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Clocks and Penalties

Posted By: phil simborg
Date: Wednesday, 15 September 2010, at 12:33 p.m.

In Response To: Clocks and Penalties (Gregg Cattanach)

Gregg, your characterization of John O'Hagan's ability to go into greater depth mathematically then just about anyone is right on, and I have seen demonstrations of this that are impressive...not only does he do long, complex calculations in his head, he comes up with the correct answers.

WHY can John do this? Mainly because he has practiced this skill and worked hard to learn how to do it, NOT, in my opinion, because he brain is that much more advanced than the rest of us mortals. (John has not only proven his abilities over the board, but in demonstrations and in winning the Howard Ring Quiz out in L.A.)

But there is something else I have learned from John recently by working with him closely these past few months. John has also learned, developed, and memorized dozens of shortcuts to get to the answers more quickly, so that even with a clock and even with time constraints he's going to get to a more accurate answer than just about anyone else.

Part of our Lesson Plan, developed largely by Perry, with help from John, Stick, David and myself, is to provide tools to make accurate decisions more quickly. With these tools, if applied properly, you not only make decisions faster, you are less likely to make errors.

Bottom line is that since clocks are clearly going to be the standard, and speed-gammon is going to be one of the most entertaining and fun and challenging events in the future of backgammon, one of the skills we simply must all learn is how to make our decisions faster....it's just as much a part of the skill of the game as knowing when to double and knowing how to move the checkers. In other words, playing faster ADDS A SKILL ELEMENT TO THE GAME, it doesn't take away from the skill. Players like O'Hagan and Perry have all begun adjusting their thinking processes and their game to gain additional advantage when there are time constraints.

The people who are cursing the darkness, here and elsewhere, best light a candle instead.

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