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BGonline.org Forums
SLY'S INSIGHTS: Response to Giants Survey
Posted By: Phil Simborg In Response To: SLY'S INSIGHTS: Response to Giants Survey (Timothy Chow)
Date: Sunday, 15 January 2012, at 9:36 a.m.
I pretty much agree that for the most part you wouldn't want a teacher or coach in backgammon that isn't clearly better than you, however, relative to comments directed toward me, I have never concealed my playing ability and play recorded matches live about as much as anyone, with many witnesses, and I think it's safe to say I regularly play between 4 and 6...sometimes a little higher and sometimes a little lower. I am not on this forum to solicit students, and as Stick and John will testify, I am turning over higher level students to him and John O'Hagan because I am far too busy to handle more students at this time( I am teaching close to 40 hours a week and just can't handle more and have time to prepare adequate lesson plans.) As for the higher level students, I give them some of the key concepts that I packaged nicely, but they were developed with a lot of help from John, Perry, David and Stick, and then I pass them on to Stick and John or, in a few cases, teach with them so the student and I both get the benefit of Stick and John's amazing insights. I would not be comfortable, myself, taking lessons from someone who is not better than I am, however, I am sure there are worse players who know certain elements of the game that could possibly help my game.
As for my polling the giants with those three problems, it was to prove a point that I thought would be interesting and would make an interesting article, and while some here obviously don't agree, many others thought it was great. You can't please everyone, and I stopped trying to do that long ago. The only way not to have people disagree with you or not criticize you is to do nothing. If you didn't like the article or thought it was self-promotion, you are entitled to your opinion...again, many have other opinions.
As for Sly's remarks, I, and many others, found them to be interesting, even if they didn't totally agree. I think any time a top, legendary player wants to offer his perspective on the game, I think that's interesting, and how many people come from Sly's experience and perspective and skill level and are willing to speak their mind. He is brilliant and always has interesting insights, and he is one of the best players in the world and plans to prove it next year, and he has already started proving it.
We all know a good basketball coach doesn't have to shoot baskets well, and he might not even have been a good player when he played the game. But I do agree that you can't teach top backgammon players well unless you are at least that good yourself, but I will tell you I am very proud of the fact that I have given help, tips, and even lessons to some extremely top players on specific subjects. I am also honestly tell everyone that many of my lessons are created by and with Stick, John, Perry and David, and I am just the one who organizes and delivers most of them.
Sounds to me like if I were a 3.0 player people would not criticize me for being a backgammon teacher, but not many of those people are teaching, and I doubt that many of them are well-organized and do a very good job of teaching beginners, intermediates, and even low-open players. So for those of you who don't believe I am a good enough player to be your teacher, you'll be happy to know that I am not after your business. And for those who are not interested in posts from me, Sly, about Nactation, or anyone or anything else, why the hell are you reading those posts????? Don't you know how to scroll? There's a little wheel on your mouse. I don't read 90 percent of the stuff on this site, but most of the 10 percent I read is really fun and interesting. Why read all the crap you don't like and then criticize people for putting it there, especially since there are others that might not think it's crap?
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