suggested a monthly subscription fee is 2 fold, I'm a biz man-if its worth doing its worth doing for $. It also puts pressure on who ever owns the app to keep improving and building on it. If he gets lazy and feels its good enough, he will lose the revenue stream. So the $ is there to insure the app is always improving and not going sideways as so many apps do. Motivates the owner-he gets $, we learn: win-win.

no spam to your phone, or BS like that, just a monster app thats always growing. i realize BG is a narrow vertical but none the less it's a viable project for someone i'm sure. i'm not that guy, but i'd be a subscriber.