Backgammon books: comments please.
Leo Bueno
I did a search at Amazon.com and found a fairly extensive list of
Backgammon books. I cut out those which were listed as being out of
print or "hard to find". From reading this newsgroup and other
literature, there seems to be a general concensus that Magriel's
Backgammon (listed as "hard to find" at Amazon.com, thus not listed
below) should be the starting point on the subject. But, what to read
after Magriel? With respect to those books which are readily
available, I (and probably most other readers) will appreciate
comments. Life is too short to read them all, so which should we
read, and most importantly, *not* read?
Amazing Book of Backgammon
John Tremaine / Hardcover / Published 1996
Price: $10.49
Backgammon (Teach Yourself Books)
Robin A. Clay / Paperback / Published 1993
Price: $6.36
Backgammon for Serious Players
Bill Robertie / Paperback / Published 1997
Price: $11.96
Backgammon for Winners
Bill Robertie / Paperback / Published 1995
Price: $7.96
Win at Backgammon.
Millard Fillmore, Hopper / Paperback / Published 1975
Price: $3.16
Advanced Backgammon : Positional Play Vol 1
Bill Robertie / Paperback / Published 1992
Price: $35.00
Advanced Backgammon : Technical Play Vol 2
Bill Robertie / Paperback / Published 1992
Price: $35.00
Backgammon (Rules of the Game Series)
Suzanne Goldberg, Robert Hamilton / Paperback / Published
1996
Price: $8.95 + $0.85 special surcharge
Backgammon : Winning Strategies
Robin Clay / Paperback / Published 1996
Price: $22.50
Backgammon for People Who Hate to Lose
T. Holland / Paperback / Published 1978
(Publisher Out Of Stock)
The Backgammon Handbook
Enno Heyken, Martin B. Fischer / Hardcover / Published 1990
Price: $39.95
Backgammon, Rules and Rulings, Book 1
Alexis Obolensky / Hardcover / Published 1976
(Publisher Out Of Stock)
Beginning Backgammon
Tim Holland / Paperback / Published 1974
(Publisher Out Of Stock)
Better Backgammon
T. Holland / Paperback / Published 1979
(Publisher Out Of Stock)
The Clermont Book of Backgammon
David Dor-El / Hardcover / Published 1979
Price: $5.98 + $1.85 special surcharge
Discovering Backgammon
Bell / Paperback / Published 1984
Price: $25.00
Fell's Guide to Winning Backgammon
Walter Brown Gibson / Hardcover / Published 1975
(Publisher Out Of Stock)
Gorens Modern Backgammon Complete
Charles H. Goren / Paperback / Published 1977
(Publisher Out Of Stock)
How to Play Backgammon
Susan Perry / Hardcover / Published 1977
Price: $3.98 + $2.35 special surcharge
How to Play Backgammon
Susan Perry / Paperback / Published 1980
Price: $1.98 + $3.35 special surcharge
How to Play Tournament Backgammon
Kit Woolsey / Paperback / Published 1993
Price: $20.00
New Ideas in Backgammon
Kit Woolsey, Hal Heinrich / Paperback / Published 1996
Price: $40.00
Phillip Martyn on Backgammon
Phillip Martyn / Hardcover / Published 1990
Price: $3.98 + $2.35 special surcharge
Secrets of Winning at Backgammon
Jeff Ward / Paperback / Published 1984
(Publisher Out Of Stock)
Winning Backgammon
John Leet / Paperback / Published 1998
Price: $9.95
(Not Yet Published)
Winning Backgammon
Jeff Ward / Paperback / Published 1986
(Publisher Out Of Stock)
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Leo Bueno
peter zandveld
I suggest you contact Gammon Press in the USA. Backgammon is commercially
not
interesting for big firms like Amazon.
Some of the books of your list can be ordered there. I am not a backgammon
player myself, but I have been told by experts that most of Robertie's
books are outstanding.
Peter Zandveld
Schaak en go winkel het Paard
Specialist shop for Go, chess, bridge.....
