New Backgammon Book for Beginners

Gerry Tesauro

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Oct 4, 1993, 3:34:29 PM10/4/93

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I was browsing through Barnes and Noble the other day
and found a new book for beginners by Bill Robertie.
It's called "Backgammon for Winners" and is published
by Cardoza Publishing. (Subtitled "The World's Greatest
Backgammon Player Shows You How to Play And Win!!!")
It's short- 90 pages paperback, but probably a good
place to start for beginners, especially since it's
so hard to find any books on BG these days.

--Gerry Tesauro

ronald e. fedele

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Oct 8, 1993, 12:37:02 AM10/8/93

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Gerry Tesauro (tes...@watson.ibm.com) wrote:
: I was browsing through Barnes and Noble the other day

still say the greatest backgammon book ever written was
"BACKGAMMON FOR BLOOD"
if you can find a copy get it. takes a unigue approach to the game.

ron fedele

Durf Freund

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Oct 8, 1993, 1:26:03 AM10/8/93

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Ah, yes, I agree. BACKGAMMON FOR BLOOD is a marvelous book. Becker is
an unappreciated genius.

I will email you the info about FIBS. Hope to see you there soon!

durf

P.S. Bring your checkbook.

Jeffrey K Seidel

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Oct 8, 1993, 11:08:01 PM10/8/93

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>still say the greatest backgammon book ever written was
>"BACKGAMMON FOR BLOOD"
>if you can find a copy get it. takes a unigue approach to the game.
>
>ron fedele
>

That is the worst book in the world...for either a beginner or an
aspiring World Champion. It commits you, in effect, to some form of
homicidal/suicidal mania (I guess that's the underlying theme to the
title) I have a large collection of BG books and that is the one I'd
_least_ advise for a reader. Even in his time...the guy faded out and
was never...ever...condidered a major force. Start off with Magriel and
then move on to books in the computer era. I'd also strongly endorse
getting all the back issues of Friedman's 'Leading Edge' backgammon
newsletter...it puts Robertie's 'Inside Backgammon' to shame. I'd also
avoid the Kleinman books (does this guy ever really play the game?)
unless I was heavily into 'club' play.

JeffS

Robert W Floyd

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Oct 11, 1993, 8:34:59 PM10/11/93

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The Bruce Becker who wrote Backgammon for Blood is pseudonymous. I have played
tournament BG for years and have never met anyone who purported to know him.
Many of becker's recs are well known to be bad. For example, there have been
large statistical studies of the opening rolls, e.g. by Hal Heinrich, and they
do not support "Becker's" plays.

Magriel's book is the intermediate player's bible, but the novice would do
better with Tim Holland's books (scarce) and the Jacoby and Crawford Backgammon
Book. Goulding's annotated matches, "Backgammon with the champions", are also
a fine introduction, because they give a sense of purpose and direction to the
play.

For the intermediate who wants to become advanced, Barclay Cooke's "Paradoxes
and probabilities" is very useful even though much of it is wrong. I spent a
year mentally arguing with Cooke, then doing either large rollouts or
exhaustive analyses to prove one of us right. I learned how to think aboutr
BG, and began winning tournaments.

Kleinman is an excellent source of reference material on BG. When you are an
advanced player tryin to get a little extra edge in tournaments, Kleinman's
tables and approximations will help you estimate correct doubling and drop
points. Learn strategy from someone else.