I am trying to wrap my head around equity, and so have started to pay attention to the figures that XG presents. I don't understand how it works though, and what is confusing me is this: If I play the correct moves, my equity is 0.0000. XG always has 0.000 equity. Surely this is the level of play, and not the equity?

I thought that if I had -0.146 equity, then my opponent had +0.146 equity.

I have worked my way through the following reasoning: if I rate myself as 70% to win the match, I have 0.4 equity in the game (70-30).

I'm reading several different explanations all over the internet, and seem to be digging myself deeper into a confusing hole the more I read.

Any help appreciated, or a pointer toward a clear explanation!

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XG's 'Equity' number actually represents 'Equity lost through errors'. So if your checker play equity is -0.146 and XG's is 0.000, it's simply saying that XG lost nothing due to its errors (because it didn't make any, according to its evaluation routine) while you lost 0.146 points from your checker errors.

If you add up your equity lost from checker errors, taking errors, and doubling errors, you'll get the 'total equity' lost at the bottom of the panel.

The line labelled 'luck' represents the equity gained or lost from the good luck or bad luck of the dice rolls.

Thanks Bill.

Do you know whether that can be changed to display 'actual' equity? I think it would be more useful to me to start building a reference library in my head of equity at certain positions.

EDIT: I have looked through the instructions, and fiddled with the various options before asking!

Not sure what you mean here. You can find the equity lost on each play by looking at the individual plays where XG says you didn't make the best move. Adding those all up should give you the total equity lost on the 'Summary' window.

I fear I have misunderstood something here...

When deciding whether or not to double/accept a double, it is better for learning purposes to see what my equity is at that point in the game, rather than how much equity I have lost so far. Or do I just subtract this number from 1 to get that number?

When you're thinking about a take/drop or a double/no double decision, you don't care how you got to that point, you only care about your actual equity in the position. Whether you reached that position after perfect play or after a series of big blunders doesn't matter; you just care whether your winning chances are big enough to take.

That's my point exactly - XG is showing me how far from optimum I have played, not what my equity is at that point.

The thermometer is supposed to show equity at any given point I believe. Unfortunately, it seems to go all green every time there is a close doubling decision.

You can swap the thermometer for values by right-clicking any move in the Move Panel. From the resulting menu, select "Dispaly winning % as," followed by, "Values."

The numbers you see are percentages giving psuedo-cubeless estimates of games won (including gammons and backgammons), gammons won (including backgammons), backgammons won, games lost (including gammons and backgammons), gammons lost (including gammons), and backgammons lost.

It should be just what you are looking for.

Mike

Aha. Thanks Mike.