Newsletter for 30 March 2004

March Madness

On Tuesday, 30 March 2004, the Backgammon Club of San Diego met, and everybody jumped straight to the Sweet 16. The club welcomed back Chris Rosin and Ron Guerreri, and Chris wasted no time in placing in his first tournament in 2004.

Tournament News

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

First place: Tom Fahland & Fred Kamgar (split)
Third place: Chris Rosin
Blitz winner: Mark Weiner

For the first time this year, we ran a 4-player blitz tournament for people who wanted to continue playing after the main tournament filled. The rules we set were: $5 entry, five point matches, single elimination, winner takes all. By winning the blitz, Mark won two master points -- his first of the year.

With attendance on the rise, we may be running more than one 16-player bracket in the future.

Current Master Points Standings

Tom has moved into 4th place overall, while Fred has moved into 7th place overall. Jason Lee remains in first place, but Bruce Haight is still within striking distance, eight points behind.

 1. Jason Lee        39
 2. Bruce Haight     31
 3. Adrian Costa     25
 4. Tom Fahland      18
 5. Osman Guner      13
 6. Sho Sengoku      12
 7. Fred Kamgar      11
 8. Cyrus Mobedshahi 10
 9. Marcia Karen      9
10. Eric Sedehi       8
11. Chris Rosin       2
11. Mark Weiner       2
11. Greg Kopp         2
14. Maira Costa       1
14. 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

Black was playing an ace point game, finally hit a checker, and then forced White to jostle his checkers loose. Now what?

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

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

Money game. Pip counts: White 24, Black 100
Position ID: BQBAsM2mgQAEAA Match ID: UQkAAAAAAAAA

Last Week's Problem of the Week

Black was playing an ace point game, when he got a shot, and then jostled two checkers loose. What now?

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

| |

| |

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

Money game. Pip counts: White 39, Black 71
Position ID: /18AACBu200AAA Match ID: QYkaAAAAAAAA

There are two reasonable plays here. There's the obvious -- close out the last checker with 7/1 6/1, but there's another type of play not to be missed: 9/3 6/1. The goal is to try to recycle a checker in an attempt to hit the extra White blot, thereby increasing winning or gammon chances. Is it worth it?

GNU calls this one a photo finish -- in fact, this position was chosen precisely for this feature. Going for that extra checker raises the gammon chances from 3.7% to 8.1%, but drops the winning percentage -- if gammons weren't in play here, it wouldn't be right. Notice that 9/3 6/1 really buries Black's checkers pretty deep, but the benefit of going for the spare makes it right!

# Ply Move Equity

1 R 7/1* 6/1 +0.965

0.967 0.037 0.001 - 0.033 0.000 0.000 +0.972 +0.965

0.000 0.000 0.000 - 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.001

Full cubeful rollout with var.redn.

7776 games, Mersenne Twister dice gen. with seed 960590848 and quasi-random dice

Play: 0-ply cubeful [expert]

Cube: 0-ply cubeful [expert]

2 R 9/3 6/1* +0.964 ( -0.001)

0.947 0.081 0.002 - 0.053 0.000 0.000 +0.977 +0.964

0.000 0.001 0.000 - 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.001 0.001

Full cubeful rollout with var.redn.

7776 games, Mersenne Twister dice gen. with seed 960590848 and quasi-random dice

Play: 0-ply cubeful [expert]

Cube: 0-ply cubeful [expert]

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

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