Newsletter for 3 August 2004

The Dog Days Are Here

Tournament News

1st place:  Ryan Knowles / Mark Weiner (split)
3rd place:  Adrian Costa / Bruce Discher (split)

Congratulations to both Ryan and Mark -- first time winners for the year.

Current Master Points Standings

 1. Sho Sengoku      82
 2. Jason Lee        57
 3. Bruce Haight     56
 4. Adrian Costa     45
 5. Tom Fahland      43
 6. Osman Guner      37
 7. Fred Kamgar      29
 8. Eric Sedehi      24
 9. Cyrus Mobedshahi 18
10. Henry Chaboki    12
11. Bruce Discher    10
12. Mark Weiner       9
12. Marcia Karen      9
14. Ryan Knowles      8
14. Ned Cross         8
16. Greg Kopp         6
17. Vito Volpetti     4
18. Chris Rosin       3
19. Maira Costa       1
19. Sam Mehri         1

Not much action at the top of the standings, but Ryan and Mark just churned up the bottom of the standings. It seems that it might take double digits to make the top 16 this year.

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 leads 1-0 in a match to 3. Pip counts: White 135, Black 148
Position ID: GufgAwLg28EBBQ Match ID: cIlwAAAACAAA

Last Week's Problem of the Week

Here's a position from a BCSD tournament match between Osman Guner (Black) and Sho Sengoku (White) on 6 July 2004.

Match to 7, Black leads 2-0. Pip counts: Black 74, White 87
Position ID: u10HAEDurgEZAA Match ID: cAngACAAAAAA

I had to take a moment to count your covering (5pt) numbers and my chance to win when you failed to cover, and figured that that was a clear take, although I was not sure whether it was a double or not.

Only nine (22, 44, 62, 53, 55, 46) covering numbers are not enough to justify the double. When you are behind in the race by one or two shakes, then usually you need at least 11 or more covering numbers to ship the 2 cube. (If your opponent had a stronger board, you would need even more covering numbers.)

Cube decision
Rollout cubeless equity		+0.280	(Money: +0.285)
Cubeful equities:
1.	No double	+0.440
2.	Double, pass	+1.000	+0.560
3.	Double, take	+0.275	-0.165
Proper cube action:		No double, take (22.8%)
Rollout details
Win W g W bg   Lose L g L bg Cubeless Cubeful Centered 1-cube 0.661 0.014 0.000 - 0.339 0.049 0.001 +0.280 +0.440 Standard error 0.000 0.000 0.000 - 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.001 Player White owns 2-cube 0.664 0.013 0.000 - 0.336 0.046 0.001 +0.494 +0.275 Standard error 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 1092073728 and quasi-random dice
Play: 0-ply cubeful [expert]
Cube: 0-ply cubeful [expert]

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