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Challenges just beyond my competence

Posted By: David Rockwell
Date: Saturday, 29 December 2007, at 7:12 p.m.

In Response To: Challenges just beyond my competence (Chuck Bower)

That's absolutely true Chuck. I read an excellent piece written by David McCullough last year which is too long to reproduce here. The essence of it is, studying a smattering of everything is worth little. True learning comes from a thorough understanding of a subject.

This has certainly been true for me. I remember reading a formula for stack and straggler positions in "Boot Camp". I spent 30 seconds thinking about it and congratulated myself for learning how to evaluate these positions. The next time I faced it over the board, I didn't have a clue what to do and botched the play trying to apply a formula that I didn't remember correctly or understand. I would have been better off using common sense, which is what I am using now. Some day, when I find time to study stack and staggler positions, I will learn them well and my game will improve. Until then, I will just accept my deficiency while I focus on other things.

I like to compare learning backgammon to losing weight. People will often say, "I need to lose 30 pounds" and then they go out and gain 5 pounds. What they really need to do is lose 1 pound and they need to lose it now. Pound #2 can wait until later. There may be 30 things (or 3000) that I need to learn about backgammon. But right now, I need to learn 1 new thing. And, I need to learn it well. That works a lot better than trying to learn it all at once.

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