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Any ideas for bettering my study technique

Posted By: Timothy Chow
Date: Monday, 20 August 2012, at 5:14 p.m.

In Response To: Any ideas for bettering my study technique (Smcrtorchs)

I believe that your study technique is excellent if you're ultimately aiming to become an expert.

However, as Bob says, it's very valuable to make sure you first have at least some grasp of all the basic concepts of the game before plunging into the sort of detailed study that you're doing. When you're varying positions and trying to understand why some particular change has the effect that it does, it helps to have the vocabulary to describe what's happening. This will not only help you remember the results better; it will also guide you to explore illuminating variations rather than just random variations.

I'm not sure what level you're currently at, but if you're not already familiar with their contents, Magriel's Backgammon and Trice's Backgammon Boot Camp will provide a good grounding in the essential concepts. If you're beyond that level already, then I'd recommend Woolsey and Heinrich's New Ideas in Backgammon. New Ideas will show you how to put together concepts to form a theory about a position. The only weakness of New Ideas, in my opinion, is that they don't do what you're doing, which is to test their theories by varying the position and seeing if the theory stands up to experimental test. (To be fair, computer power was more limited back then so it wasn't so easy to do this kind of exploration.) But since you already understand the concept of tinkering with a position to understand it better, I think you'll get a great deal out of studying the positions in New Ideas.

Messages In This Thread

• Any ideas for bettering my study technique
  smcrtorchs -- Sunday, 19 August 2012, at 8:17 p.m.
  • Any ideas for bettering my study technique
    Bob Koca -- Sunday, 19 August 2012, at 11:07 p.m.
    • Any ideas for bettering my study technique
      Smcrtorchs -- Monday, 20 August 2012, at 9:02 a.m.
      • Any ideas for bettering my study technique
        Timothy Chow -- Monday, 20 August 2012, at 5:14 p.m.
  • One of the very best: Kit Woolsey GammonU
    Klaus Evers -- Monday, 20 August 2012, at 8:56 p.m.
  • Any ideas for bettering my study technique
    Casper van der Tak -- Monday, 20 August 2012, at 9:10 p.m.
  • Any ideas for bettering my study technique
    Phil Simborg -- Tuesday, 21 August 2012, at 4:22 p.m.
    • Any ideas for bettering my study technique
      smcrtorchs -- Tuesday, 21 August 2012, at 8:10 p.m.
      • Any ideas for bettering my study technique
        Phil Simborg -- Friday, 24 August 2012, at 1:50 p.m.