Newsletter for 24 February 2004

Out with February...

On Tuesday, 24 February 2004, the Backgammon Club of San Diego met with a small turnout.

Tournament News

Seven people entered a 16-player bracket on Tuesday night. We had the following tournament results:

First place: Jason Lee
Second place: Cyrus Mobedshahi
Third place: Adrian Costa & Bruce Haight (split)

Beginning next week, we're making one small modification to the tournament format. In a 16-player bracket, the semifinals matches will be made by draw from the four qualifiers. This is actually based on a clarification of the tournament rules we've been playing under -- this is the way we should have been playing the whole time.

Current Master Points Standings

By winning on Tuesday night, Jason has passed Bruce for the Master Point lead.

 1. Jason Lee        27
 2. Bruce Haight     25
 3. Adrian Costa     21
 4. Cyrus Mobedshahi 10
 5. Marcia Karen      9
 6. Sho Sengoku       8
 7. Osman Guner       7
 8. Tom Fahland       3
 9. Fred Kamgar       1
10. Sam Mehri         1

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-+

11 point match, White leads 4-0. Black to play 6-5. Pip counts: White 155, Black 194

By the way -- please feel free to send me good problems as candidates for the Problem of the Week.

Last Week's Problem of the Week

5 point match, tied 0-0. Black to play 5-4.
Pip counts: White 177, Black 130

White's holding game is pretty tough here, but White is also running out of time. He needs to either spring a checker or relinquish the midpoint. GNU seems to be favoring 14/9 13/9 -- this leaves a double direct shot, but if Black gets away with it, the job of getting home will become a lot easier. Alternatives include burying a checker on the ace point or leaving a triple shot. This may be the best of several hard to swallow alternatives.

# Ply Move Equity

1 R 14/9 13/9 +0.160

0.534 0.187 0.011 - 0.466 0.134 0.005 +0.133 +0.160

0.000 0.000 0.000 - 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.001 0.001

Truncated cubeful rollout (depth 11) with var.redn.

46656 games, Mersenne Twister dice gen. with seed 963341888 and quasi-random dice

Play: 0-ply cubeful [expert]

Cube: 0-ply cubeful [expert]

2 R 13/9 13/8 +0.153 ( -0.007)

0.535 0.169 0.008 - 0.465 0.125 0.004 +0.120 +0.153

0.000 0.000 0.000 - 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.001

Truncated cubeful rollout (depth 11) with var.redn.

46656 games, Mersenne Twister dice gen. with seed 963341888 and quasi-random dice

Play: 0-ply cubeful [expert]

Cube: 0-ply cubeful [expert]

3 R 11/7 6/1 +0.140 ( -0.020)

0.529 0.189 0.009 - 0.471 0.135 0.005 +0.121 +0.140

0.000 0.000 0.000 - 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.001 0.001

Truncated cubeful rollout (depth 11) with var.redn.

46656 games, Mersenne Twister dice gen. with seed 963341888 and quasi-random dice

Play: 0-ply cubeful [expert]

Cube: 0-ply cubeful [expert]

4 R 13/4 +0.115 ( -0.044)

0.523 0.178 0.010 - 0.477 0.133 0.005 +0.099 +0.115

0.000 0.000 0.000 - 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.001 0.001

Truncated cubeful rollout (depth 11) with var.redn.

46656 games, Mersenne Twister dice gen. with seed 963341888 and quasi-random dice

Play: 0-ply cubeful [expert]

Cube: 0-ply cubeful [expert]

5 R 14/10 6/1 +0.114 ( -0.046)

0.521 0.192 0.011 - 0.479 0.137 0.005 +0.108 +0.114

0.000 0.000 0.000 - 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.001 0.001

Truncated cubeful rollout (depth 11) with var.redn.

46656 games, Mersenne Twister dice gen. with seed 963341888 and quasi-random dice

Play: 0-ply cubeful [expert]

Cube: 0-ply cubeful [expert]

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

Output generated by GNU Backgammon 0.14-devel (HTML Export version 1.123)