[ View Thread ] [ Post Response ] [ Return to Index ] [ Read Prev Msg ] [ Read Next Msg ]

BGonline.org Forums

What was your favorite strategy based board game before backgammon?

Posted By: Joe Russell
Date: Saturday, 1 August 2009, at 10:23 a.m.

In Response To: Remember when? (Chuck Bower)

I think it was the time magazine article in 1973 that my mother must have told me about. I remember reading the 1979 S.I. (Magriel) article after I had already been playing backgammon for a year or so. The reason my mother correctly thought I would like backgammon was because I had played Strat-O-Matic baseball competitively for several years as a teenager and I had developed my own, more sophisticated, in many ways, simulation game. Strat-O-Matic used a combination of three dice and playing cards numbered 1-20 to recreate MLB baseball. Any event that occurred in MLB as little as one out of 4320 times could be recreated (three dice)216 * 20(playing cards). In Strat-O-Matic baseball you have decisions when it is your roll and when it is your opponents roll that are based on the potential outcomes of those rolls. Different rolls lead to different results and a good roll for one decision could be a bad roll for another. The possibilities vary with each roll and vary according to the score. There are similarities to gammon-go and gammon-save. Transitioning to thinking about backgammon probabilities was easier having had that experience.

I know there are many that transitioned to backgammon from chess or bridge. Did anyone else transition to backgammon from Strato-O-Matic or similar simulation games (APBA, Statis-Pro, etc.)? What rarely mentioned strategy based board game was your favorite before backgammon?

Messages In This Thread

 

Post Response
Your Name:
Your E-Mail Address:
Subject:
Message:

If necessary, enter your password below:

Password:
 

 

[ View Thread ] [ Post Response ] [ Return to Index ] [ Read Prev Msg ] [ Read Next Msg ]

BGonline.org Forums is maintained by Stick with WebBBS 5.12.