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BGonline.org Forums
1st roll link to 2nd roll replies...
Posted By: GeorgeMJ In Response To: 1st roll link to 2nd roll replies... (Stick)
Date: Sunday, 17 October 2010, at 8:36 p.m.
Thank you all, for all the very helpful and elaborating replies.
Since i'm new here let me introduce myself. I'm quite new to Backgammon but very old and exceptionally good to Tavli and Portes specifically. As a Greek i ought to be this way**. :-) Same playing rules for Portes as Backgammon(except for BG's and opening rolls), but so different games due to the doubling cube. E.g GNUBG always rates me "World Class" most of the time and "Expert" or "Supernatural" less frequently in my checker play, but _always_ "Awful" or "Beginner" in my doubling cube handling. :-(
Obviously i'm losing a whole damn lot in Backgammon strength without good doubling cube knowledge.
**BTW Greek players(generally and not speaking about all of them obviously) are not so good Portes players as the common opinion has them to be. :-) We are playing Tavli so Portes also, like maniacs all the time indeed, but generally most are afraid-in fact they do never- slot when they can split, they do not have a very good sense of timing, they do not play prime Vs prime games good, they are afraid of attacking and leave blots most times inside their home when they should, and when they have the chance for making the bar point or their 5-point, they mostly prefer the bar point(!) and for last their play should be considered a lot passive with safe plays to overshadow bold plays. That are the most common weaknesses that characterize the general play of most Greek players(but not all of course, there are some exceptionally good players).
Initially i couldn't understand how with such a great tradition Greece had with Tavli, our players would play the Portes part of it, so weakly(compared to the general belief). I thought it is like Neural Nets, and so their brains should have evolved through time, to recognize the better from the good and play better. :-)
But it doesn't happen. But now i find it a bit reasonable for 2 reasons, since you have to face another player that wins against you and that he uses another style(the one with the right plays), in order to see that this "style" (kind of play) is better so they would start adopting it, so since most players learn Tavli from small age from their fathers they learn it the wrong way and the second reason is that most players play Tavli for fun and are not obsessed to win and improve their play.
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