Newsletter for 20 April 2004

Even today, smoking is not allowed...

On Tuesday, 20 April 2004, the Backgammon Club of San Diego met. A tournament rapidly ensued.

Tournament News

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

First place: Henry Chaboki and Fred Kamgar (split)
Third place: Osman Guner

We seriously considered opening a second 16-player bracket, but the feeling is that a minimum of 12 players present is necessary to do this.

When it happens (and it will happen soon!), we will have separate 16-player brackets that pay out 1st, 2nd, and 3rd separately. Furthermore, each bracket will award a full slate of master points. The side pool will be awarded to the highest finishing player in either bracket -- which means the side pool could easily be split across the brackets.

Surprisingly, no blitzes were run this week, but they continue to be a strong option for people eliminated after all buy-backs are gone.

Stay tuned for some news about a tournament to be run by Mozafar Behrooznia and Farida Abbasi. It will be a non-cash tournament, but with some nice prizes, and of course it will be a BCSD sponsored event, so master points will be awarded! Details forthcoming, but look for this tournament to be held in late May.

Current Master Points Standings

Fred, by splitting for first place in the tournament, moved into a tie with Osman for 6th place in the overall standings. Henry has hit double digits, and is now in 9th place overall. The top five remain unchanged.

 1. Jason Lee        39
 2. Bruce Haight     32
 3. Adrian Costa     29
 4. Tom Fahland      26
 5. Cyrus Mobedshahi 18
 6. Fred Kamgar      17
 6. Osman Guner      17
 8. Sho Sengoku      12
 9. Henry Chaboki    10
10. Marcia Karen      9
11. Eric Sedehi       8
12. Mark Weiner       3
13. Ryan Knowles      2
13. Chris Rosin       2
13. Greg Kopp         2
16. Maira Costa       1
16. 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

From an early heads-up game on Tuesday. Making the 5 point jumps out as an obvious contender, as do the moves that button up the blot under attack.

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

| |

| | | |

| 1 | 1 3

| |

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

Money game. Pip counts: White 151, Black 131
Position ID: 2ObEATDg24kLAA Match ID: cIkMAAAAAAAA

Last Week's Problem of the Week

Cube or play on?

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

| |

| | 1X| |

| |

| 4 |

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

Score tied 0-0 in a 5 point match. Pip counts: Black 67, White 73
Position ID: 3x1DAEDb24EABA Match ID: UgmgAAAAAAAA

A pretty solid cash. White has enough of a path to victory if Black misses, and playing on for the gammon doesn't accomplish much for Black -- he can't use the entire value of the gammon. But once Black hits, his market is lost.

Cube decision

Rollout cubeless equity +0.829 (Money: +0.943)

Cubeful equities:

1. Double, pass +1.000

2. Double, take +1.093 +0.093

3. No double +0.925 -0.075

Proper cube action: Redouble, pass

Rollout details

Win W g W bg Lose L g L bg Cubeless Cubeful

Player Black owns 4-cube 0.874 0.196 0.002 - 0.126 0.002 0.000 +0.829 +0.925

Standard error 0.000 0.000 0.000 - 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000

Player White owns 8-cube 0.883 0.145 0.001 - 0.117 0.001 0.000 +1.093 +1.093

Standard error 0.000 0.000 0.000 - 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000

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

46656 games, Mersenne Twister dice gen. with seed 967770944 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)