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Tourney resistance to computer improvements

Posted By: Daniel Murphy
Date: Monday, 2 June 2008, at 8:57 a.m.

In Response To: Tourney resistance to computer improvements (Stanley E. Richards)

Pip counting is a ... time consuming skill

I'll disagree with that one point.

A match to X points consists on average of Y games, of which some percentage Z requires you to do a pipcount, which you usually don't need to do more than once per game, shouldn't take more than 10 seconds each time, and can often be done during the other player's turn. So, with two prepared players, pipcounting isn't adding more than a minute or two, at most, I would think, to the length of a match. With unprepared or inept players, perhaps a bit more. But that's one of the things clocks are for.

I'll agree that pipcounting isn't much of a skill. But neither is, for instance, memorizing at-the-score responses to the opening roll. I'd no more want live backgammon to be played with computerized pipcounters than with a book at hand open to the chapter on best opening play.

Promote backgammon attendance: lobby your Congressman for an end to the illegalization of gambling, free tuition and stipends for students, a minimum of five paid vacation weeks for all workers ... and an extra week off for backgammon players..

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