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BGonline.org Forums
A couple suggestions...
Posted By: Chuck Bower In Response To: Questions for Lurkers--Wrap Up (W Womack)
Date: Monday, 5 October 2009, at 4:44 p.m.
...The top level players that are posting here welcome us weaker players...
Humility is a good thing, but make sure not to take it too far. In Winning: the Psychology of Competition, author Walker talks about the pecking order which permeates many sports at the top level. (He was an Olympic class rower.) He laments this because it gives unneeded advantage to the top performers at the expense of the second tier.
If you see a problem but then decide "most players here probably know this; better not post..." then not only do you hurt yourself, and not only do you hurt other players at your (perceived) level, but you also hurt many of the players you consider at the "top". Just because a problem is difficult for a new or inexperienced player doesn't mean it's easy for an expert! Further (as Phil has pointed out previously) it's one thing to feel you know the right play and something different to be able to explain it. Put the forum posters to the test.
Secondly, by far the best way (IMO) to post a problem is simply that, and no more. Post the score, the cube location, and the (checker) position WITHOUT comment. See what kind of prey your lure brings to the surface! (I don't mean that in a demeaning way. But you may be surprised what candidates you didn't consider or see in the bots top N list receive comments or even votes. And you might even find that you have company in your choice of the 'wrong' candidate.) Posting 'hints' (explicitly or implicitly) can even discourage the posting of open responses. If you'd like to post your OtB or post-analysis feelings, feel free to do that, but in a separate (sub-thread) post where it won't contaminate the thinking of those looking for an interesting problem to ponder.
It's probably easy for a fearless poster like me to say, but dip your toe in the water at answering others' posted problems, regardless of who posted it. The worst you can do is be wrong, and if that were dangerous I'd have been dead years ago. "Learning from your mistakes" is a powerful tool. And don't fool yourself into thinking "I can learn just as much by keeping quiet."
MCG's "we were all born naked" sentiment (OK, he's not clever enough to use those words) is 100% correct. And if you've schooled in other competitions (which almost all of us have) you likely aren't expecting a warm reception from "the top". (Just one story -- probably repeated here too many times -- and I'll shut up.)
I learned to play in the mid-70's in BG's heyday. I went cold turkey in 1982 and returned 10 years later when I just happened to be in Dallas at the same time as the bi-annual World Cup. (What a great week of backgammon!) I played a few Ty's (losing my first 9 or 10 matches consecutively in my return to weekend long tournaments) and was still pretty inexperienced when I returned to Dallas for the 1994 World Cup (to play in the US Open Advanced Division). I had a position that the resident bot (Expert Backgammon for the PC) said was ND+T and it went against my 70's thinking. I worked up enough courage (it took a while) to ask an expert, and Billy Horan just happened to be the one I found who wasn't busy in conversation or match. (Unknown among some of today's players due to inactivity, he was top 10 in the world for many years.) I braced myself for a huff/snear -- I played tournament bridge in the 70's for my 'schooling'. In fact he was flattered that I would ask! And that attitude was not only prevalent in the early 90's but from what I see it's the same today.
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