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Backgammon is not chess!

Posted By: Frank Berger
Date: Sunday, 10 March 2013, at 5:05 p.m.

In Response To: Backgammon is not chess! (Phil Simborg)

First, I don't believe it is possible to put a luck to skill ratio on the game for three reasons:

I agree, that it is difficult, maybe impossible, to measure the skill difference in a concrete situation, but that doesn't hinders one to think about.

Let play the bot of your choice on two identical computers. The skill difference is obviously zero (independent whether money or match play, how long the match is and the skill doesn't change over the course of the match). Therefore the outcome must be totally determined by luck (I usually use this example for chess, but here it is obviously true too).

You might know the modelling of a backgammon game as a linear random walk or have read the groundbreaking article of Rick Janowsky about cubeful equities. If you know the percentage on wins in a specific situation, the difference between that percentage and the win is what you have to get due to luck. IIRC there is an article from Zare about this on GammonVillage if you need some more info.. If you don't believe one can't measure this percentage, take two bots of your choice, let them play some million games and the result is good enough.

Naturally you can't measure e.g. the skill difference between any two players and calculate the exact percentage in every match. There are a lot of difficulties, some mentioned by you, but a qualitative reasoning is possible.

Funny, I thought this was widespread knowledge already.

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