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BGonline.org Forums
Tradition of odd length bg matches
Posted By: Colin Owen In Response To: Tradition of odd length bg matches (Tom Keith)
Date: Thursday, 4 June 2015, at 11:44 p.m.
I'm not sure I buy your theory about why the odd score tradition became established. Firstly, to what extent is it true that even away leads to oddities, ie of doubling windows, gammon prices and so on? Secondly, was there much awareness of such things back in the 60's and 70's? Thirdly, would it concern them much anyway?
You cite the pre-Crawford era as the start of this tradition. If so, would it not perhaps have been reviewed after the Crawford Rule was increasingly adopted? The practice was not universal, by the way, around the time that the Crawford Rule was adopted. In 'The Backgammon Book' by Jacoby & Crawford they discuss the 1970 Bahamas tournament; one round was played to 12 points (p.180 softback, p.193 hardback).
Surely 2 point matches are just pissing about? Play a 1 pointer instead. Do 4 point matches lead to (many) more 2a2a scores? If they do, I'd still advocate their use sometimes. You ask how much more play you get from a 7 rather than 8 point match. I did state that the possible advantage seemed mainly in shorter matches. (Someone posted a very interesting table several months ago with just such information; I had a feeling it might have been you, Tom. I couldn't find it again when I looked quite recently, and would love to find it again.)
I don't follow your point about variance. Are you saying that even point matches have a (much) higher standard deviation in the number of games needed to complete them? You seem to be. If that is really true, it might offset their value in squeezing out some more play at some tournaments, but it would have to be quite significant, which I doubt.
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