Rollouts for Robertie's 501 Backgammon Problems
tc...@lsa.umich.edu
positions from Robertie's book 501 Essential Backgammon Problems is now
ready for public consumption. The page is in HTML form so that you don't
have to do any big downloads and you don't need GNUBG to view the results.
http://alum.mit.edu/www/tchow/robertie/robertie501.html
Note that I have intentionally omitted the diagrams. This is to avoid
violating copyright. I want to encourage people to buy this excellent book
and I don't want the website to decrease anyone's incentive to buy the book.
My page does not contain rollouts of every position from Robertie's book,
but it does contain every position where GNUBG disagrees with Robertie,
as well as a few other rollouts that I found interesting for some reason
(as explained on the website). These rollouts are an amalgamation of my
own rollouts and Stick Rice's rollouts. Thanks to Stick for allowing me
to use his rollouts on my page. I'm still in the process of putting some
finishing touches (e.g., when I started building the website, I obviously
used my own rollouts, but now that I have access to Stick's rollouts,
I'm replacing some of my rollouts with Stick's because he rolled them
out for more games), but there should be no major changes at this point.
--
Tim Chow tchow-at-alum-dot-mit-dot-edu
The range of our projectiles---even ... the artillery---however great, will
never exceed four of those miles of which as many thousand separate us from
the center of the earth. ---Galileo, Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences
Peter Schneider
<tc...@lsa.umich.edu> wrote
> http://alum.mit.edu/www/tchow/robertie/robertie501.html
Good, comprehensive work. Valuable.
> Note that I have intentionally
> omitted the diagrams. This is to avoid
> violating copyright. I want to encourage
> people to buy this excellent book
> and I don't want the website to decrease
> anyone's incentive to buy the book.
Hmm... do you think that publishing the bare positions would keep people
from buying the book? They probably have a reference value but I think that
the core of the book is Robertie's reasoning.
Anybody can use a program to analyze a position but those programs tend to
be notoriously close-lipped. What Robertie sees when he looks at a
position, the game plans he considers and how he calculates and weighs odds
of the different possible outcomes is what we learn from.
That said I think that publishing gnubg IDs would increase the usability of
your work but not hurt book sales.
Best,
Peter aka the juggler
Paul
wrote:
I think Tim is right. I don't think it would be appropriate to
publish the positions together with gnubg's analysis. It's not a
matter of whether it would hurt book sales. It's a matter of whether
there's a reasonable possibility that the author or publishers might
object. Legally, your suggestion would violate copyright, I think.
Paul Epstein
tc...@lsa.umich.edu
Paul <paulde...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>It's not a matter of whether it would hurt book sales. It's a matter of
>whether there's a reasonable possibility that the author or publishers
>might object.
Yes, I fully agree.
>Legally, your suggestion would violate copyright, I think.
It's a slightly gray area. I don't think that there's a problem with
posting an occasional position from Robertie's book on this newsgroup,
for example. But posting 20% of the positions does seem to me to cross
some sort of line. Anyway, even if it doesn't technically violate
copyright, I prefer not to do it.
Michael Petch
On 22/12/09 10:42 AM, in article
4b3104f5$0$507$b45e...@senator-bedfellow.mit.edu, "tc...@lsa.umich.edu"
<tc...@lsa.umich.edu> wrote:
>
>> Legally, your suggestion would violate copyright, I think.
>
> It's a slightly gray area.
Have you tried to write your information as a parody of the original? ;-). I
would just have contacted Bill and see how he feels. He might not have any
issues with what you have done. As the copyright holder he can exercise his
rights to give you permission to repost positions (or a number of them) etc.
tc...@lsa.umich.edu
Michael Petch <mpe...@capp-sysware.com> wrote:
>Have you tried to write your information as a parody of the original? ;-). I
>would just have contacted Bill and see how he feels. He might not have any
>issues with what you have done. As the copyright holder he can exercise his
>rights to give you permission to repost positions (or a number of them) etc.
That's an interesting suggestion; I would have assumed, however, that Cadogan
Press owns the copyright, and not Robertie. Most publishers take a rather
hard line on copyright as a general principle.
