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"Erik Seidel Answers Your Poker Questions" - and two questions related to backgammon

Posted By: Kendall
Date: Tuesday, 5 April 2011, at 9:41 p.m.

In Response To: "Erik Seidel Answers Your Poker Questions" - and two questions related to backgammon (zalan)

Well, I'm certainly not a Backgammon Pro, but I kind of disagree with the pessimistic statement. It might be the case that Backgammon needs a change of it's image. If most of the people think of Backgammon, they're thinking of Gamblers who are playing a dice game which is based on luck.

However, even with all those bots who makes it easier to learn the game, I haven't seen a professional player yet who constantly plays with an error rate like 0.2. But since we are know what's the right play is, we now have to ask other questions than before, like: Why is this play right? What can I learn from the right play? What are the underlying concepts of a given position? So it remains a very competitive game. B

ut the "Gambling"-effect ("well, I don't really know if this is right, but let's try because it looks fancy") is gone. But it seems quite problematical that the "Gambling"-image remains though.

Chess i.e. is still a very popular game. Even if it is not quite enjoyable as a TV Broadcast, there are thousands of players who organize tourneys with a lot of money in the prize pool. Backgammon has the advantage that it is a relatively quick game which is very easy to understand and to follow. If we had a TV coverage which would focus on the Game itself (even with some advanced materials like Game Plans, Blitz, etc.), I'm sure it would be pretty much enjoyable as a thrilling event. And for the students of the game the goal would be to get better, improve their game and not being "Gamblers".

This wouldn't diminish the possibility of being a professional Backgammon player in any way, because more and more people would get attracted by the game because of it's complexity, not because of the dice (which is usually rigged, of course) and the gambling effect, but because of the skill which is involved. And there would be still a lot of players who are better than the other ones. I can't see the Gambling - and Poker-image as a very useful thing for a game which is so based on skill as backgammon is.

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