FIBS Jackpot Tournaments are about to begin....
Morten Daugbjerg Hansen
I'm happy to inform you, that more people than expected, have shown interest
in FIBS Jackpot Tournaments...
Therefore the official rules and entry form is finished.
It will be emailed tomorrow to those that have send me an email
stating that they were interested in participating.
If you havent done this yet, but are interested to hear more,(entry fee is $50
and $100), it is sufficient to answer to this posting or email me at
The first Jackpots are expected to begin at September 1st ....
I would like to apologize to those that felt offended, harrassed or otherwise
spammed by the email I send out. It wasnt my intention at all.
Several users at netcom.com was literally mailbombed due to a system error at
their Internet Provider. I'm sorry for all the trouble you had !
Now I hope most of the troubles are over, and that we can have some very fun
and exciting matches. I'm sure there will be numbers of battles between
top experts that will cause a small cheering crowd :-)
best regards,
Morten Daugbjerg
David Montgomery
I would like to hear from people who have experience playing
in large chouettes.
In particular, I am interested for your opinions regarding
interlocking chouettes, and your opinions of the various rules
for taking box partners.
With regard to who becomes a box partner, two common rules are
1) the next player in line must become the box's partner if the
box wants one, and 2) the option to the become the box's partner
is offered to each player in turn.
With regard to rotation using partners, two common rules are
1) the box and partner go to the end of the rotation with positions
reversed, and 2) the box goes to the end of the rotation and the
partner becomes captain.
I would like to hear your opinions and arguments on these or other
rules you may have seen. I will send a summary to anyone who
wants one, or post it here if there seems to be interest.
David Montgomery
monty on FIBS
mo...@cs.umd.edu
David Montgomery
By far the best introductory backgammon book is Magriel's _Backgammon_.
When I first read Magriel, about 15 years ago, I was very weak, and
it transformed my game. I always recommend reading Magriel to anyone
trying to improve. For players who don't understand the fundamentals
of the game, studying this book and trying to apply its concepts over
the board invariably leads to tremendous improvement.
Recently I've been wondering how valuable reading Magriel is to someone
who has become good, or at least competent, *before* they read the book.
I would like to ask players who became good before reading Magriel
to write me to tell me their experiences. Did you find that you
knew everything in the book? Did you learn a lot? Did it change
the way you looked at the game? Most importantly, did reading it
help you play better?
I will provide a summary to anyone who wants one, or post here if
there seems to be interest.
David Montgomery
mo...@cs.umd.edu
monty on FIBS
MDB
interesting post.....my thoughts
Magriel's book wasn't my first...that distinction was Bruce Becker's
Backgammon for blood. It taught me the love of a backgame. But
Magriel's taught me how and when to employ them. Certainly, Magriel
taught me a lot and I still recommend it as the Bible of Backgammon.
On 14 Aug 1997 17:03:51 -0400, mo...@cs.umd.edu (David Montgomery)
wrote:
Robert-Jan Veldhuizen
On 14-aug-97 22:03:51, David Montgomery wrote:
DM> Recently I've been wondering how valuable reading Magriel is to someone
DM> who has become good, or at least competent, *before* they read the book.
I don't know what qualifies as 'competent' or even 'good', but I guess
my game falls in the first categorie (about 1620 on FIBS). I've never
read *any* real bg book, only some recreational stuff from the library
which, as I found out, teaches you a wrong game or even wrong rules (my
first book discussed what to do with an opening double roll, for
instance...).
Just a few days back, however, I went to what is about the only bg shop
here in Holland, and had a look at the books they were selling, because
I'd like to improve my game and I'm missing some essentials, like
benchmark doubling positions, absolute equity estimates and things like
gammon chances in certain positions. Difficult to learn that just by
playing.