Pa...@xs4all.nl
http://www.xs4all.nl/~paard
illium
In article <34c20c9d...@news2.accesspro.net>,
leob...@accesspro.netREMOVETEXTFOLLOWINGnet (Leo Bueno) wrote:
>Subject: Backgammon books: comments please.
>From: Leo Bueno
>Organization: ISPNews http://ispnews.com
>Date: Sun, 18 Jan 1998 14:41:55 GMT
>Newsgroups: rec.games.backgammon
Hi Leo
I did an appraisal of some of the books you list above several months ago
for a friend, perhaps it might be of some use...
Here is a list of most of the backgammon books I have and what I think of
them.
1) The Backgammon Handbook by Enno Heyken and Martin B. Fischer. UK
publisher: Crowood
This is probably the best one I have. The authors are German so it should
be available where you are, look around. All the different types of game
are discussed and there are two sections on doubling strategy. Plenty of
examples and tests, definitely a book for intermediate to expert players.
2) The Amazing book of Backgammon by Jon Tremaine. UK publisher: Tiger
Books International
More of a beginners book but beautifully illustrated. Covers all the
basics of the game, a bit weak on doubling strategy but good section on
the backgame and return play. Also a humourous section on the Psychology
of Backgammon, well worth a read.
3) The New York Times Book of Backgammon by James and Mary Zita jacoby.
Publisher A & C Black
Another book for the relative beginner. Cover most of the basics quite
well in the form of 12 lessons. Very short section on doubling. All in
all, nothing special here.
4) Backgammon for winners by Bill Robertie. Publisher: Cardoza Publishing
Again, cover the basics well in the form of lessons. Not detailed enough
though and I found only one tip that was of any real use. Almost
everything else is covered better in book 1) above.
5) Teach Yourself Backgammon by Robin Clay. Publisher: Hodder and
Stoughton
Covers the basics like most of the others but does have a section on
duplication which is quite helpful.
6) Begin Backgammon by J. duC. Vere Molyneux. Publisher: Elliot Right Way
Books( Paperfronts)
Another Basic book but it does have an interesting section on variations
of Backgammon e.g. domino backgammon. Nothing special but cheap.
7) Win at Backgammon by Millard Hopper Publisher: Dover Books
A rather dated book covering little more than the rules, it was first
published in 1941.
8) The Backgammon Book by Oswald Jacoby and John R. Crawford Publisher:
Pan (paperback)
Certainly a good book for the beginner, it covers all the basics well.
Also includes short sections on Chouette, settlements and backgammon
variations. Along with a few lighthearted anecdotes on the game. Probably
the first book I bought but 1) or 2) above do the same things and more,
only much better.
9)Backgammon:Winning Strategies by Robin Clay Publisher:Pan 1996
A worthwhile addition to the library of intermediate players, it contains a
good self-test section, so you can check what standard your at and later
take the tests again to gauge your improvement. Plenty of good ideas, well
worth the asking price(it's cheaper in the UK).
Hope this helps.
Regards William Hill, illium on FIBS
Gary Wong
leob...@accesspro.netREMOVETEXTFOLLOWINGnet (Leo Bueno) writes:
> available, I (and probably most other readers) will appreciate
> comments. Life is too short to read them all, so which should we
> read, and most importantly, *not* read?
I don't know if I'm in the minority here, but in my opinion there's no book
so bad I'd advise everybody _not_ to read it. There is no book so bad that
it can't provoke thought in a careful reader -- and I would claim that the
thoughts a book leads you to think about are at least as important as the
"facts" you might learn, which are really only a sort of bottom line. No
serious mathematics student should scan through a textbook memorising the
results and throwing away the proofs -- similarly, with a backgammon book
you shouldn't be trying to take a small sample of the "best" books and copy
the style of play their authors advocate, but reading about the concepts behind
what they're writing; emulating their thought processes perhaps; and most
importantly, thinking about the same concepts yourself and forming your own
opinions. I see criticisms of (for instance) Becker's "Backgammon For Blood"
to the point of "if your opponent mentions having read this book, double
immediately" -- I think it would be a terrible shame if any serious reader
were to be put off the book by reading something like this about it, because
they could probably learn a lot by considering what it has to say beyond face
value.
