After Peoria I needed (and still do to some extent, but it's getting better) a break from backgammon, at least a break in the daily bs I do where it occupies time and I really don't take much from it. I like the OLMs but sometimes they seem more of a chore than fun and instructive as they should be because I don't have the time to study them. This is my fault for taking on too many bg projects at once and having no real time to study the game. I probably spend as much time if not more than anyone doing stuff with backgammon, performing rollouts, maintaining projects, emailing, updating queues, my site, etc... this is all great, and it's stuff I want to do, but it causes my game, or my learning of the game, to suffer greatly as I have no time to actually learn anything.
Peoria seemed to me the straw that snapped the camel's back. Or in this case, the shot of whiskey that put Stick in blackout mode. The first thing upon arriving early in Peoria I played Ray the NG-OLM prop and I got railed like any sorority girl at a frat party. The positions Ray won from and the manner in which he won was from sick to sicker. The first game Ray got into the position below. His checkers are all in the correct place, my prime or distribution may be a shade off, this is from memory, but Ray will tell you that's about what it was. (home boards are on the left)
                     |
This position leads to the following:
        |
Above Ray is on roll as White and has a pure double shot, he misses. I'm not too worried as even if he hits it I have five off already and little chance to contain me having 13 checkers to snake around, eventually in those situations I'll roll a joker, or simply hit and Ray will roll an anti joker (fan) and I'll motor around. He missed, stayed with all 4 men, and now I'm on roll. I roll a 21, a rather normal surprise of late I feel. Now I have 7 off and Ray gets his double shot again. This time he hits it, again, no big deal, as now I have even more checkers off and his chances of containing are a bit slim. I end up losing 16 this game. (the short version so Ray doesn't have to tell it, he magically rolled this home, closed me out, redoubled when I had a take, I got back in it, redoubled when I definitely shouldn't have in a 4 rollish position though I'm still 58%, I throw one of twelve misses, he gets in another recube that's a take and wins)
The next game was more of the same with Ray killing seven of his checkers on the low points, hitting a late game shot, and then summoning Albus Dumbledore to rol it around, get in another recube, and win. Ray will tell you in the first ten games his position was probably shit to complete shit in 8/10. He'd get fully primed, crunch to super crunch, get a late shot, hit it, and then toss in a takeable recube for sport before winning. I think what cost me is my play on forced moves must have been pretty horrible.
Anyway, with the first 10 games of this prop out of the way and me losing over $600 it was on to the Master's event.
     |
This arose in my 2nd match of the jackpot, up til this point it had seemed like a normal match where I had outplayed my opponent. I do always feel this way and I do always have to question if I'm a crackhead who doesn't notice his own flaws or if I'm correct. It's very easy for someone to overlook their errors/blunders as we all know and notice your opponent's. Luckily for me this match was recorded and I can sleep well at night knowing I played in the 3s even with the non blunder blunder recube take that Ray was speaking of in another thread. Without that I played in the 2s. My opponent played around an 8.
I'm on roll as White in the above position winning, if I remember correctly I win about 85% gammons from here meaning match over. Of the other 15% I think I win 10% of those games too putting me to -3a -6a. I roll double 4s and then double sixes to get to what we have below.
   |
I figure "ugh", left a shot, oh well, he still has to hit it and even then he'll probably have 1 man in, both of us the same strength board and I might be able to motor around before much damage is done. Well, my opponent rolls double 5s from the roof and goes on to destroy me.
Next for the day I still have doubles right? Matches to 7, anyone can win, things are churning along as expected as we build up a 2 away 4 away lead and get to the following position.
      |
Our opponents who are Blue here had just hit a shot and I, being the one rolling for our team of course, danced on their huge boardage. Now they double. My partner, Rory, whafted and wanted to pass this, he was worried about the gammon losses. After properly smacking him into reality on how few gammons we lose, how strong our offensive position is, and how they can't do everything at once next turn, we took. It turns out to be a borderline no double after a few thousand trials but I can't fault our opponents for sending it over since my partner wanted to pass and since, in theory, they were playing the stronger team.
In reality, we lose about 8% gammons here, in practice we all know what happens or I wouldn't be writing about it. Nothing spectacular happened. The game continued on a fairly normal course until I had our third checker trapped behind a three prime, then a two prime, I couldn't roll anything except 21, 11, 21, made me want to varnick and we were gammoned for the match.
I will be honest I remember nothing from the Open other than playing UBK in the consolation where he beat me 9-0, obviously a nail biter. If I remembered who I lost to in the main draw I'm sure I'd have more to bitch.
Bad beat stories are typically boring and the above are not the exception to the rule. In a perfect world I would have become used to losing to weaker competition who put in a mere fraction of work I do at these games of skill and luck, (poker, backgammon) and I could continue on not caring what happened. I'm not that big of a person and it does make me feel better to complain about it. It also helps take stock of what is actually going on by reliving what happened in the tournament, whether it be poker or backgammon. I need to know if I'm perceiving my opponents playing worse or if in reality it's my own fault I'm blowing match after match. (or wads of cash in money games/poker)
If you read all this you need help, or you work at a computer all day and have nothing better to do, in which case I'll let it slide.
Stick