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BGonline.org Forums
Playing under 2.0
Posted By: Timothy Chow In Response To: Playing under 2.0 (Matt Cohn-Geier)
Date: Tuesday, 12 February 2013, at 11:36 p.m.
What you say is correct, that for most chess pros, money isn't the motivating factor. However, my point is that the chances of producing someone who plays under a 2.0 will increase greatly if you increase the pool of people who are trying to achieve that goal. And the most reliable way to achieve that is to pour enough money into it so that it can be a respectable full-time job. Though there will always be large numbers of people who won't play backgammon no matter how much money you offer, and large numbers of people who will play even if you don't provide any money, the important point is that there is a sizable contingent of people out there who will work on this task diligently if there is money in it and who won't if there isn't. That's the population that will be activated by sufficient monetary incentive.
I'm sure many of us could rattle off a list of names of people who have a fighting chance of getting under 2.0 if they were to devote the next ten years of their life to it, but who certainly aren't going to make that effort. Some of those people might make the effort if they could double their current income by doing so. And this isn't counting all the "unknown" people out there who might come out of the woodwork.
Finally, let me point out that if there is enough money around, it becomes possible to hire a team of assistants. As far as I know, the current top backgammon players all got to where they are without assembling such a team. You'll note that the very top chess players all recognize the importance of a coach and of seconds. The fact that such team support is lacking in backgammon tells me that we're at least a full level away from peak human achievement in backgammon.
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