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BGonline.org Forums
How to improve
Posted By: Timothy Chow In Response To: How to improve (Kevin Whyte)
Date: Saturday, 16 July 2011, at 4:37 p.m.
If you haven't studied Kit Woolsey's Backgammon Encyclopedia then I would say that it is essential reading for cube reference positions. If you want better rollouts for those positions then I think Stick has them and will email them to you if you ask for them.
Gammon estimation is a skill you need if you really want to master the game, but in my opinion you must first get an intuitive "feel" for positions before you can start refining your assessments quantitatively. I would work on making sure you get yourself in the ballpark before you start memorizing gammon estimates.
Finally, one technique that I've found useful is to review the same positions over and over again. I keep hardcopies of positions that have given me trouble and I periodically review them. If you do this, I think you will amazed at how often you make the exact same mistake in the exact same position. As soon as the position drifts out of your short-term memory, you might as well never have seen it in the first place. By reviewing important positions repeatedly, you will eventually transfer some of that knowledge into your long-term memory. I must have gone through some of the books I own (like Robertie's 501 problems) a dozen times and I still screw up some of the positions. I strongly believe that it's better to learn 1000 positions well than to expose yourself to 10,000 positions but make no conscious effort to retain the information.
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