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Study method: self-made quizzes from actual matches

Posted By: Jason Lee
Date: Sunday, 22 January 2012, at 4:23 p.m.

In Response To: Study method: self-made quizzes from actual matches (Timothy Chow)

There's no reason to take Stick's term "fully understood" too literally.

Alright, I can go with that, let's see where it takes me.

Here's what I think is the wrong approach: without doing any analysis of the position, I throw this position in with a huge number of other positions, and then when reviewing it, I say to myself, "Oh yeah, this is the one where I had a choice between hitting and making the 5pt, and making the 5pt was right. Next!" I haven't learned anything by doing that.

Here's why that won't happen: I can't remember where I put my freaking car keys.

A better approach is to play around with variants of the position to get a feel for how important various features of the position are.

So, I've started doing that. I even just posted one, and maybe I learned something. I took another one, here:

		White is Player 2 score: 3 pip: 153 7 point match pip: 160 score: 0 Blue is Player 1
XGID=-a----E-D-a-dD---d-e--A-A-:0:0:1:52:0:3:0:7:10
Blue to play 52

eXtreme Gammon Version: 2.01

My incorrect play was 22/20 13/8 on the presumption that an anchor isn't that important in this position, and I'm better off trying for some outfield control, and then a better anchor when it does come. The correct play is 24/22 13/8, and mine is 7th best according to XGR++, and a rollout has it in Whopper territory. So what's the deal? Alright, I took the position and started mucking around with it. Why is the anchor important?

Some time later, I have no idea. It didn't matter how I changed the position, 24/22 was always part of the right play. Without completely mangling the position, I couldn't find a way that 22/20 was right. Maybe I learned something, but I'm not entirely sure. Now I've got a voice in my head saying, "Dude, just make the anchor, stop pussyfooting around with your cute plays."

I'm unconvinced that Stick's method will be nearly as useful for me as it is for somebody who has a deeper understanding of the game.

JLee

Messages In This Thread

• Study method: self-made quizzes from actual matches
  Jason Lee -- Thursday, 19 January 2012, at 1:32 a.m.
  • Study method: self-made quizzes from actual matches
    RobertFontaine -- Thursday, 19 January 2012, at 1:36 a.m.
    • Study method: self-made quizzes from actual matches
      mtuhtan -- Thursday, 19 January 2012, at 8:35 a.m.
  • Study method: self-made quizzes from actual matches
    Ken Larsen -- Thursday, 19 January 2012, at 1:41 a.m.
  • Study method: self-made quizzes from actual matches
    Bob Koca -- Thursday, 19 January 2012, at 3:30 a.m.
  • Study method: self-made quizzes from actual matches
    Phil Simborg -- Thursday, 19 January 2012, at 4:16 a.m.
  • Study method: self-made quizzes from actual matches
    Stick -- Thursday, 19 January 2012, at 9:01 a.m.
    • Study method: self-made quizzes from actual matches
      Casper van der Tak -- Thursday, 19 January 2012, at 12:08 p.m.
    • Study method: self-made quizzes from actual matches
      Jason Lee -- Friday, 20 January 2012, at 1:54 a.m.
      • Study method: self-made quizzes from actual matches
        Stick -- Friday, 20 January 2012, at 9:03 a.m.
        • Study method: self-made quizzes from actual matches
          Jason Lee -- Sunday, 22 January 2012, at 4:12 p.m.
      • Study method: self-made quizzes from actual matches
        Timothy Chow -- Friday, 20 January 2012, at 7:45 p.m.
        • Study method: self-made quizzes from actual matches
          Jason Lee -- Sunday, 22 January 2012, at 4:23 p.m.
          • Study method: self-made quizzes from actual matches
            Casper van der Tak -- Sunday, 22 January 2012, at 5:03 p.m.
    • Study method: self-made quizzes from actual matches
      Jeff B -- Saturday, 18 May 2013, at 4:56 a.m.
      • Study method: self-made quizzes from actual matches
        Dmitriy Obukhov -- Saturday, 18 May 2013, at 5:02 a.m.
        • Study method: self-made quizzes from actual matches
          Michael Nielsen -- Saturday, 18 May 2013, at 10:28 a.m.
          • Study method: self-made quizzes from actual matches
            mtuhtan -- Saturday, 18 May 2013, at 11:13 a.m.
            • Study method: self-made quizzes from actual matches
              Michael Nielsen -- Saturday, 18 May 2013, at 12:38 p.m.
      • Study method: self-made quizzes from actual matches
        Phil Simborg -- Saturday, 18 May 2013, at 6:10 a.m.
      • Ctrl+Shift+S *NM*
        mtuhtan -- Saturday, 18 May 2013, at 6:43 a.m.
  • Study method: self-made quizzes from actual matches
    Mislav Kovacic -- Thursday, 19 January 2012, at 12:54 p.m.
  • Study method: self-made quizzes from actual matches
    RobertFontaine -- Thursday, 19 January 2012, at 1:01 p.m.
  • Study method: self-made quizzes from actual matches
    jdg -- Thursday, 19 January 2012, at 3:48 p.m.
    • Smartphone
      KenB -- Friday, 20 January 2012, at 12:14 a.m.
    • HTML is the solution
      Klaus Evers -- Friday, 20 January 2012, at 4:54 p.m.
  • Study method: self-made quizzes from actual matches
    Timothy Chow -- Thursday, 19 January 2012, at 4:13 p.m.