How Good Are You at Backgammon? (Book)

[Webby]

Whilst checking out Amazon for new bg books the following appearred to be
new..

How Good Are You at Backgammon?: 50 Challenging Situations for You to Rate
Your Ability with the Experts by Nicolaos S. Tzannes, Basil Tzannes

Anyone read it and willing to provide a review?

Thx Alan

Webby's Backgammon Site
quizzes, downloads, tips, matches, links...

http://www.isg-vsg.de/backgammon/BGHome.htm

[Ron & Ann Barry]

This one, likewise available from Amazon, sounds interesting as well, but is
also as yet unreviewed: "100 Backgammon Puzzles : A Champion's Guide to
Testing Your Skills and Improving Your Game", by Paul Lamford. (Paul Lamford
was 1993 British Backgammon Champion and is currently the highest-ranked
British player, according to the publisher's blurb.)

[Mark Driver]

Its a book from the 1970's hey day, originally published in 1974. The
Tzannes brothers also published a second book (which went by two distinct
titles) 'Backgammon Games and Strategies' aka 'Backgammon Games and
Stuggles', which focuses mainly on Greek backgammon (Moultezim, Portes, and
hit).

I don't have 'How Good are You..' available in front of me at the moment for
a specific review, but I did (and do) use 'Games & Stuggles' as a learning
tool for Greek backgammon. The authors' treatment of regular backgammon in
this latter book is nothing special at all and pales next to the works of
even the (currently lesser regarded) beginners texts such as Stern, Holland
etc.

You might ask yourself "on what basis are they considered to be 'Experts' ?"

Webby wrote in message <9iao6m$7cv$1...@trinity.hannover.sgh-net.de>...

[Mark Driver]

I think Paul's book is a great little package. The book consists of 50
checker play and 50 cube problems (a seemingly random collection of
positions), with some brief introductory material on objectives, rules, etc
and Paul's great mnemonic tool for analyzing cube decisions -PRAT (discussed
elsewhere on rgb, and by Webby on the MSO site).

The positions chosen for the book range from obviously easy to deep thought
provoking. After working through the problems you can estimate your Elo
rating based on the author's observed experience of other players answers.

In my opinion this book has a number of things going for it.

Firstly its cheap so good value for money.
Secondly its small and easily portable - just the ticket to leave in your
jacket pocket and thumb through while on the train/bus etc.
Paul's concise 'Tips' and 'Hints' for each problem are a great feature which
sum up the important issues in handy memorable 'sound bites'. In his review
of the Book in BIBAFAX 51, Michael Crane thought "these were worth the price
of the book alone".

My subjective criticism of the book:

The board images are a bit large, smaller boards could have enabled the
inclusion of more problems.

The format of the answers (included beneath the board positions of the
following pages) can take a little getting used to, and is not as effective
as the format used by Robertie in '501' (with the answers for each problem
compiled at the end of distinct sections).

Ron & Ann Barry wrote in message <3B48EE76...@telocity.com>...

[ravier jacques]

[Bill Ritchie]

It's a great book, I have read it and enjoyed it.
"Webby" <we...@hannover.sgh-net.de> wrote in message
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