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

BGonline.org Forums

Does the casual player believe backgammon is "solved"?

Posted By: Timothy Chow
Date: Wednesday, 15 December 2010, at 4:01 p.m.

In Response To: Freakonomics: Why Isn’t Backgammon More Popular? (poseidon)

I'm not sure I buy that the casual player believes that backgammon is "solved," and even if that's true, I think it is only a minor factor compared to other factors.

I think the casual player doesn't even think in terms of whether backgammon is "solved"; the casual player needs to be convinced that there's any depth to the game at all. When I talk to people who have some casual familiarity with backgammon, Othello, or checkers, the attitude I typically encounter is that they think those games are trivial (as opposed to "solved"). Very few people have been subject to the experience of getting repeatedly crushed by a bot in these games, because they don't play bots. (In the case of backgammon, there's the additional factor of self-delusion at work; if they get crushed, it's of course because the bot is cheating.) Of these three games, checkers is the one that happens to actually be solved, but how many people know that? Precious few.

Conversely, consider go and chess. Nobody thinks these games are trivial. Go is light-years from being solved, while chess might be considered "solved" by the general public, who probably doesn't know about Rybka but does know that Deep Blue beat Kasparov. But does that mean that go is more popular than chess in the West? Of course not. This demonstrates that other cultural factors far outweigh any perceptions about whether a game is "solved."

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.