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Re: Most efficient way for learning backgammon?

Posted By: Chuck Bower
Date: Friday, 11 May 2007, at 10:17 p.m.

In Response To: Most efficient way for learning backgammon? (Stick)

In the other thread (discussions with Chase and Racc) I was primarily concerned with learning once you get to the Open level. By that time you've run out of books!

I've tried the play-analyze-play-analyze... method (i.e. recording my matches and then analyzing them with a bot) and it hasn't seemed to help much. Maybe I don't make the same mistakes repeatedly -- possibly I right some wrongs and wrong some rights. But the bottom line is that my error rate hasn't changed much over the last few years.

For cube play I don't see any way to get around the fact that there is a LOT of memorization of reference positions. That is very hard work, but it's a must as far as I can tell. Kit's book (Cube Reference Positions) is a good place to start. He really only scratches the surface but you have to start somewhere and I suspect it will take a good 100 hours to memorize the info in this book. I don't think you need to memorize every position. IMO, commit to memory the borderline positions (borderline double/no and borderline take/pass). If you are a matchplayer (like most of us) you also need to memorize the %-age wins and %gammons (W and L) for the key (borderline) positions. That's still a ton of work. And when you're done you're still maybe 10-20% of the way to mastering the cube.

A good technique I've learned from Neil (and also Perry Gartner) is to fiddle around with a position using a bot, seeing how small changes affect the outcome. This works for both cubeplay and checkerplay. For example, say you made play A but play B turned out to be right. Change the position in as small of increments as possible (e.g. move just one checker) and see what it takes to make play A right. (Sometimes you can't no matter how hard you try :(

I think the old method of playing a position over and over (very recently coined PFH positions on this forum) can be a good technique, too. Again, you'd better be willing to invest some time to have this bear fruit.

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