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

[Crispy86]

[ QUOTE ]
So I've read 501 essential backgammon problems and backgammon for serious players. I'm eager to tackle some more backgammon literature. However, I don't see anyone here recommending anything past the 501 essential bg probs level. The 2-book advanced backgammon set by Robertie any good? I really am clueless from here on out, so any help would be great.

[/ QUOTE ]

The 2 volume set is excellent but a bit advanced. Really the best you could do right now is to subscribe to GammOnLine the site by Kit Woolsey, which has years of articles plus tons of commented matches, move-by-move, for a one-time fee of $35-40. There is also a forum for members in which players of all levels, including some of the absolute best, analyize positions every day. Another feature is a very detailed match against Woolsey, played at a move a day in which the moves are analyzed in the forum, and you can see Kit's move and analysis of his move and the one voted by the readers.

Another excellent site and resource for articles is GammonVillage. If you get their most expensive subscription, you get access to all their archives which includes articles from top experts, including Robertie. The Boot Camp book mentioned elsewhere in the thread is based on a series of 30+ articles by Walter Trice published at GammonVillage. Both these sites have enough quality instructive material to last you years.

The next is to download GNU Backgammon, the best backgammon program around, and use it to analuyze your matches. GNU is on par with the absolute best players in the world, if not better on average, and can import and analyze any online match as well as your games against it, highlighting your errors. ALL good or top players analyze with bots, whether they be Snowie or GNU, to stay sharp and improve. I would say that studying with a bot such as GNU is at least 50% of the improvement process.

I wrote a tutorial for it a while back. It isn't completely up to date, but it should cover at least 90% of what you would need to know.

Albert