Newsletter for 11 January 2005

Tournament News

On Tuesday, 11 January 2004, the Backgammon Club of San Diego met. 14 players entered a 16-player tournament and an 8-player overflow tournament, with the following results:

Main Tournament (16 player bracket)
  • 1st place:  Steve Blake and Henry Chaboki (split)

  • 3rd place:  Cyrus Mobedshahi
    • Overflow Tournament (8 player bracket)
  • 1st place:  Adrian Costa and Eric Sedehi (split)

    • Current Master Points Standings 

    Henry Chaboki     12
Steve Blake        7
Bruce Haight       6
Jason Lee          6
Sheldon Woytek     6
Adrian Costa       4
Eric Sedehi        3
Cyrus Mobedshahi   2
Osman Guner        1
Fred Kamgar        1
    Henry has split first place in two tournaments so far this year to take an early lead in the master point standings.

    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 2005 BCSD Tournament of Champions, to be held in early 2006.

    Problem of the Week

    +-24-23-22-21-20-19-+---+-18-17-16-15-14-13-+
    |4X3X ' ' ' '|   | ' ' ' ' ' '|
    |                   |   |                   |
    |                 | 1 |                 |
    |5O2O1O ' ' '|   | ' ' ' ' ' '|
    +--1--2--3--4--5--6-+---+--7--8--9-10-11-12-+

    Money game. Black on roll. Cube action? Pip counts: White 10, Black 12

    Last Week's Problem of the Week

    It's desperation time. Your opponent has borne off fourteen checkers, but you hit the last checker and now seek a miraculous victory. It's tough, but not impossible. So how do you play the 4-4 in this position?

    This position arose in a 2nd round BCSD match on 14 December 2004 between Mozafar Behrooznia and Jason Lee. Jason was playing the Black checkers, Mozafar was playing White.

    +-24-23-22-21-20-19-+---+-18-17-16-15-14-13-+
    | ' ' ' ' ' '|   | ' ' ' ' '1O|
    |                   | 1X|                   |
    |                 | 1 |       4 4       |
    |2O2O2O2O3O3O|   | ' ' ' ' ' '|
    +--1--2--3--4--5--6-+---+--7--8--9-10-11-12-+

    Double match point. Pip counts: White 25, Black 66

    4-4 is not a good roll for Black here. The game plan is to aggressivly bear off, hoping for White to dance unluckily a few times. Your chances of winning with 15 checkers against one is slim -- no more than 7 or 8 percent.

    Because Black needs White to dance, the wrong approach is to leave any hope of entering. Black should definitely keep his board intact, even though it means burying checkers. An unconventional position requires an unconventional strategy. 13/1 6/2, ugly though it seems, is right here.

    # Ply Move Equity
      1 R 13/1 6/2 -0.879
     
    0.0600.0000.000-0.9400.0000.000 -0.879 -0.879
    0.0000.0000.000-0.0000.0000.000 0.001 0.001
    		  
      Truncated cubeful rollout (depth 11) with var.redn.  
      7776 games, Mersenne Twister dice gen. with seed 952202176 and quasi-random dice  
      Play: 0-ply cubeful [expert]  
      Cube: 0-ply cubeful [expert]  
      2 R 13/5 4/off(2) -0.897 ( -0.017)
     
    0.0520.0000.000-0.9480.0000.000 -0.897 -0.897
    0.0000.0000.000-0.0000.0000.000 0.001 0.001
    		  
      Truncated cubeful rollout (depth 11) with var.redn.  
      7776 games, Mersenne Twister dice gen. with seed 952202176 and quasi-random dice  
      Play: 0-ply cubeful [expert]  
      Cube: 0-ply cubeful [expert]  
      3 R 13/1 4/off -0.899 ( -0.020)
     
    0.0500.0000.000-0.9500.0000.000 -0.899 -0.899
    0.0000.0000.000-0.0000.0000.000 0.001 0.001
    		  
      Truncated cubeful rollout (depth 11) with var.redn.  
      7776 games, Mersenne Twister dice gen. with seed 952202176 and quasi-random dice  
      Play: 0-ply cubeful [expert]  
      Cube: 0-ply cubeful [expert]  
      4 R 13/1 5/1 -0.901 ( -0.022)
     
    0.0490.0000.000-0.9510.0000.000 -0.901 -0.901
    0.0000.0000.000-0.0000.0000.000 0.001 0.001
    		  
      Truncated cubeful rollout (depth 11) with var.redn.  
      7776 games, Mersenne Twister dice gen. with seed 952202176 and quasi-random dice  
      Play: 0-ply cubeful [expert]  
      Cube: 0-ply cubeful [expert]  

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