Sadly, the reprint of Magriel hasn't arrived yet here, and it'll take at
least six weeks before I can buy it, but I'll let you know my
experiences then if you like. Because I was destined to leave the shop
with a book ;) I bought Robertie's Advanced Backgammon (Volume 1)
instead, also a very good book, although probably somewhat too advanced
sometimes, especially with doubling decisions. I'm still lacking a
somewhat accurate judgement of absolute equities, which makes those
decisions pretty hard sometimes :)
DM> I would like to ask players who became good before reading Magriel
DM> to write me to tell me their experiences. Did you find that you
DM> knew everything in the book? Did you learn a lot? Did it change
DM> the way you looked at the game? Most importantly, did reading it
DM> help you play better?
Regards,
--
Zorba/Robert-Jan
Morten Daugbjerg Hansen
My rating on FIBS was stabilized at around 1700 b4 i read Magriel.
The only book i read before that was Jeff Ward: Winning is more fun.
I learned a lot from Ward. It gave me insigth to more advanced topics than
I thought existed in BG (yeah, I know. Its pretty non-advanced these days:-)
Mostly I learned the play on FIBS, watching , asking, watching, and playing,
and finally asking a bit more.
I was looking very much forward to reading Magriel...
Mostly because i reckoned that I knew a lot of aspects of the game, but i
needed a better 'flow' in my game.
First time i read Magriel, I got the feeling i knew it all. Only a few moves
were new to me, mainly more ways of duplication than I had thought of.
But then i reread it, skipping the first part of the book, the introduction to
the game and tried to understand why expert players thought highly of the book.
And i began to understand the 'flow' in the game better. The concept of
gameplans, and when to change your plan. I will not say that Magriel
changed my play dramatically, or improved it a lot, but it was definitely
worth reading. Most of the book is very basic, but each and every aspect is
important to understand, and i havent read a book since that pointed out the
basics this clear.
I feel that since then I has got a much better view of the game, a better
feeling with it, but wether its Magriel or simply playing a lot and
asking good players is hard to say. My rating on Fibs varies now between
1750 and 1850.
Bottom of the line : Read it, read it and the reread it.
Best regards,
Morten Daugbjerg aka md on FIBS
Disclaimer : FIBS Forever.....
Daniel Murphy
On 14 Aug 1997 17:03:51 -0400, David Montgomery (mo...@cs.umd.edu)
wrote:
>Recently I've been wondering how valuable reading Magriel is to someone
>who has become good, or at least competent, *before* they read the book.
>
>I would like to ask players who became good before reading Magriel
>to write me to tell me their experiences. Did you find that you
>knew everything in the book? Did you learn a lot? Did it change
>the way you looked at the game? Most importantly, did reading it
>help you play better?
I knew the rules of backgammon, but not much else (probably because
they were printed on the backside of my first chess board) when I
first played in 1978 over drinks with a friend in a cafe. One evening
I played three games with a stranger, three games being enough to tell
me I didn't stand a chance. It turned out he was a travelling
backgammon hustler. I don't remember how he moved the checkers but I
remember that he seemed to double early and take late and whether he
gave or took the cube the result was a doubled game for him. I doubt
if he had read Magriel's Backgammon. I suspect that he learned from
someone who had read Becker's Backgammon for Blood, and that was good
enough back then.
I didn't play again until 1988 or so, when I discovered the chess
tables in Washington Square Park in New York City. There was an old
guy there who slept in his taxi and won enough at $1 a point
backgammon to pay for his cigarettes, joints and beer. He took me for
$20, and the next week, I let him take me for $20 more.
Then I found out that one of my housemates played backgammon, and
through the winter months we played thousands of games. I took every
cube and every few hundred games I paid him off. The stakes were
astronomical. We started at a penny a point, moved to buffalo nickels,
dimes, quarters. By the time we got up to 50 cents a point, I wasn't
losing anymore. Soon after we raised the stakes to $1 a point, my
buddy quit on me and we never played again.
Sometime during this marathon session I read Jacoby's Backgammon Book,
which may still be the second best book, after Magriel, for beginners.
Towards the end of it I read Cooke's Paradoxes and Probabilities,
which is still my favorite backgammon book -- strange, perhaps,
because it's often wrong -- but it's wrong in a very interesting way.
