Quote:
Originally Posted by Robertie
I haven't read Nack's book so I can't comment. The subject matter is how to play 3-1 on the opening roll, the reply to the opening roll, and some selected 3rd roll positions. It's supposed to be the first volume in a long series.
What makes Nack a very strong player? He makes lots of good moves and very few bad ones. The same is true of Falafel. Good backgammon is all about maintaining a high batting average: many good plays and few mistakes. Consider each position in a game as a little quiz. You either make the best play or you don't. If you make a second-best or third-best play, you made a mistake. The player who makes the most correct plays over time has an edge, and over time that edge translates into wins.
Good backgammon players rarely play each other for money. It's much more fun to play against bad players for money.
Sure, the player with the lowest "error rate" in terms of points per game
according to snowie based on a large sample of games (I suppose in this age,
databases of many games played by world class players exist) would be
considered the best player.
Is it fundamentally that Nack and Falafel put in a lot of time studying and
playing a lot (maybe against snowie) or putting positions through snowie with
rollouts on "close decisions"? I can see that if any player continually puts his
own games through snowie and will systematically classify and eliminate
the "biggest leaks" can only get better. But it's more than just that, since
one could also use a similar argument for a game such as chess but not
many chess amateurs become grandmasters. I would guess it could be
better judgment and analysis of positions possibly derived from good intuition
or excellent preparation ( = hard work! ).
I also thought Nack played almost anyone for money in the past, but
obviously some players know better not to play him. It's probably true that
chouettes don't really exist for decent stakes (>=$100 a pont) unless there
is a "live one" or weak player.
