Newsletter for 8 June 2004

On Tuesday, 8 June 2004, the Backgammon Club of San Diego met. The gang's all here, so we had a tournament.

Tournament News

11 people entered two tournaments -- a 16-player bracket and an 8-player bracket -- on Tuesday night. We had the following tournament results:

Main Tournament (16 player bracket)

First place:   Sho Sengoku
Second place:  Osman Guner
Third place:   Tom Fahland / Chris Rosin (split)

Overflow Tournament (8 player bracket)

First place:   Fred Kamgar and Jason Lee (split)

For the sixth week in a row, Sho Sengoku played in the tournament finals.

For the first time ever, the demand for entries far outstripped the spots available, so an overflow bracket was created. An 8-player overflow tournament pays 75%/25% money and 4/2 master points to first and second place. Fred Kamgar and Jason Lee advanced to the overflow tournament finals and agreed to split -- so both receive three master points.

Mark Land and Chris Rosin, club stalwarts in the past, both made rare appearances tonight. Chris has played in two tournaments thus far in 2004 and has placed in both, a sure sign that he hasn't lost a step.

Current Master Points Standings

 1. Sho Sengoku      54
 2. Jason Lee        43
 3. Adrian Costa     39
 4. Bruce Haight     38
 5. Tom Fahland      31
 6. Osman Guner      29
 7. Fred Kamgar      28
 8. Cyrus Mobedshahi 18
 9. Eric Sedehi      16
10. Henry Chaboki    12
11. Marcia Karen      9
12. Greg Kopp         6
13. Chris Rosin       3
13. Mark Weiner       3
15. Bruce Discher     2
15. Ryan Knowles      2
17. Maira Costa       1
17. Sam Mehri         1

Sho maintains first place overall. Jason Lee is six points behind, Adrian Costa seven back, and Bruce Haight eight points off the pace, all within striking distance.

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.

53rd Gammon Associates Invitational

The 53rd Gammon Associates Invitational was held at the A.R. Private Club in Beverly Hills, California, over the weekend of June 11-13. The BCSD was well represented this weekend. Sho Sengoku, Jason Lee, Adrian Costa, and Mark Weiner all entered the tournament. Sho and Jason entered the Open Division, while Adrian and Mark entered the Advanced Division. 50 people entered the Open, and 32 entered the Advanced.

Everybody fared reasonably well, but the big winner was Jason Lee, who took second place in the Open Division, losing in the finals to Wayne Jeffcoat.

Check back next week for a complete recap.

Problem of the Week

Seven point match -- your opponent opens with a 2-1 and splits. You roll 2-1. What's your move?

Last Week's Problem of the Week

A position from the 3rd round of the Open Consolation of the FIBS 2004 Spring Backgammon Tournament:

Here are some old problems of the week:

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

| |

| | | |

| 1 | 2 1

| |

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

7 point match, tied 0-0. Pip counts: White 164, Black 167
Position ID: 4HPkASjgc/ABMA Match ID: cAnlAAAAAAAA

A rollout shows that the top two contenders are photo finishes:

# Ply Move Equity

1 R 24/21 -0.214

0.455 0.108 0.004 - 0.545 0.150 0.005 -0.136 -0.214

0.000 0.000 0.000 - 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.001 0.001

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

7776 games, Mersenne Twister dice gen. with seed 971250688 and quasi-random dice

Play: 0-ply cubeful [expert]

Cube: 0-ply cubeful [expert]

2 R 24/23 13/11 -0.214 ( -0.000)

0.454 0.119 0.004 - 0.546 0.158 0.007 -0.136 -0.214

0.000 0.000 0.000 - 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.001 0.001

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

7776 games, Mersenne Twister dice gen. with seed 971250688 and quasi-random dice

Play: 0-ply cubeful [expert]

Cube: 0-ply cubeful [expert]

3 4 24/23 24/22 -0.163 ( +0.051)

0.466 0.111 0.004 - 0.534 0.151 0.005

4-ply cubeful

4 4 13/10 -0.177 ( +0.037)

0.460 0.120 0.004 - 0.540 0.154 0.007

4-ply cubeful

5 4 13/11 6/5 -0.189 ( +0.025)

0.464 0.121 0.004 - 0.536 0.170 0.011

4-ply cubeful

Here's another old one:

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

| |

| | | |

| 1 |

| |

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

Pip counts: White 24, Black 22
Position ID: rQwAANsMAAAAAA Match ID: cAkgAQAAAAAA

As an interesting benchmark, a pure five roll position is a double and a take -- the roller is 71.7% to win. If both players have two checkers each on the one, two, three, and four points, then it's still double/take -- that position is 73.9% for the roller.

The gap on the four point really hurts Black chances -- enough to tip the scale -- misses by Black don't leave White in a position to double, but it really levels the playing field.

Cube decision

Rollout cubeless equity +0.314 (Money: +0.314)

Cubeful equities:

1. Double, take +0.463

2. Double, pass +1.000 +0.537

3. No double +0.444 -0.020

Proper cube action: Double, take

Rollout details

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

Centered 1-cube 0.657 0.000 0.000 - 0.343 0.000 0.000 +0.314 +0.444

Standard error 0.000 0.000 0.000 - 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.001

Player White owns 2-cube 0.657 0.000 0.000 - 0.343 0.000 0.000 +0.692 +0.463

Standard error 0.000 0.000 0.000 - 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.001

Full cubeful rollout with var.redn.

46656 games, Mersenne Twister dice gen. with seed 971250880 and quasi-random dice

Play: 0-ply cubeful [expert]

Cube: 2-ply cubeful 100% speed [world class]

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

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