By spring I was ready for small money games. I played a lot, and
watched a lot more. It wasn't hard to find better players to play or
watch since almost everyone was better than me. But then I read
Magriel, Deyong, Dwek, Joli, Ball, old issues of Las Vegas Backgammon
Magazine, Cooke's other two books and any others, good and bad, that I
could borrow. And I began to see that most of those players weren't
very good at all. So I played the bad ones, watched the good ones,
learned a lot and didn't have to pay for my lessons.
I don't remember how much of Magriel was new, helpful or
incomprehensible the first time through. But I've reread Magriel every
two or three years since then, this year for perhaps the last time --
or the next to last time -- because on at least two occasions, I found
that rereading Magriel put my game back on a winning track.
Rereading Magriel is a reminder that backgammon is primarily a race --
a race with obstacles -- and is more art than mathematics. It's about
recognizing and anticipating patterns. It's about always having a game
plan and being willing and able to change it. It's about using each
roll to create a flexible position that will make your next rolls,
whatever they are, work better for you. It's about using a small set
of concepts to make good decisions. Kit Woolsey says to put the
checkers where they want to go. And the only thing a backgammon friend
of mine remembers from a lecture by Kent Goulding was his advice to
intermediate players to, when in doubt, make the prettiest move. Good
advice, because the prettiest move is usually the best one.
I used to chouette with a fine player who enjoyed mulling over
possible moves while exclaiming "eh, and how can I overplay this
position?" He was joking, but I think many intermediate players go
through a stage where they think too much, always looking for the
tricky play that will create the complicated position in which their
newfound skills will shine. They forget that even the best backgammon
players lose close to half of their games, and too often those tricky
plays only trade an even game for a losing one.
As time goes by, the fundamental things apply. If you're a beginning
player, read Magriel. Magriel explains all the fundamentals. If you
beat bad players handily but can't seem to beat anyone else, read or
reread Magriel and think about how you can better apply the
fundamentals to the way you go about making play decisions. You may
find that the reason you lose is not because you rolled a bad number
on move 9, but because you didn't have a plan when you made moves 3,
4, and 5; you didn't know if you were ahead or behind; you didn't
compare anchors, blots and builders, points and primes -- or maybe you
did but didn't let that influence your game plan and each and every
play decision. Perhaps you played too safely, not taking a small risk
for a big reward. Or perhaps you gave your opponent one too many
unnecessary chances. And you had no thought for how your decision on
move 3 might affect the position you reached on move 9, or even on
move 4 or 5.
Having a plan (and being willing and able to change it), identifying
the key features of a position, anticipating how a position might
develop -- this is the essence of backgammon and surprisingly easy for
decent players to forget. Magriel reminds you how to bake the
backgammon cake. You'll need to know more to take your game to yet a
higher level, but the rest, however essential, is icing.
_________________________________________
Daniel Murphy http://www.cityraccoon.com
_________________________________________
FIBS: http://www.fibs.com
Denmark: http://www.cityraccoon.com/hbk.html
San Francisco: http://www.backgammon.org
Wrigley 13
David Montgomery (mo...@cs.umd.edu)
wrote:
>Recently I've been wondering how valuable reading Magriel is to someone
>>who has become good, or at least competent, *before* they read the book.
I played for years and was one of the top players at college. I learned from
Jacoby's "Backgammon Book" and read "Backgammon for Blood", "The Cruelest
Game", et. al.
I thought that I was a pretty good player.
Then I discovered RGB and Magriel's book. Following discussions in this
newsgroup and borrowing Magriel from the library (several times) has
definitely improved my game (even after 20 years of playing).
I've been looking for a copy for two years and am getting ready to order the
reprint from Carol Joy Cole at the Flint Backgammon Club.
Get it! Read it! Read it again!
Alan Greenberg
alan...@aol.com
algae on FIBS
Kevin Bastian
Great post, Daniel! Thanks for taking the time to write it all out. I'm
sure this will prove to be great advice to many.
Daniel Murphy <rac...@cityraccoon.com> wrote in article
<34603dff...@news.businessnet.dk>...