Newsletter for 3 February 2004

Moving into February

On Tuesday, 3 February 2004, the Backgammon Club of San Diego met, and we once again filled a 16-player bracket.

Tournament News

12 people entered an 16-player bracket on Tuesday night, the most number of people to attend all year. We had the following tournament results:

First place / Second place: Adrian Costa & Osman Guner (split)
Third place: Bruce Haight & Jason Lee (split)

This week, the club carefully followed a preset schedule that mandates the use of clocks for certain late-starting matches. This worked quite well -- so in the future, please be prepared to play some of your matches with a clock.

Furthermore, we ran out of spots for re-entries. Once the bracket filled, there were still some people who wanted to get back in. For those who want to keep playing, the BCSD offers the chance at a blitz tournament. Four people enter for $10 each, and play a knockout tournament with three-point matches, winner takes all. The winner of a knockout blitz will also earn one master point -- and every point counts! While we didn't run any blitzes this week, it still remains a definite possibility in the future.

The club welcomed a couple of visitors from Reno... Bill and Dale, who entered our tournament. The BCSD has a rule that allows first time visitors to enter the tournament without paying a membership fee.

Current Master Points Standings

By tying for the win in the tournament, Adrian moves into second place overall, while Bruce holds on to the top spot in the Master Point standings:

1. Bruce Haight     16
2. Adrian Costa     12
3. Jason Lee        11
4. Marcia Karen      9
5. Sho Sengoku       8
6. Osman Guner       6
7. Cyrus Mobedshahi  6
8. Fred Kamgar       1
9. Sam Mehri         1

Remember that the point leader at the end of the year will be named the BCSD Player of the Year, and the top 16 in the Master Point standings will be invited to the 2004 BCSD Tournament of Champions, to be held in early 2005.

Problem of the Week

+-13-14-15-16-17-18-+---+-19-20-21-22-23-24-+

+-12-11-10--9--8--7-+---+--6--5--4--3--2--1-+

Match to 7, tied 5-5, Black on roll. Cube action? Pip counts: White 164, Black 167

This is the position that arises after White opens with a 2-1 by slotting, with the score 2-away/2-away. Should Black cube?

Last Week's Problem of the Week

Here's a cute position from Danny Kleinman's book Vision Laughs at Counting:

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+-12-11-10--9--8--7-+---+--6--5--4--3--2--1-+

Money game. Black on roll. Cube action? Pip counts: White 8, Black 7

What's the right play here? First, let's just calculate Black's chances of winning. Here are the various ways that Black can win:

Roll 4-4, 5-5, 6-6 to win immediately -- 3/36.
Roll anything else but 1-2, 1-3, 2-3 to bear off at least two checkers -- followed by White NOT rolling 3-3 or better: 27/36 * 32/36 = 864/1296.

If Black rolls 1-2, 1-3, 2-3, White can cash -- it's essentially a two-roll position. So Black's winning chances are 3/36 + 864/1296 = 972/1296, which is exactly 75%. Because Black has plenty of market losers, it must be right to cube.

Because White's winning chances are 25%, the take/pass decision is... OPTIONAL! We've already computed White's recube equity when evaluating this position, so we know that the cubeful game winning chances for White are exactly 25% -- and since that's the cutoff for a take/pass decision, White will have the exact same equity either way.

So the right play here is Double/Optional Take. The two sides could easily settle with White paying Black one point.

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

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