Hi everyone,

i recognized that after reading books about backgammon, my error rate goes up dramatically. I was playing XG iron man mode at ER ~10 and now it seems that i cannot even reach an ER of 15

To be honest, i did not simply read books about backgammon, i absorbed everything i could about it. I think this could be the main reason, why my ER goes up. I analyzed my last matches and there were plenty of blunders, where i "overplayed" the position. I would hit deep in my homebase, when i should play safe, i would play safe when i should hit etc...

My questions are:

Do you think that increasing ER is normal, when you try to implement new concepts to your game?

Do you think it is better to try to grasp one concept at a time or get better at one specific part of the game before you move on to the next?

Thanks in advance.
Kind Regards

Sounds normal to me. When learning a new technique or concept, early attempts at implementation are likely to be flawed. This is true of many human ventures, not just games.

Sure, you can study more than one new idea at once. Backgammon in particular is very ... discrete, in that each decision can be handled independently, and can easily be evaluated independently. In other games you could get conflicting feedback, making it more difficult to associate outcomes with individual actions.

Yah, this is common. I find I have to blunder with a new concept a few times before I learn to apply it in the correct places.

I find it easier to add one new concept at a time but YMMV.

Yes. You have all sorts of brand new mistakes to be making!

I found it hard to focus on "one concept" because lots of concepts play against each other. It's not like you can say "I'm going to focus on blitzing" and then try to blitz at every opportunity. But I also didn't have a big book of problems that I was working from. Just matches against the computer and the analysis that it gave me.

The two big questions that I would ask myself:

1) What was I thinking?
2) What should I have been thinking?

Early on, my answer to #1 was that I wasn't thinking. I often played without really slowing down enough to carefully weigh the actual options in front of me. I wasn't necessarily thinking about connectivity, or safe vs. bold, or any of that stuff. Later on, it was more about me choosing the wrong concept to apply.

#2 was about learning how to decide which strategic option was the right one. This came down to knowing how to identify the aspects of the position that led to going down one path or the other. What did I see and what did I miss?

Hi,

thx for your answers.

I´m "glad" that it seems to be a common problem

I think i should try to focus just on one concept at a time and try to move on step by step - maybe patience is the key.

With that insight it would be a huge blunder to try to learn something new before a tournament, right?!

How do you prepare before a tournament?

Kind Regards

I think you need to regard backgammon as more of a continuous ongoing learning process. There are things you can do to make yourself a better player, and you do what you can each day to improve, depending on the time you have available and want to devote to the game. Over time, you'll become a better player.

Having said that, one of the best things you can do before a tournament is to play short matches (5-7 points) and focus on any errors you're making with the cube. This is one of the things you should be studying as part of your regular routine, but the week before a tournament is a good place to devote some extra time to the subject.

Basically that´s what i thought too - be patient, you will become a better player if you make your hands dirty.

Could you please explain why you think focusing on the cube is one of the best things you can do before a tournament?
I was thinking about focusing on more "trivial" things like counting pips, calculating take points, memorising Neil's numbers, memorising some common reference positions etc. because these are topics that i could implement in my game without the danger of trying to play fancy.

Thanks in advance

If you analyse your matches you will most likely find that the larger part of your match equity losses are down to cube handling errors. Cube handling then will be where your study will yield the biggest gains
Hope this helps
--
BD

Good point, that makes sense!

Thx

Actually I would say just the opposite is true. In most recorded matches the total equity lost from checker play errors is three to four times higher than the total equity lost from all the cube errors. There are many more checker plays than cube decisions, so they dominate by sheer weight of numbers.