Study/Play ratio

[BlueDice]

I spotted an interesting post recently at bgonline.com
http://www.bgonline.org/forums/webbbs_config.pl?read=206293

”Most people find playing to be more fun, but they study too little as a percentage of their allotted backgammon time. At the beginning, 50/50 is okay. Later on, I think optimal is study/play of at least 95/5. That said, not everyone is like me; you also have to do what holds your interest.” -Nack Ballard

Please share your view and experience.
--
BD

[Paul]

He's exactly correct. The problem with developing your view of
backgammon, largely by playing, is the problem of small sample sizes.
So your opponent's got one on the bar, other checkers outside
the inner table, and you've got a closeout.
Do you double out or play on for the gammon?
You can only know the answer by studying. However familiar this is,
you haven't had a position like this 10 000 times before.
Relying on memories of similar positions is completely hopeless.

Paul

[Michael]

The only real study I do, is thinking on quizes.I fall asleep as soon as I try to read a few pages from a book. In fact I don't remember the last time I ever finished reading a book on any subject.

For the last 2 years I haven't played much. So you might say I was only "studying".
Question is have I improved?
I started a few matches recently to check that specific aspect.
I found that I can't get the right moves or cube decisions fast enough.
Almost all online backgammon requires speed.
I improved by about 2 PR (4 mEMG) on checker play and reduced my cube errors to about half which is OK. I still do huge errors occasionally.

So I'd say the ratio isn't important. As soon as you feel you learned something you can apply, start playing and see what happens.

[Peter Percival]

BlueDice wrote:
> I spotted an interesting post recently at bgonline.com
> http://www.bgonline.org/forums/webbbs_config.pl?read=206293
>
> ”Most people find playing to be more fun, but they study too little as a percentage of their allotted backgammon time. At the beginning, 50/50 is okay. Later on, I think optimal is study/play of at least 95/5.

Optimal *to what end*? If one plays backgammon because one enjoys
playing it, there may be no need to study at all ("may be" because one
may enjoy playing and winning more than one enjoys playing an loosing).
If, on the other hand, one plays to make a living at gambling then one
better study rather a lot, and I am prepared to believe that your 95/5
ratio is reasonable.

[BlueDice]

Nack Ballard did not include any metrics in that quote I posted but my guess is that he means something like .. "If you want to improve to </= 5 PR (XG) in optimal time then you better study the game 95% of your BG time."

Of course there is no requirement to study at all. Many players love the game and love to play and not study at all and gain a great deal of enjoyment from it. I think that the more competetive players will seek and find ways to improve (as with many other pursuits).
--
BD

[Tim Chow]

On Sunday, April 1, 2018 at 4:36:28 AM UTC-4, BlueDice wrote:
> ”Most people find playing to be more fun, but they study too little as a
> percentage of their allotted backgammon time. At the beginning, 50/50 is
> okay. Later on, I think optimal is study/play of at least 95/5. That said,
> not everyone is like me; you also have to do what holds your interest.”
> -Nack Ballard

Nack of course is talking about optimizing your use of time to become as
strong as possible a backgammon player.

It's not clear to me what he considers to be "playing." If I play a game
against the computer, does that count as "playing"? If so, then I think
that 95/5 isn't close to optimal for most people. If you want to play well,
then not only do you have to be able to "know" what the right move is in some
theoretical sense; you have to be able to play the right move consistently
during actual games. This requires training your ability to concentrate, to
control your emotions, to recognize during an actual game when you need to
stop and think, to develop confidence assessing fresh positions in real time
when you don't have the answer staring you in the face, etc. I think that
if playing against the computer counts as playing, then something like a
ratio of 3/1 or 4/1 makes more sense for most serious players than 19/1.

If on the other hand, playing against the computer counts as "studying"
and "playing" means playing against human players, then 19/1 could make
some sense, but it depends on how often you play against human players.
If you play 10 hours a week against humans then you obviously can't spend
190 hours a week studying.

I would count playing against the computer as "playing." I do think that
when I have managed a 3/1 or 4/1 ratio then I have improved most quickly.
I don't always manage that, though.

---
Tim Chow

[mu...@compuplus.net]

On April 1, 2018 at 9:45:31 AM UTC-6, Peter Percival wrote:

> If one plays backgammon because one enjoys playing it,
> there may be no need to study at all

And, unless one is a total moron, one can/will learn by
practice as well as and perhaps even better than by study.

> If, on the other hand, one plays to make a living at
> gambling then one better study rather a lot

This may apply to gamblers making a living by laboring
long and hard at "minimum wage per hour" but real high
roller gamblers just roll dice once, or cut cards for
the high card, or flip a coin, etc. for a million dollars
and skip the rest of the petty bullshit about cube skill,
checker skill, etc. for hours and hours...

