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Proving Backgammon is a Game of Skill

Posted By: Chuck Bower
Date: Tuesday, 20 November 2012, at 5:28 p.m.

In Response To: Proving Backgammon is a Game of Skill (leobueno)

I saw your first post on this subject, too (with my name mentioned). To be clear, I'm not currently involved with a university (other than running their BG club :) and I've not taught a class in 30 years. I was active in federally funded pure research at Indiana University for over 25 years, until a couple years ago.

I know Phil has some strong feelings and observations on the value of backgammon at the elementary school and high school level. He obviously can reintroduce those if he is so inclined. Bob Koca and Art Benjamin are still actively teaching college math; Jason Lee hasn't for a couple years; I don't know if Timothy Chow does or not. There are likely others (e.g. David Rubin?).

IMO the value of backgammon as it relates to college learning is in decision making and critical thinking. To a lesser (but related) extent it can/could be and in some cases has been used in understanding some simple ideas in probability and statistics and even potentially money management. The area of academics that would most likely use these latter subjects would be business school. No doubt critical thinking is valuable to every human on the planet, but unfortunately that isn't currently understood by many so trying to make that point in this particular issue/context might do more harm than good.

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