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[Hyper 05] Luck and Skill

Posted By: Albert Steg
Date: Sunday, 15 July 2018, at 4:48 a.m.

In Response To: [Hyper 05] Luck and Skill (Marv Porten)

I would add a further common source of 'luck' in backgammon -- if you regularly pass cubes that are proper takes, you entirely obliterate a very substantial quantity of games where you would have "gotten lucky" with a late hit or fly shot or whatever.

For example, take 100 games where you pass 3-point holding games that are a solid, if not particularly huge take. You lose 100 of those games. Your opponent takes them all and wins say 23% of them.

Of course this will happen over the course of many games -- not 200 games, but let's say 2000 or more games . . . but perhaps you also pass a lot of other kinds of takes too.

All else being equal, your opponent is just going to "get lucky" more than you do. The equity difference may not be all that large, but the felt experience is going to be: this guy gets *so lucky* in these games he should pass!

By passing more than you should, you deprive yourself of a whole lot of "lucky" wins.

I learned this the hard way, but glad I learned it with what I hope are few good decades of backgammon ahead of me.

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