There is nothing to study about "gambling"!

Maybe what you are thinking about is "quack quacking"..??

MK

[Grunty]

On Monday, April 2, 2018, 5:15:42 (UTC-3), mu...@compuplus.net wrote:
> On April 1, 2018 at 9:45:31 AM UTC-6, Peter Percival wrote:
>
> > If one plays backgammon because one enjoys playing it,
> > there may be no need to study at all
>
> And, unless one is a total moron, one can/will learn by
> practice as well as and perhaps even better than by study.
>

> MK

Such assertion denotes you have one typical trait of a true professional player...


... 's client.

[mu...@compuplus.net]

On April 3, 2018 at 11:46:14 AM UTC-6, Grunty wrote:

> On April 2, 2018, 5:15:42 (UTC-3), mu...@compuplus.net wrote:

>> And, unless one is a total moron, one can/will learn by
>> practice as well as and perhaps even better than by study.

> Such assertion denotes you have one typical trait of a
> true professional player...
> ... 's client.

I'm sure some readers will understand your insider
comment but it doesn't make sense to me at all. In
fact, I would say to the contrary.

It is mostly the aspiring/accomplished professional
gamblers who spend money on expensive bots, books,
magazines, memberships, etc. as "investment" (this
very word was used quite often in justifying up to
$450 for Snowie, for example) and as "cost of doing
business".

Any human can learn the rules and the objective of
backgammon. After that, some may learn (human form
of neural net) and get better than others according
to their capabilities.

I'd say nobody can become a world class player by
study (and/or even practice) alone unless that have
the intelligence and the "knack" for backgammon.

There is also the subject of "learning from bad
teachers".

From a bot, one can only learn "botgammon" along
with its biases; from a gambler, one can only learn
"gamblegammon" alongwith his mistakes, etc. (Did I
coin some new words here??)

Bots moved from science to Scientology right from
the beginning with the second version of TD-Gammon.

Is the a book written by an world class achieved
player who has never played backgammon to gamble?

If you can name one, I may even read it. ;)

MK

[Paul]

On Tuesday, April 3, 2018 at 9:30:18 PM UTC+1, mu...@compuplus.net wrote:
...

> From a bot, one can only learn "botgammon" along
> with its biases; from a gambler, one can only learn
> "gamblegammon" alongwith his mistakes, etc. (Did I
> coin some new words here??)

...
Yes, you did. I looked up "coin" as a verb and
there doesn't seem to be a requirement that
anyone else uses your words. So you coined these
words in the sense that you invented them.

I coined the phrase "No problem for Vlastimil" as
a longer form of saying "No problem" but I'm sure it
won't catch on.

Paul

[mu...@compuplus.net]

On April 4, 2018 at 1:42:00 PM UTC-6, Paul wrote:

> I coined the phrase "No problem for Vlastimil"

How long ago did you coin it?

I just found two 30-40 years old coins. One says
"no problem for Vlastimil" exactly and the other
one says "that's gotta Hort".

Did you coin that one also??

Such rare coins in mint condition must be worth a lot...

MK

[Paul]

A person can be said to have coined a phrase if they use that
phrase in a new or original way, even if the phrase itself has
been seen before. For example, it is accurate to say that
Schwarzenegger (or one of his scriptwriters) coined the phrase
"I'll be back" even though it would be absurd to say that
no one had ever said this before him.

I use the phrase "No problem for Vlastimil" as a substitute
for the simpler and standard "No problem". It's a bit akin to
the common saying "Houston, we got a problem" instead of saying more
simply "There's a problem".

Because the way in which I use the phrase is original, it's still a
coinage, even though it's been written before.
Basically I coined the idea of saying "No problem for Vlastimil" as
a substitute for "No problem". It's a good idea to use language
creatively, in this way.

Paul

[mu...@compuplus.net]

On April 5, 2018 at 2:17:08 PM UTC-6, Paul wrote:

> Basically I coined the idea of saying "No problem
> for Vlastimil" as a substitute for "No problem".

I understood that the first time around.

> It's a good idea to use language creatively, in
> this way.

Yes, and I tried to instigate an exchange of word
plays, puns and coins with you but alas... :(

The phrase template "No problem for ...XYZ..." is
common but I didn't know if you used "Vlastimil"
as a generic slavic name or specificly to refer to
someone.

So, I searched for the exact phrase and found only
one match in an old chess article, in referring to
a sentence in an even older chess book. See:

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1057967

I thought "Wow! How cool. He is referring to Hort
Vlastimil in a subtle way."

Then I saw that the phrase "That's gotta Hort", in
reference to his losing so weirdly (which seems to
have been used a few more times than your phrase).

And. so, I was trying to extract some more coins
out of you :) but apparently we didn't jive. :(

Oh, well, maybe we'll try again some day...?

MK