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BGonline.org Forums
Creativity
Posted By: Phil Simborg In Response To: Creativity (Casper Van der Tak)
Date: Saturday, 14 February 2015, at 4:22 a.m.
The more we stream and record matches and the more we reward players for lower PR, the less creativity we encourage. I am not saying that is a bad thing, I am just saying that the game is different now when playing at a lower PR is as or more important than winning.
Yes, yes, many argue that the lower PR means you will win more, and I am absolutely sure that is right when you are playing against a computer, and almost right when you are playing against an player who plays almost like a computer.
I wonder how differently many of the best players would play if they knew their match was not being recorded and they were doing their best to beat their human opponent?
I am not saying that recording matches and rewarding people for low PR is bad...I am just saying that clearly is reducing the freedom of the players to play creatively and forcing us all to try to play more in a way that XG would approve.
I know that since I am not at a high enough level of play to be a star from a PR standpoint, I have more freedom to "gamble" on cubes and checker plays when I play better players and try to exploit weaknesses in lower level players, because I care less about what my PR looks like than winning. I think that is one reason why I might often do better in both tournaments and money games than some players with much lower PR's than me.
With bots, streaming, and match recording, the game will never have the creativity and individual styles it did 20, 30 or more years ago, and to those of us who remember those days, that's a little sad.
And that is why I would love to see some variations and different approaches to play at the higher levels of the game...some different rules and openings that challenge the players to rely on their creativity and insights instead of just their memories. Let's see more Nackgammon instead of a typical Masters event. Let's see randomgammon and slot gammon as side events to take people out of their comfort zones and see how they respond when the "usual" starting games get turned upside down. Let's play more speedgammon so that we can see how people can act under pressure...in fact, I'm one who would love to see all the times on the clocks made shorter (in the Open division) to add that skillset into the mix.
Am I saying I don't like the game the way it has evolved? Absolutely not. The game is requiring us all to work harder and study more to keep up, and that's part of the joy of this game to me....the learning process is intellectually stimulating and interesting. But when I play, I also like to have more fun, and these variations and side events, when offered, are often more fun than the main event.
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