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BGonline.org Forums
Game of small margins
Posted By: HOMINID In Response To: Game of small margins (Keene)
Date: Friday, 14 February 2014, at 11:09 a.m.
Scared!! That's a bit strong for a game of backgammon. You are asking a question and I am not sure what it is. My problem is, this is analysis time and the decimal point rules. My simple approach to such problems is frowned on by the disciples.
For what it's worth here goes. Obviously we need to save the Gammon. White will need two doubles to get it. The chance of this is less than 2% that is without factoring in blues roll. In other words it ain't going to happen. Someone once proposed the thought that getting the exact role required had a greater value than the actual roll odds. l believe this to be true but I'm not prepared to argue the point lol.
There are four great plays and even beginners would have got one of them. Making an equity error of 0.002 on a single play is not a disaster in my book, no justification for putting on the sack cloth.
The interesting feature of this position is that it is a lesson in bearing in. Bearing in is akin to bearing off. Most will have a rule of thumb and my knee-jerk play was 15/12 13/8. I slapped my head when I put it into XG. I had broken a ROT and didn't look for three candidates. The top play 15/7 is obviously the best in that whatever you roll next you will have at least a single man home for minimum value.
Mochy ran a thingy on the correct play in bearing off two or three remaining checkers. I input my rule of thumb. Mochy replied by moving the goalposts making my system faulty. I responded that he was out of order by moving the goalposts. I heard no more. Maybe there is something I don't understand.
I stumbled across my system many years ago but with the advent of Snowie and now XG I have been able to test it extensively. It works certainly well enough for me, its simple.
The great news is that OLM may be considering a different format. The team produced a good PR. This is not surprising as the contributors are mostly good players. It is a proven fact that a group of people will produce a better solution than a single person. Things could get a little boring. The opportunity for people to input opinions right or wrong on plays with XG as arbitrator is a great step forward for mankind. A little over the top that. This approach produces a great learning curve for which there is an obvious demand. I would expect increased interest. Rome was not built in a day.
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