DaveT flattered me by saying he found my suggestion for improvement helpful (review the same material repeatedly until you know it cold), so I thought I'd share another tip that might be useful.
Recently, Stick wrote:
There are also the live "durrrr" plays. Everyone has these. After a match if you show someone they made a play and ask why they're like "I really made that play?!"
It's a great temptation (to me at least) to ignore these kinds of errors. For example, say you failed to see that you could hit, where hitting was obviously correct even to a beginner. What can you say about such a mistake? Obviously it's not that your understanding of backgammon is so poor that you don't realize that hitting is the right play in that position. What more can we do other than shrug our shoulders and hope not to be such an idiot next time?
That may be true to some extent, but I'm convinced that in many cases, even idiotic errors have an explanation, and you can do something to reduce them. What I try to do is ask myself, "What lie did I subconsciously tell myself that led me to my false perception of the position?" I've found that if I am able to articulate the lie, I can catch myself telling myself the same lie next time, and hopefully stop myself in time.
Here are some concrete examples from my own games.
| White | 160 |
|---|---|
| |
| Blue | 163 |
| GNUBg Id: 0GfhATDg8+ABUA:cIkRACAAAAAA XGID=-b----E-D---dD--ab-ea---AA:0:0:1:43:0:0:0:0:10 | |
The most "idiotic" of my examples. In effect I used to tell myself, "I need a 5 to hit" in this sort of position, and then overlook the hit. But once I explicitly articulated what lie my brain was telling me, it was fairly easy to eliminate this kind of mistake. Your brain will probably tell you different lies from the ones mine does, but if you look hard at enough examples of positions where you failed to see that you could hit, chances are you'll detect a pattern that you may not have consciously realized was an Achilles heel for you. Once you know what your weakness is, the battle is half over.
| White | 76 |
|---|---|
| |
| Blue | 121 |
| GNUBg Id: 1t02AAB3F8AAWA:UYkNACAAAAAA XGID=-CCCA--------B---bbbccabBA:1:1:1:33:0:0:0:0:10 | |
Here I in effect told myself, "I need to safety my 4pt blot by lifting it." Again, this is a case where consciously identifying and articulating the pattern that I was overlooking was half the battle.
| White | 108 |
|---|---|
| |
| Blue | 135 |
| GNUBg Id: 2N1GBgCrbQADJg:UgkZACAAAAAA XGID=-BAABBB-----b-aB-bbccbB-A-:2:1:1:62:0:0:0:0:10 | |
| White | 138 |
|---|---|
| |
| Blue | 170 |
| GNUBg Id: 2O3AAgbMtmAANg:UQn5ACAAAAAA XGID=---BbBBBA--abB----cbcb-BB-:1:1:1:62:0:2:0:7:8 | |
In both of these positions, I told myself, "I need to escape that back checker." And I played 24/16. Didn't even see that I could hit.
We could debate how important a strategical goal it is for me to escape the back checkers in these positions. But the point is, even if we grant for the sake of argument that it is an important strategical feature of the position, you should never let strategical features screen out the tactical possibilities of your roll.
| White | 142 |
|---|---|
| |
| Blue | 91 |
| GNUBg Id: s20BAFx2dhYFAA:QYn6AEAAAAAA XGID=acBC-BC-BA--AA----abbbb-b-:1:-1:1:65:0:4:0:7:8 | |
Here I played 13/8 12/6. It wasn't so easy in this case to reconstruct what my brain did. Eventually, I decided that it was another example of focusing too much on one aspect of the position to the exclusion of others. I know that I was concentrating very hard on the 4pt. Since I couldn't make the 4pt, I figured that any play that didn't leave unnecessary shots would be about equally good, and I didn't think too hard about it.
Note that even if two different players make the same blunder, it won't necessarily be for the same reasons. Your job is to figure out why you made the idiotic play. Take this job seriously because you have to diagnose the problem correctly before you can cure it.
| White | 110 |
|---|---|
| |
| Blue | 117 |
| GNUBg Id: zN0uACBmuxUAGA:QQnxAEAAGAAA XGID=-aB-BBCBAA------acbcc-bB--:1:-1:1:42:3:4:0:7:8 | |
Here I lied to myself, "I can't make the 3pt naturally, so all I can do is position my spares as best as I can." Now I'm not saying that this kind of decision is always an easy one, but it's definitely a mistake to not even consider slotting. When I was playing this game, it wasn't that I lacked the technical knowledge that slotting could be right; rather, my brain screened out the decision prematurely with a quick and believable lie.
To conclude, I'd make the remark that idiotic plays shouldn't be ignored for the simple reason that they are major contributors to our ER/PR. Right now, I feel that the main obstacle to dropping my PR by half a point is that I make a lot of avoidable idiotic mistakes. In a seven-point match against XG, I'll often play several games with only negligible errors, then mess up a few difficult decisions due to insufficient technical knowledge or skill, and then suddenly drop 0.300 in equity with a single idiotic mistake. Understanding your own psychological blindspots and weaknesses is at least as important as, and sometimes more important than, increasing your technical knowledge of the game.