Anyway, I'm satisfied with my current solution, and feel no need to contact
Cadogan Press. Remember that I'm not the one who was interested in posting
the positions.
Andrew B.
the book for each problem with significant differences from GNU. Then
any time I read the book I know what to double check with your site.
This actually adds value to the book.
Thanks for all your hard work.
In article <4b2d9a6e$0$494$b45e...@senator-bedfellow.mit.edu>,
tc...@lsa.umich.edu says...
tc...@lsa.umich.edu
>I am pleased to be able to announce that my webpage of rollouts of
>positions from Robertie's book 501 Essential Backgammon Problems is now
>ready for public consumption. The page is in HTML form so that you don't
>have to do any big downloads and you don't need GNUBG to view the results.
>
> http://alum.mit.edu/www/tchow/robertie/robertie501.html
>I'm still in the process of putting some finishing touches ...
I am now done with the "finishing touches." Mostly this consisted of
extending some rollouts that I thought needed extending, and adding a
few extra positions that I thought were interesting. There was, however,
one major surprise during my final pass through the book. See Position 129
below. The play that wound up topping the rollout was one that neither
Robertie nor Stick nor I nor GNU 4-ply thought was worth considering at
first. See if you can guess what play that was before looking up the
answer on my website.
GNU Backgammon Position ID: c8wtCAKKZ/BgBA
Match ID : cIkVAAAAAAAA
+24-23-22-21-20-19------18-17-16-15-14-13-+ O: gnubg
| O O X O | | X O O O X | 0 points
| O O O | | X O O X |
| O | | O X |
| | | X |
| | | |
| |BAR| |v (Cube: 1)
| | | |
| X | | |
| X | | |
| X | | X | Rolled 35
| X X O X | | X O | 0 points
+-1--2--3--4--5--6-------7--8--9-10-11-12-+ X: tchow
Bradley K. Sherman
<tc...@lsa.umich.edu> wrote:
>> http://alum.mit.edu/www/tchow/robertie/robertie501.html
Ahhh. Thanks for that. Have you asked Robertie if you can
include the diagrams? He might say yes.
> GNU Backgammon Position ID: c8wtCAKKZ/BgBA
> Match ID : cIkVAAAAAAAA
> +24-23-22-21-20-19------18-17-16-15-14-13-+ O: gnubg
> | O O X O | | X O O O X | 0 points
> | O O O | | X O O X |
> | O | | O X |
> | | | X |
> | | | |
> | |BAR| |v (Cube: 1)
> | | | |
> | X | | |
> | X | | |
> | X | | X | Rolled 35
> | X X O X | | X O | 0 points
> +-1--2--3--4--5--6-------7--8--9-10-11-12-+ X: tchow
>
I knew from your comments what your roll-out showed. It was
the first move I looked at (my final choice was 8/5,8/3). I
must remember to follow my first instincts.
--bks
Grunty
Hmmm... a play that none of those genius even thought worth
considering... hmmm...
Double-hitting 13/10*/5* I say!
Who's the macho that will cube this..?
tc...@lsa.umich.edu
Bradley K. Sherman <b...@panix.com> wrote:
>Ahhh. Thanks for that. Have you asked Robertie if you can
>include the diagrams? He might say yes.
I have not asked him. Most likely, he's not the person to ask anyway; it's
going to be the publisher. Even if they granted permission, I'm not sure
I would want to post the positions. Posting the positions might have the
long-term effect of discouraging writers and publishers from producing
books like this one. They may feel, rightly or wrongly, that they won't
make any money because readers will just look for, and find, a free version
of the book and not bother buying the book. I want my website to encourage
people to buy the book, not to reduce their incentive to buy the book.
tc...@lsa.umich.edu
Grunty <grunti...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>Hmmm... a play that none of those genius even thought worth
>considering... hmmm...
>Double-hitting 13/10*/5* I say!
>Who's the macho that will cube this..?
Not cubing is surely a huge blunder. A hit and a dance looks like
a huge pass.