Finally, I managed to find time for a real tournament. My eyes are set on the 7th Merit Open Int Backgammon Championship held in Cyprus early November. Based on peoples previous experiences with that tournament it will be a nice experience.
This blog is about how I prepare for a larger tournament, especially when out of shape (in more than one way). The main goal is to be ready for the tournament to a degree where I believe that I could win it! How do I plan to get to that point?
I’m very structure and process oriented. It may seem boring and tedious but I find comfort in having everything in a system. This way of thinking has brought me many practical challenges because I’m heavily biased towards consistency rather than what works. If it does not make sense to me I won’t do it even though I objectively understand that it is right.
Then the question is: Can you put Backgammon into a system? To a very high degree, yes!
Guiding principles for improvement
- Strengthen basic understanding of the game
- Work on specific problems in your game (learn/understand new concepts)
- Generalize specific problems and solve the specific problem with the generalized model
- Get feedback through analysis of your own games and training session with other players
My main issue: Thinking vs. knowing
Thinking is easy: Requires effort here and now
Knowing is hard: Requires planning, hard work and discipline
I’m lazy. Not in the sense of lying on the couch in front of the TV all day, but in the sense of relying on thinking rather than knowing. One of my strengths is that I’m very good at focusing a lot of energy into solving a specific problem here and now. The flip side is that I never really appreciated what hard work can achieve because a focused effort with minimal preparation would get me through almost any challenge. This is basically the story of my backgammon life too. Let’s take a closer look at the current situation in relation to backgammon.
Past experience tells me that trying to patch up the holes in my understanding of the game will fail (trying to think instead of knowing). It is too short sighted and require way too much energy when sitting at the board trying to make it work. Generally speaking I tend to spend too much time pondering over positions while playing a tournament (trying to think instead of knowing) . This usually brings me into time trouble resulting in even more mistakes.
When you are playing a tournament you should focus on utilizing what you already know and when you are in a training setting you should focus on getting to know more.
Clearly, I’m breaking my own rule but I intend to do better. By identifying the types of positions where I spend a lot of time I can go back and analyse those situations in depth to actually understand them. This will save me a lot of time in future situations. Later I’ll go more into exactly what type of problems I need to focus on.
Basic understanding of the game
There are a lot of things that we know about backgammon – a lot of things where we have a clear answer. This knowledge has been put into many good books. Basically everyone could sit down and learn these things and become an expert player. Of course it requires a significant effort but you don’t have to think a single original thought yourself.
Here is my recommended reading list for basic knowledge (sorted: Easy to hard):
- Backgammon From basics to badass, Marc B. Olsen
- Opening Concepts, Michihito Kageyama and Roland Herrera
- Endgame Technique, Michihito Kageyama and Roland Herrera
- Backgammon Boot Camp, Walter Trice
- Backgammon Pure Strategy, Marc B. Olsen
- Modern Backgammon, Bill Robertie
In my own preparations I’ll read quickly through Michi’s two books (448 pages) and spend some time studying cube action in Pure Strategy (179 pages) and Boot Camp (81 pages).
Specific problems in my game
To be as efficient as possible I’ll address the specific issues that I’m actually facing in my matches. After a match I’ll go through the whole match move by move and try to formulate what is going on in the position. When in doubt I test my hypothesis by changing features of the position to see the effect and then restate my understanding of the position.
Recent matches indicate that I struggle heavily with cube action and safe vs. bold positions. In future blogs a lot of examples will be analyzed.
Generalizing a problem
I learn through conceptualizing things. When faced with a specific problem
- I try to conceptualize it
- Solve the conceptualized problem
- Use the solution on the specific problem
This way I am solving a class of problems instead of a single instance.
Feedback
Most of the time I’m trying to update my conception of the game but it is a challenge doing this only with a computer. For this preparation I’ve asked two Grandmasters (Karsten Bredahl and Marc B. Olsen) to have a few session with me based on the themes that I have been working on.
The next blogs will be centered around the things I’ll learn and work on. If we are lucky there is a chance that one of the training sessions with a Grandmaster will be recorded for publication.