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RO settings explained

Posted By: Timothy Chow
Date: Monday, 16 January 2012, at 11:30 p.m.

In Response To: RO settings explained (pontiac)

The table does indeed report XG numbers.

Some players about 5.x and these are giants?

A reasonable question. I'd make the following comments.

1. Most of these matches aren't from important tournaments. They're played for fun on the Internet. So you can't take the numbers too seriously.

2. Someone's PR can vary a lot from one match to another. Some of these numbers are averaged over a small number of matches. The player could have had an unusually difficult series of matches or may have blundered uncharacteristically a couple of times, and this can cause the PR to be unrepresentative. 50 matches is probably enough for most of the noise to average out, but anything less than that shouldn't be taken too seriously.

3. PR isn't the only measure of skill. Suppose a position is a clear ND/T, but you strongly suspect, based on knowledge of your opponent, that he will drop. Suppose you double and your opponent does indeed drop. Your PR will suffer but you actually made a great play. Ray Fogerlund, for example, has a reputation for being a much more dangerous opponent than his PR might suggest, because of his skill in the psychological aspect of the game.

4. Having said all that, I'd agree with your implicit suggestion that the Giants list is not an accurate reflection of which players in the world have the best understanding of the game and play the best. The Giants list is based purely on an opinion poll, and not on objective criteria. To get on the Giants list, you need to be famous, and there are many ways to get famous that don't necessarily correspond directly to backgammon skill. You can convince people that you're better than you really are; you can win some major tournaments by being lucky; etc., etc., etc. This PR list is itself another example; it's easy to look at it and make snap judgments about people (they must suck or they must cheat or whatever) without seeing a single game of backgammon they've played.

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