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BGonline.org Forums
Why so much debate over Opening Rolls?
Posted By: Phil Simborg
Date: Monday, 14 September 2009, at 4:28 p.m.
For a long time, I laughed at people who spent so much time working on opening moves and responses, trying to prove that one play was .010 better than another. When you consider that I am likely to make a .100 blunder or higher later in the match, why the hell worry about such trivia?
Then Perry set me straight and explained that if I make a .010 error on an opening roll every time, it is probably going to cost me more games and matches than that .100 error later, because the .010 error opening position is going to come up 50 times a month as much as I play backgammon, and the position where I made the .100 error may not come up for another 5 years.
He also pointed out that the important thing is not just the degree of the error, but if there is an error in the concept relating to the play. You can make a very small error by percentage, but if you completely missed what your goal is in a given position, you've made an error that can have major consequences in your game in other, similar situations.
The same can be said for many end-game and bearoff positions which repeat often.
Now that I understand the impact and implications of these errors and don't just look at the percentages to measure their importance, I am taking a lot more time to understand these plays. Hope it helps you too.
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