| |
BGonline.org Forums
Mochy’s Astonishing Backgammon Performance Level
Posted By: Timothy Chow In Response To: Mochy’s Astonishing Backgammon Performance Level (Rick Janowski)
Date: Saturday, 28 October 2017, at 1:31 a.m.
Due to other priorities, I rarely look at BGO any more, but I heard about Mochy's remarkable achievement and wanted to add my congratulations!
I also wanted to mention that I had faith that one of the top players would reach this level soon. I dug up some old email messages that I sent to Rick Janowski when he asked for my opinion about the BMAB grading system back in 2014, when the plan was still to make G1 be the highest skill level. Below are some excerpts.
Oct 17, 2014:
Since you've chosen to make the highest class G1, it seems that you aren't leaving any natural way of creating a higher class than that in the future (unless you're contemplating G:0, or even G:-1?). I thought that the reverse numbering that you originally used was better.
There are many examples from past experience that show that specifying a ceiling on skill level is a mistake. For example, let me quote from the Wikipedia article on the Yosemite Decimal System for rock climbing:
The original intention was that the classes would be subdivided decimally, so that a class 4.5 route would be a climb halfway between 4 and 5. Class 5 was subdivided in the 1950s. Initially it was based on ten climbs of Tahquitz Rock in Idyllwild, California, and ranged from the "Trough" at 5.0, a relatively modest technical climb, to the "Open Book" at 5.9, considered at the time the most difficult unaided climb humanly possible. This system was developed by members of the Rock Climbing Section of the Angeles Chapter of the Sierra Club.
Increased standards and improved equipment meant that class 5.9 climbs in the 1960s became only of moderate difficulty for some. Rather than reclassify all climbs each time standards improved, additional classes were added. It soon became apparent that an open-ended system was needed and further classes of 5.11, 5.12, etc. were added. It was later determined that the 5.11 climb was much harder than 5.10, leaving many climbs of varying difficulty bunched up at 5.10. To solve this, the scale has been further subdivided above the 5.9 mark with suffixes from "a" to "d".You can see that this is a mess. For another example, in go, 9 dan is the highest rank. It is now apparent that there is a rather wide range of skill among 9 dans. It would be better to have an open-ended system, but the dan system is entrenched now.
It's true that in backgammon, there is a natural ceiling of "0 PR" so the difficulties are probably not going to be as severe as in rock climbing or go, but it still seems imprudent to me to assume that we will never want to create another class beyond your current highest class.
Nov 3, 2014:
I would strongly recommend that the top grade be set so that it is currently empty and seemingly unattainable. It will be reached sooner than you think. For example, how about five grandmaster levels instead of three, with G1 = 2.0 and G2 = 2.5? The top players need stretch goals too.
Nov 4, 2014:
You need to expand the grandmaster class to five levels to allow for future improvement in the overall population, and to give people like Mochy and MCG something to aim for.
| |
BGonline.org Forums is maintained by Stick with WebBBS 5.12.