The aim of reading a good book should not be to learn to play like the author,
but to open your eyes to concepts that they express that you had not
experienced yourself. For instance, timing is a concept that a beginner
might find extremely difficult to deduce by themselves; through trial and
error they might notice that in some types of games, their own position
tends to deteriorate faster than their opponents. However it's something that
a book can provide a great deal of insight into, just by giving the reader
another point of view to the same properties they had already noticed
informally in their own games, or perhaps previously been unaware of but
now able to look for. Even if the conclusion the author makes is blatantly
wrong ("when you find yourself short of timing, dump extra chequers onto your
1 point to avoid leaving blots"), the background is valuable.
I guess my opinion then is to steal as many ideas as you possibly can about
the game from books; read them critically whether they're Magriel or Becker;
form your own opinions, and never stop thinking. Feel free to disagree with
the author -- whether you just learnt to play this morning, or have beaten
Jellyfish in a 21 point match every day before breakfast for the past year.
Try playing the way the author suggests; try any reasonable alternative you
can think of -- see which you prefer.
Perhaps most importantly, don't be afraid of being "wrong". There are so
many ideas in backgammon that it's impossible to be "right" about all of them
anyway. But I guarantee that if you thought about something as a beginner,
make an elementary mistake and then eventually learn you were wrong all along
and then start conforming to generally accepted expert opinion, then you'll
have learnt a lot more than somebody who just accepted the expert opinion in
the first place without challenging it. Don't ever be embarrassed or afraid
to change your mind. I'm no expert and have only been posting here for a
few months, but I bet I could already find a hell of a lot to argue with
against what I've written before. That doesn't worry me one bit (nor will it
make me shut up I'm afraid, you have to killfile me for that :-) And I'm
not the first to change my mind, even the experts have been changing their
minds about backgammon for thousands of years. Since the dawn of history,
players have preferred to split with an opening 21 for instance -- until the
modern play of the 1970s started favouring slotting the 5 point for a
stronger offence. And then after seeing neural nets play differently and
beat them, experts have changed their minds again and decided that gee,
maybe splitting was right after all, these damn computers have made us look
a bit silly. But what matters isn't what play is currently fashionable
(or even "right", since nobody can say for sure) -- the fact is that we now
know more about the strengths and weaknesses of splitting and slotting than
anybody ever has before.
> Backgammon (Teach Yourself Books)
> Robin A. Clay / Paperback / Published 1993
> Price: $6.36
>
> Backgammon : Winning Strategies
> Robin Clay / Paperback / Published 1996
> Price: $22.50
OK, time to shut up and start writing about books like you asked :-) Robin
Clay's books seem to be very readily available here Down Under (I guess we
must import more UK books than US, or something) but I haven't seen much
discussion about them on the net, so here's a few words about them. I've
read 3 books of his: "Backgammon In A Week" which is a short introductory
handbook; "Teach Yourself Backgammon" (which I think dates much earlier than
the title you posted -- I guess the 1993 version is a reprint?) and
"Backgammon: Winning Strategies".
"Backgammon In A Week" is a reasonable beginners guide that explains the rules
and doesn't pretend to touch advanced concepts -- certainly not something a
serious player would take a huge amount of interest in once they are familiar
with the game, not that there's anything wrong with it.
"Teach Yourself Backgammon" is a somewhat deeper text that so far I as
remember (I don't own a copy myself) is a 70s-style strategy guide -- it
could be quite valuable to a beginner/intermediate but be aware that many
of the ideas have progressed considerably since the discussion. It has
a reference table of opening moves and replies for instance that is
somewhat different than I expect most top players would make today.
