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BGonline.org Forums
Gambling or Strategy?
Posted By: Matt Ryder In Response To: Rationale (Timothy Chow)
Date: Thursday, 31 December 2009, at 4:47 a.m.
This discussion, along with several similar discussions that come up regularly here, illustrate to me backgammon's split personality: Is it a gambling game or a strategy game?
For me, backgammon will always have elements of both. I think it's futile to attempt to separate them.
I'm principally interested in the strategic elements too, but it's hard to deny the butterflies in your stomach when you're playing the finals of a tournament, the cube's on 8 and you need to roll a particular number to win.
If you care to look, there are fascinating strategic nuances implicit in playing against the 'gamblers'. The mathematics of money settlements, for example.
If it's a gambling game, then you ought to play quickly, and keeping the bar for entry low is a good thing.Thus touch-move or game-recording is anathema because it might scare off the fish. Clocks are introduced with the purpose of making sure that people play fast.
None of these points really follow:
* You should play fast in order to not disrupt the smooth running of the tournament or frustrate holy hell out of your opponents. Paul Weaver recently provided an example of a well known player who took half an hour to play an early 11. Disdaining that nonsense has nothing to do with gambling.
* Introducing touch-move would speed the game up, not slow it down. It might scare off newcomers to backgammon, sure. But that would hurt the game whether it were classifed as a gambling or as a strategic exercise.
* Game-recording is a standard feature of most online money servers, so it's simply not accurate to call it anathema to 'gamblers'
* Clocks are introduced in many tournies simply as a measure to regulate disruptively slow play.
If it's a strategy game, then you ought to have plenty of time to think, and the game ought to be played seriously.
Backgammon is played seriously. Even where clocks are introduced there's ample time to think.
You want to see the titans battle it out and you don't care if the fish are scared to play.
Actually, I would care. Even the "titans" started as "fish" once upon a time. With much of its popularity lost to poker, backgammon is fighting for its life. The last thing we need is a set of elitist principles that prevent fresh blood from entering the game.
Clocks are introduced for the purpose of fairness, but time controls are generous because you don't want the clocks to interfere with the game any more than necessary.
In my experience, tournaments often run late anyway. Being more "generous" with the time would squeeze things further. I don't think this suggestion is practical.
Backgammon is a fast-paced game, and should remain so. That doesn't rob it of its fascinating strategic complexities, just as tennis is strategically rich yet played on the run.
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