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How do I improve cube handling?

Posted By: storm
Date: Thursday, 13 January 2011, at 4:50 p.m.

In Response To: How do I improve cube handling? (RealNick)

Due to the less appealing connotations of "money game", I was focusing completely on match play after the first initial weeks when taking up backgammon competitively. I will go against the tide and say, that if you are focusing on match play, you don't have to start out with spending a lot of time on cube handling in money games. If you can handle the cube well in match play, you can handle it well in money games modulo the relatively minor effects of the Jacoby rule.

Make sure you thoroughly understand all the fundamental concepts related to the cube, including: Doubling windows, take points, doubling points, market losers, cube efficiency, volatility, gammon values. The best sources I have seen for this are online, I am not aware of the existence of a good book on cube handling.

I think the fastest way to become strong in the cube department is if you can utilise match equities. True, sometimes you meet someone who has a low error rate wrt. the cube and who neither uses a MET, doing the calculations at the table, nor have take points, gammon values etc. memorised. It is rare, and probably takes tons of experience to obtain such an intuition for the cube.

Build and study a collection of reference positions with the breakdown of wins and losses and gammons. Using gnubg you might want to add cube efficiencies to your reference positions. Develop a routine for reviewing the positions in the collection regularly.

Categorise your cube errors both wrt. the action (missed double, too good, wrong pass etc.) and the type of position (bearoff, prime versus prime, backgame, ...). Study those errors coming from positions resembling standard positions in some detail by altering certain features and see how it effects the number of wins, gammons etc.

When I was still hooked on this game, I kept a file with entries like

cube :: AkQAcBsAAAAAAA:UQkAAAAAAAAA :: race, bearoff, epc, estimating-gwc :: ::

cube :: Zt7AATDMtokBDA:cAkpAnAASAAA :: blunder, missed-double, prime :: 31P-65R-21S-43T-64P-44A-33M-65H-32@-61D ::

cube :: t10jgAC3cwMGAA:UQlgAQAAAAAA :: no-double, end-contact, REFERENCE :: ::

checker :: 4NvEASSYZ/ABMA:cAn1AAAAIAAA :: opening, hit-or-not, hit-or-split, match-score :: 61P-42P-32S-52 ::

checker :: sV2wAgw7b2YAAA:QYnoAAAAAAAA :: blunder, pay-now-or-later, bearin, 3pt-anchor ::

for my errors, blunders, reference positions and interesting positions from matches I had watched or studied. The format isn't important, but having a fixed one makes it easy to later import the positions into databases and tools for studying the game more efficiently, generating quizzes, flash cards and so on.

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