Backgammon- have read 501 and for serious players, what next?

[Crispy86]

[ QUOTE ]
It's been mentioned that a critique of Robertie's Advanced Backgammon was published on the web a few years ago with roll outs done by computer showing some of the solutions to be wrong. I have Advanced Backgammon and enjoy it. I haven't been able to find this list of errors with a quick search. I'm interested and would like to see it. Do you have a URL?

raisins

[/ QUOTE ]

There are many resources, and I'm not sure which might have it, but I'd guess your best bet would be Backgammon Galore!, which is a compendium of the best articles published in the newsgroup collected by the tireless Tom Keith.

Just as a sidenote, you'll find a few mistakes in 501 as well, but the truth is it isn't all that serious. The most important aspect is to learn how to think backgammon, hence the explanations are the real meat of the book. If one can assimilate the concepts and apply them, then one has all the tools one needs. The bots are best for the exact moves, but without a good understanding of the concepts, one will not understand the why behind them. Anyhow, beyond suggesting a few sites, the best resources for information or guidance would be the newsgroup, or one of the aforementioned forums.

Albert

[TransientR]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
It's been mentioned that a critique of Robertie's Advanced Backgammon was published on the web a few years ago with roll outs done by computer showing some of the solutions to be wrong. I have Advanced Backgammon and enjoy it. I haven't been able to find this list of errors with a quick search. I'm interested and would like to see it. Do you have a URL?

raisins

[/ QUOTE ]

There are many resources, and I'm not sure which might have it, but I'd guess your best bet would be Backgammon Galore!, which is a compendium of the best articles published in the newsgroup collected by the tireless Tom Keith.

Just as a sidenote, you'll find a few mistakes in 501 as well, but the truth is it isn't all that serious. The most important aspect is to learn how to think backgammon, hence the explanations are the real meat of the book. If one can assimilate the concepts and apply them, then one has all the tools one needs. The bots are best for the exact moves, but without a good understanding of the concepts, one will not understand the why behind them. Anyhow, beyond suggesting a few sites, the best resources for information or guidance would be the newsgroup, or one of the aforementioned forums.

Albert

[/ QUOTE ]

I second these recommendations, especially joining the Gammonline forum. Cutting edge analysis by some of the best players in the world, but without the ego-driven nastiness sometimes encountered here.

I would also put a plug in for Modern Backgammon by Robertie, and anything written by Kit Woolsey. I have also heard great things about Backgammon Praxis by Marty Storer, though I haven't read the two volume set. But Marty, like many backgammon players, is generous with his time and advice.

Frank

[Robertie]

A better source is the book "Classic Backgammon Revisited" by Jeremy Bagai. (Available from the Gammon Press.) Jeremy analyzed four classic books, Magriel's Backgammon, Advanced BG 1 and 2, Dwek's Backgammon for Profit, and Jacoby and Crawford, for errors using Snowie 3, then published new analysis of all the erroneous problems in light of modern knowledge. It's one of the best books ever written on BG and will be very helpful as a supplement to the original Advanced BG set.

The problem with the lists published on the Internet is that they're full of errors themselves. Most were compiled by using very early versions of Jellyfish, which didn't play well enough to produce reliable results. (The current version of JF, 3.5, is good enough, but folks use Snowie nowadays because it plays a bit better, especially in backgames.)

I should produce a third edition of Advanced BG sometimes, as I have more than enough material for a thoroughly improved set of books, but I seem to have fallen into the seductive trap of playing poker and writing poker books, so I don't know when I'll get around to that.

[Piers]

Get Snowie. The best teacher and opponent around.

[Crispy86]

[ QUOTE ]
Get Snowie. The best teacher and opponent around.

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually, GNU Backgammon is a tad stronger, has more features, and is free. I should also add it has faster rollouts, and is the only one to play its rollouts according to score.

Albert

[Robertie]

I second Piers' opinion -- get Snowie. You'll find it well worth the investment, and it plays back games better than any other package, due to a specially tuned neural net. According to the backgammon forums, GNU remains full of bugs and unimplemented features.