| |
BGonline.org Forums
Congratulations to Rod Covlin, Peoria Winner, First Place in ABT!!
Posted By: Rod In Response To: Congratulations to Rod Covlin, Peoria Winner, First Place in ABT!! (Paul Weaver)
Date: Monday, 7 October 2013, at 5:32 p.m.
Mr. Weaver, Ty. You are far too kind and far too formal.
I have cashed those 8 and another 5 for a total of 13 out of the last 22 events I have entered at the 4 tournaments, Novi forward. Buying 3 slots in the quickies, as I did this weekend, certainly helps ones chances. And I'll attribute a great deal of it to natural swings in luck, insofar as something Victor said to me when I told him about absolutely horrendous luck over an unbelievably long period in chouette I play in (Phil, it really is just bad luck - I know your general thoughts in bad dice)... His words of encouragement "I have found my greatest successes in backgammon have come after my worst luck." It was nice and made me hopeful. I was lucky to have gotten rolls I knew how to play better than the rolls my opponents got. And I was lucky that I was lucky.
It was a lovely tournament. It was well-run and everyone was amazing. Above and beyond hospitality. Just like NC (where I managed to go 0-4).
******* The blow by blow ********
As far as more positions from Peoria... I took 3 pictures and recall 4 other positions. I posted 2 of the 3 I took pictures of. The 3rd was a cube John O'Hagan gave me. I felt it was a pass and passed but also felt it was a money take (initial or recube). It was a 1.087 drop ATS and also $ takes. But nothing too exciting. The other 4 positions I recall were errors from 3 opponents.
One opponent was Bill Davis. It was my first match [we both very luckily managed to not get byes ;-) ] and I had been quite the luckbox. It was 8-3 me and I owned the 2 cube. Bill was a bit unhappy as I would have been in the reverse situation. I figured I had a D/D to 4 but weighed the fact that I thought Bill would probably take it and recube and we'd be playing for the match. I figured he knew it was a drop and just had a gut feeling he was taking anyway. It was a D/D. Not by the hugest amount but I felt I wanted a comfortable enough margin with the match on the line or I would have held off - and it was just enough, XG said, where I had figured correctly. Nothing too exciting and I think almost everyone gets it right as I think Bill did and just took in disgust - We've all been there before.
The next one was just a 0.012 error by John O'Hagan. Tiny!!! Obviously no one ever doesn't make larger errors in any match they ever play. It just happens to correspond to a gnu rollout I did that changed how I play 5-1 on the open for $. It was 8-3 and he played the 5-1 with a slot. I happened to comment about my rollout, joshing that I thought he was implying I was that much weaker. Actually it was a series of GNU rollouts - expert/wc player v successively weaker players. Turns out that for $ your opponent has to be MUCH MUCH MUCH weaker before the slot is correct. I never slot a 5-1 for money any longer against anyone. I'll still slot 4-1 selectively. And for some reason there is Book at 8a-3a (weird) for a 5-1.
Then there was my match against Neil where I recubed to 16. That's already been posted on Facebook and picked apart. I played my 4's (posted "chicken or not") preceding his dance and my cube. Neil, on average, is, as he estimated, a favorite over me, which means that his error was compounded. Playing to your opponent is interesting and fascinates me. If done properly, it's beneficial. If you get something slightly wrong it compounds those intentional errors. In Novi I played Ben thinking he was not as strong a player as he actually is. It made virtually all of my intentional errors WRONG - very. Just one of the 5 or 6 was still correct, I think (enough where I'd make that one again). To play to a stronger or weaker opponent you absolutely must have a relatively accurate estimate of your relative strengths. I think Neil's estimate jives somewhat with mine, which made my cube to 4 (posted as "dare to dream...") interesting, as I'll explain when I post the RO.
The last position was a 0.04-0.05 error. It felt wrong when my opponent made it over the only other play. We discussed it after before and after checking it. I'm not sure why it was wrong exactly - more of a touchy-feely thing for me on that one. I have my suspicions but it's one of the extremely rare plays I can't quite expound upon even after an XG analysis.
Overall, I think my luckiest match was against Bill Davis.
I managed to refrain from any emotion at all in the finals, even during each of the last 3 games as I thought I would lost the match for sure in each of those 3 - glad I was machine-like. I really like to keep a lid on it as I play (except when I play Frank Raposa and MCG - I like to see them blush).
If anyone has any errors (or good plays) from any of my matches I hope they get posted. I'm sure there are copius ones from which to choose. From now on, I'll stick to posting my own errors, non-errors and interesting positions which were either my errors or non-errors or opponent intentional errors (like Bill's) or tiny errors (like John's).
| |
BGonline.org Forums is maintained by Stick with WebBBS 5.12.