We meet every Wednesday at 7 pm at Busters Bar and Grill on 420 Hazeldean road in Ottawa. 

All welcome. Come for a casual game or play in the double elimination tournament.

skaadee@gmail.com

Scott

                   Caldwell Wins Caldwell Slam!!!


The Backgammon world was set on its ear in 2019 when Robert Caldwell won, what can only be called, the Caldwell Slam! That's right, he won the Sunday and Wednesday leagues.
With no more mountains to climb around here he may just pack his bags and return to his native Chicago where the wind is wilder and the pond is bigger or he may just terrorize us a few more years.

Who knows?

This position came up and someone wanted to know why it was such a big double for red. Here's 3 responses from 3 separate members of the Ottawa BG club. Feel free to leave your opinion. 1. "I see the effective pip count as close to even with all of blue's wastage and the gap on the 4. I don't think there is any roll for red that blue has an immediate re double? You also have to look at red's 5% gammon chances where blue has no gammon chance. When red does hit, his winning chances are over 90%. When red rolls a missing number like say 5-2, he can play 13-6 with not much worry and blue doubling after that would be a big blunder. I see this as a pretty big edge for red." 2. "First of all the idea of an immediate redouble is insignificant since the cube is centered and would have been available to blue anyway. The pip count is deceptive, red has a perfectly smooth bear off. It’s better to count crossovers in the outfield and the pip count in the outfield. The crossovers are 6 to 5, with red on the roll. The outfield pip count is 26 to 29. Also, when red fails to throw a 6, he can still move off the 13 point, say with a 54, if he wants since blue’s board is not set up to contain a man on the bar. It’s a double because any hit is a loss of market. This type of position occurs often, the important thing is to know that it is a take for blue." 3. "I set up the position on gnu, and it also considers it a definite double--I would guess because of the blot in blue's home board which must involve a real gammon risk in case red hits and gets hit in return. But even when I moved that blot to the 22 point, gnu still thought it is a double, but a very borderline one."

This, of course, is what all the fighting is about. The Lessard Cup! The best record over the course of a year takes her home.

Here is the website for the Ottawa Backgammon Club: http://leaderdragon.tripod.com/bgammon.html Tournaments take place at 9:45 on the first Sunday of every month (except July and August)at Moose McGuire on McCarthy Road You should be there at 9:30am if you want to play. Buy-in is low.

Interesting BG book

www.bkgm.com/books/Euler-EverydayErrorsInCheckerPlay.pdf
Here's a mysterious Backgammon Book that appeared on the internet awhile back.

I haven't posted for a while, remember, the next time the Ottawa Backgammon Club meets is September 7th, 2014 at Buster's Bar and Grill, 2525 Carling Avenue at 9:45 in the morning.

We take the Summer off.


Enjoy the book!

Here's a position I ran across which I should have known.
I think it needs to be posted so no one else gets hypnotised by the big cube and drops.

The comments are from Bruce from the club.
(black to roll)

here's the rollout from ExtremeGammon.

65.51% wins for me 34.49% for you. Should have been no double/take. 0.029 error on my part to offer.

I still think it's a good pressure double two times out of three I would have gone 6-3 up.......

If all the checkers were on the one point it would be 75.43% wins for me and 25.47% for you. So three times out of four I would have been 6-3 up and Extreme Gammon still calls that a double/take and a 0.165 error if you dropped. Not convinced about the bot's reasoning sometimes...... too mathematical maybe - maybe reducing it to outcomes is not such a bad approach in these instances as a guide for decision-making.