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Cherry Blossom BMAB Results

Posted By: Albert Steg
Date: Monday, 13 May 2019, at 8:37 p.m.

In Response To: Cherry Blossom BMAB Results (Bob Koca)

In the one BMAB tournament I played in, I had the sense that people were playing for PR in the sense of just trying to "do the right thing" regardless of the perceived strength of the opponent. I didn't hear any conversations about these various strategies of "gaining" the PR artificially, nor did I recognize a single incident of someone doing this kind of thing (though some of the strategies would not be visible).

I have the impression that people's motivations for playing BMAB tournaments is mostly about establishing an objective and public measure of their backgammon prowess in this somewhat "idealized" mode where you sort of pretend your opponent is XG. The 'tournament' aspect feels secondary -- it's nice to "win" the tournament and it adds some $ excitement, but it's more about trying to score well on PR. The entry fees are not that high, so the prizes are not so large.

Of course adjusting your play to take advantage of a weaker opponent's errors (or to give yourself the best chance of winning against a stronger one)are valid parts of backgammon too, but I think players interested in their BMAB ratings are willing to 'spot' their opponents this aspect of the game.

Some of the stronger and highly successful players I know have told me they resist altering 'proper' play in order to elicit errors, just trying their best to always 'do the right thing.' I think maybe a lot of players overestimate the value of making these adjustments. I've made some big, big blunders by passing cubes against "weaker" players I figured were in the .90 - 1.00 range only to find later it was a massive take.

I'm not saying other people mightn't be very strong at this aspect of the game and profit from it a great deal, and maybe I'll get there someday if I can get my own PR down into a range where there would be a wider gulf between me and my opponents. But for now I believe I just think more clearly if I play "straight."

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