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BGonline.org Forums
Backgammon Literature on Doubling
Posted By: Christian Plenz In Response To: Backgammon Literature on Doubling (Chris Bray)
Date: Monday, 5 December 2011, at 7:14 p.m.
1) Doubling came into existence in the mid 1920's. It took until 1970 for the basic 25% take-point to be documented in a backgammon book. Why did it take so long and I wonder who first worked out the theory? Incidenatlly the term beaver didn't appear in print until that same year.
Thanks to chicagopoint and some BG enthusiast there are a few of very old articles stored in the web for us.
http://www.chicagopoint.com/Images/bgdbl/VanityFairBG1931-07.pdf
Reading the article to the end it seems to me that some players from that time must be aware of the 25% concept. Although the author is very doubtfully of that concept and did not understand it he points out that its always impossible to evaluate positions he states "..but a certain school, including many first-rate players, have complicated it still more by introducing what seems to the writer a fallacios theory-that a double automatically betters the odds to the side which it is offered. That is: Black doubles, putting up an extra stake. White clearly loses his original stake if he declines. But, if he puts up one more stake, he has a chance to win Black's two ans his own original one; therefore, by acceptance, he obtains odds of 3-1, Argument having failed, let us take a concfrete example, in rebuttal.." Last sentence sounds a little bit funny, mabe makes sense in the comtext of the article. The article then ends with discussing a last-roll-position (25-11 or no-Ace) "..there are eleven possible shots with a one, and twenty-five without. In other words, it is 25-11, or someting more than 2-1 that Black will win. But if White, by accepting the double, can get odds of 3-1 on a 2-1 proposition, any bookmaker will tell him that he has only to obtain a perpetual opponent in order to enjoy a steady income."
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