Backgammon Mistake 6

Backgammon Mistake 6

Cash game on Play65 35p/Point

I rolled 61 as white and moved 8/1* which lost me a massive .296 equity. This move probably resulted in me losing the entire match in the end with the cube on 8!

Reasons behind my play:
This was a pretty bad roll whichever way you look at it and there wasn't anyway to move without leaving a blot. I could either leave a blot on the 1 point by moving 8/1* or leave a blot on the 13 point by moving one of those checkers away. My thoughts were that if red missed his next roll then I could cover the 1 or if he had entered on the 2 or 3 I wouldn't need to.

Correct play : 13/7 6/5
Advantages:

• Leaves spare checkers on 4 separate points which gives me a massive chance to create a 6 point prime.
• Red will only hit roughly a third of the time.
• If I am hit I lose less pips than my chosen play of 8/1* 

Disadvantages:

• With 5 points made in his home board red will become massive favourite to win if he hits.

  

Backgammon Mistake 5

Backgammon Mistake 5

Cash game on Play65 35p/point

Rolled 62 as white and played 110/4 6/4 which lost me 0.112 equity 

Reasons behind my play
I'm usually content to make the 4 point early on in the game, this move also had the added benefit of lowering the number of blots I had from 2 to 1. With the opponent having already split his back checkers leaving 2 blots seemed like an unnecessarily risky play.

Correct play :  24/16*
Advantages:

• Hits an enemies checker and which loses him 16 pips.
• Puts an enemy on the bar which stops him building any decent strategic points next roll unless he gets any lucky doubles.
• If I'm not hit next roll then I'll be favorite to build my 5 or 7 point.  
• Getting hit at this stage isn't a big concern as the enemy hasn't started developing their home board 

Disadvantages:

• Leaves 4 blots, if Red gets a lucky few rolls he can potentially hit a lot.
• Gives up the chance to build a home board point 

  

Backgammon Mistake 4

Backgammon Mistake 4

 

Cash game on Play65 35p/point

This mistake of mine isn't a specific move but a really awful double. I was in the situation shown as white and my "bright idea" was that due to the average roll being 8.2 I was actually ahead in pip count. As this was a pure race situation I was therefore ahead and should double. The double was quickly accepted by my opponent who then won whilst I was left with 6 pips to bare off dispute neither of us rolling doubles.

This served as a very valuable lesson that demonstrates how much of an advantage having spread out checkers is. I thought I was somewhere in the region of 50%-55% favorite but running is through GNU it turns out my winning chances are 29% ! I guess I should count myself lucky that red didn't redouble me as I would have probably accepted.

I'm not going to beat myself up too much over this as I lost an extra 35p here but learnt a potentially very valuable lesson about just how much spreading your checkers is worth.

Backgammon Mistake 3

Backgammon Mistake 3

Cash game on Play65 35p/point

Rolled 62 and played 24/13 which lost me .104 equity

Reasons behind my play:
I couldn't see any amazing plays so thought that instead of leaving more blots around I'd run one of my back checkers to safety and hope that next round I could use the checker on my 11 point to either build the 5 or 7 point. I was also a bit concerned about having 2 blots in the enemy board which gave him lots of rolls next round that would hit my checker and build a a point in his home board,

Correct play : 21/15 13/11
Advantages:

• Makes my 11 point safe from rolls of 8 or 9 next round. 
• Could potentially be used for an 11-6 point prime
• Makes it a little bit harder for red to escape his back checkers
• Still leaves me with lots of rolls that make the 7 or 5 point as long as I am willing to leave a blot on my 11 point again
• If any of my 2 back checkers get hit I don't lose too many pips

Disadvantages:

• Lots of rolls are left for red that hit my back checkers and establish a new point in his home board.
• All rolls of 8 or 9 hit my 11 point 

Backgammon Mistake 2

Backgammon Mistake 2

Cash game on Play65 35p/point

Rolled 63 and played 24/15 which lost me .147 equity 

Reasons behind my play
I wasn't keen to relinquish my anchor on the 21 point so running and hoping I wasn't hit seemed like the best move. I was aware that the opponent was favorite to hit on his roll but with only 2 home points made I wasn't afraid of dancing if I was put on the bar.

Correct play 24/18 21/18
Advantages

• Moves my point forward which makes it easier to escape next round
• if I roll big next round the spare checker on the 21 point could run home whilst I maintain the 18 point to hit enemy blots safely from.
• It wastes less pips if hit
• If the enemy does hit on his 4 point and can't cover then my next roll has over 1/3 chance of hitting him back, with 5 points made in my home board this could prove fatal for red. 

Disadvantages

• Breaks my current anchor in the enemies home board

  

Backgammon Mistake 1

Backgammon Mistake 1

Cash game on play65 65p/point

Rolled 63 and I played 16/7* which lost me .207 equity.

Reasons behind my play:
I was using the backgammon advice of "if in doubt, hit"  I knew there was a good chance that my bar point would be hit back on my opponents next roll but felt the aggressive play would put me in a good position to prime my opponents checkers on the next turn if he missed. The pip count wasn't vastly different but I was happy to knock the opponent back a few pips as well.
  
Correct Play : 16/10 13/10
Advantages:

• Leaves no blots.
• Builds a new point in my outfield .
• Fills in a point in the potential 11-6 prime.
• Checkers are well connected which means future rolls are less likely to leave blots which is good as the opponent has 4 points in his home board already made. 

 Disadvantages

• Isn't aggressive.
• Opponent can escape from my 7 point next turn and then comfortable sit on my 5 point until he can safely escape.
• Opponent is ahead in the pip count and stays ahead .

  

Format of the analysis

I'm going to try and create a standard template for reviewing my moves to try and keep things consistent from the start.

I'll take a game ive played at random and run each move through GNUBackgammon until I come across a play where I gave away +0.1 equity. I'll then list the advantages and disadvantages of the move I did and then the advantages and disadvantages of the move GNUBackgammon suggests.

Hopefully I'll learn from this and if anyone reading wants to comment i'd love to discuss specifics.

Start

Ive recently taken up backgammon with the aim of improving my play to a stage where I'm not losing money in online play. I'm not trying to become a world master (would be nice though) but just to be able to hold my own against the decent players online.

As backgammon is a very analytical game im going to try to use this blog to put my thoughts into one location with hopefully some cohesion so that any good ideas I come across don't get forgotten.

The plan at the moment is to use this blog as a place to review website and books on the game as well as critique moves I've made in games that turned out to be major blunders once I run them through GNUBackgammon. Hopefully if I do this for long enough i'll notice patterns in where my play is awful and improve.