"Backgammon: Winning Strategies" in my opinion is by far the strongest of
the three. It is pretty much current (frequently referencing Jellyfish 2.1
evaluations and rollouts and Scoyners database equities) and generally
presents reasonable alternatives modern players might consider and gives
a fair comparison of them. It touches many concepts without going into a
great deal of depth about them which is probably reasonable for a book of
this size (244 paperback pages) -- for instance it presents a match equity
table derived from Janowski's formula and analyses how it should affect
match play, without justifying the background of the table or formula
itself. It makes a good effort to address the discrepencies between
generally accepted expert and computer preferences ("...Jellyfish 2.1
prefers this move but many players dislike placing a chequer on the 1 point
so early in the game...", "surprisingly Jellyfish thought that hitting was
the best move, but when it rolled out the position 1,296 times it
established that move D was superior.") It goes into reasonable detail
about many tactical situations (inspecting various possible back game
positions and explaining why the 5 point is weak bearing in against a 1,3
back game; walking a prime backwards to pick up an extra chequer, etc.) My
main criticism (not that I'm claiming that my opinion is in any way better
than the book -- just as an example of how a text should be critically
considered rather than accepted at face value) is that his treatment of
cube handling is weak. Clay claims that cube decisions should be made on
three criteria: race, position, and threat -- personally I think that's
horribly overgeneralised: you can't base decisions on just 3 factors, and
even if you could, they would be threat, threat, and threat. But never
mind. I don't think he mentions volatility at all, oversimplifying to the
point of being wrong: "the ideal lead at which to double is 70 per cent..."
(admittedly he qualifies the assertion as dependent on the match score and
the claim appears restricted to races, but even so presenting a number like
that without justification ought to raise questions in the mind of the
reader). The quiz section of the book (100 questions) is well done --
again I think it would be a shame if a reader was overly concerned about
choosing the "right" answer in the quiz, but thinking about a position,
selecting a move, and then reading the comments about the alternatives
could be valuable if Clay mentions factors you hadn't considered, or seen
in the same way. Overall I think most intermediate players could learn a
lot from it, though advanced readers would be frustrated at the lack of
detail in many areas.
Cheers,
Gary (GaryW on FIBS).
--
Gary Wong, Computer Science Department, University of Auckland, New Zealand
ga...@cs.auckland.ac.nz http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~gary/
Chuck Bower
In article <ieyu3az...@cs20.cs.auckland.ac.nz>,
Gary Wong <ga...@cs.auckland.ac.nz> wrote:
>leob...@accesspro.netREMOVETEXTFOLLOWINGnet (Leo Bueno) writes:
>> available, I (and probably most other readers) will appreciate
>> comments. Life is too short to read them all, so which should we
>> read, and most importantly, *not* read?
>
>I don't know if I'm in the minority here, but in my opinion there's no book
>so bad I'd advise everybody _not_ to read it. There is no book so bad that
>it can't provoke thought in a careful reader -- and I would claim that the
>thoughts a book leads you to think about are at least as important as the
>"facts" you might learn, which are really only a sort of bottom line.
(snip)
I find myself agreeing with BOTH Leo and Gary. Yes, life is TOO
SHORT! And there are a lot of "beginning" books, especially almost
all beginning books written before 1980 (and most after that...) that
say almost the same thing. The clear exception is Magriel (which is
actually much more than a beginning book, but it includes that). If
you can get ahold of Magriel, make that your flagship.
There are also several books written in the 70's which, although
outdated if you take their "advice" literally, can be quite valuable
because of their thought provocation. These include all of Barclay
Cooke (especially "Paradoxes and Probabilities") as well has Joe Dwek's
"BG for Profit", Lewis DeYong's "Playboy Book of BG" (sorry, no naughty
pictures here) and Bruce Becker's "Backgammon for Blood".
I am somewhat surprised at the elevated blood pressure Becker's
book seems to produce! (Pun intended.) It might be the ultimate
argument in favor of "pure play". I get the impression that people
are threatened by his ideas. Definitely read this book with a
skeptical eye, but do the same with Magriel, Robertie, Woolsey,...
The best way to stay a sub-expert is to turn off your brain, whether
in play or in learning.
Chuck
bo...@bigbang.astro.indiana.edu
c_ray on FIBS