Newsletter for 13 January 2004

Back to Business

And, here's something to think about -- maybe now is the time for you to come by and start entering the tournaments. The same number of master points are available every week, but when more and more people start coming (and believe us, they will), it will be harder to get those points. If there's one thing you're not going to want to miss out on, it's the 2004 BCSD Tournament of Champions, and to qualify, you need to be in the top 16 in the master point race by the end of the year.

Tournament News

Six people entered an eight-player bracket, with the following results:

• First place: Sho Sengoku
• Second place: Jason Lee
• Third place: Adrian Costa & Bruce Haight (split)

The rules in place are: for a 7-point match, 14 minutes is put on both clocks (for a 5-point match, it would be 10 minutes). In addition, there is a 12 second delay... when your opponent starts your clock, you are given a 12 second grace period -- your clock does not start for 12 seconds. If you make your move within 12 seconds, no time comes off your clock. If you clock expires, you lose the match.

Only one set of dice is used. Instead of picking up your dice to signify the end of your move, in a clocked game, you leave the dice on the table and hit your clock. Your opponent then picks up the dice and makes their move.

Everybody that played with the clock on Tuesday responded favorably. The allotted time was sufficient, but did make sure that the players moved with reasonable speed. Nobody faced serious time pressure. It was universally agreed that the use of clocks will be strongly encouraged. For players that typically move too slowly, the tournament director can require the use of clocks, even for a match already in progress.

Current Master Points Standings

Sho Sengoku       8
Marcia Karen      8
Adrian Costa      5
Jason Lee         4
Bruce Haight      1
Fred Kamgar       1
Sam Mehri (?)     1

Problem of the Week

Black on roll. Cube action?
Black leads 2-0 in a 7-point match
Pip counts: White 29, Black 30

What's the right cube action? Nobody thought it was terribly obvious, and as it turned out, nobody who looked at the position got the correct analysis. At the table, both players erred.

Last Week's Problems of the Week

Pip counts: White 4, Black 165

With two checkers, the right thing to do is to take off:

Alert: very lucky roll! ( +0.648)

But what if there are three checkers? It turns out that the right thing to do is to run one checker. Now you are hoping that White rolls an ace (except 1-1, of course). Then you have a chance to pick up a checker and save the gammon, but with good fortune (and some clever recycling), you could even pick up a second checker and win the game! This type of game, where you hold a single checker on the ace point against your opponent's three checkers on the deuce point is called the coup classique.

Pip counts: White 6, Black 165

Alert: very bad move ( -0.328)

Notice that running with one checker actually gives you a 10.8% chance of winning the game! One has to wonder if GNU is playing this position correctly in the rollout. The key to winning this is to roll a prime forward, and to keep trying to recycle checkers in an effort to hit the second White checker. Black really can't win this game (barring a miracle) without hitting that second checker.

See you next week! Keep tossing those cubes,
J. Lee