Quote:
Originally Posted by jjpregler
My coach teaches me that in spite of PR, sometimes it is right to make the "wrong" play.
Yes but this is an old religion-war: in backgammon you can'y say that you played better because you bluffed your opponent, that is poker, not backgammon.
Otherwise I play at 21 pr and I say: of course I played better because I thoght that here and there my opponent would make the wrong play so it's fine not to play like a bot. This way we aren't going anywhere.
You should play thinking that your opponent never blunders and that's the only correct way to play good backgammon. So it's somewhat "moral" to gain point only when you actually won the game on the board and on the theoretical side (only neutral and objective way to judge one's play) and it's perfectly sound not to lose points when you lose the game but you won the theoretical battle or you opponent played like a beginner but lucked out the dice. This encourage strong player to play weak players and this keep up the site traffic (I have to wait few seconds to get a game) and never make one tilt while losing a game.
I do agree that 1500 players are somewhat very strong compared to gridgammon for instance, but this is perfectly sound again: That kind of players are the ones that have a decent theoretical background (not impressive ok, but decent) and thanks to the rules doesn't suffer of variance and luck. That's simply beautiful