Apologies to all the readers who have been looking for some content during the last three weeks. What happened? Well, I get a phase now and again when my own play goes completely to pot, as I take huge passes, miss obvious plays and generally play like a clown. This is invariably because I get overloaded, thinking about the game, playing, writing, giving lessons and in the end I just get totally confused! Writing in this mood is quite impossible and as I've had a quiet time on the lesson front, I've taken a break. In the interim, I've lost the match from which I was taking the back game positions, so I can't go on with that either. What is really happening here is that I have to give this blog up for a while, along with playing speed sudoku, Fibs, Gridgammon and watching endless bowling shows on You Tube. I have to get out from in front of this computer and get some fresh air! It's been great fun doing this and thanks a million to those of you who have taken the trouble to contribute. Your interest and appreciation have more than repaid the time I've put into it.
perhaps one day I'll be inspired to kick start it again.
In the meantime, enjoy the game!
11 comments:
Thanks for a very interesting blog... I've lived through the times when writing becomes too much on top of everything else as well. Have a good break and when you do return, enjoy the game!
Thanks for a great blog, Paul! For the benefit of the other readers, I'll roll out Position 4 from your last post and report the results here in a couple of days.
Your blog will be very much missed it was one of the best pieces of quality backgammon writing available.
Maybe you expect too much of yourself and expect perfection all the time. The trend of your game shows just how good you actually are - don't be too put off by errors they are obviously the opportunity to learn. You are a really strong player but you are not a bot ! You are allowed to make mistakes!
Anyway hope you enjoy your break and if you do resume please post on bgonline and let us know.
All the best to you Paul.
Thanks, Paul, for your erudite blog. Well written, amusing and instructive, it will be much missed. Enjoy the fresh air!
sun, sea sand and sangria
best wishes
So long and thanks for the fish!
boop says
thanks Paul for all your help over the last 2 years - you've always been happy to answer questions, i've learned loads from you and I always looked forward to your blog in fact it's the only one I followed religeously. i look forward to the time when your rating tops that amazing 2k again on fibs and wish you all the best.
hasta la vista
O.K., as promised, here are the results of a 3-ply/3-ply rollout of Position 4 from Paul's last post, using eXtreme Gammon 1.21. The top two plays below were rolled out 5184 times each, the next two were rolled out 3888 times each, and the fifth and sixth plays were rolled out 1296 times each.
+0.039±0.014 20/11
+0.031±0.013 20/16 20/15
-0.011±0.015 13/9 13/8
-0.014±0.014 13/8 10/6
-0.042±0.025 20/15 10/6
-0.044±0.027 13/8 5/1
There's still quite a bit of variance left, but it seems that either 20/11 or 20/16 20/15 is a fine play. (The choice between them is too close to call; in fact, 20/16 20/15 was slightly ahead for most of the rollout and 20/11 overtook it only towards the end.) I'm a little surprised to see that 13/9 13/8 and 13/8 10/6 are the runners-up; I wouldn't have guessed that.
dorbel wrote
"when my own play goes completely to pot, as I take huge passes, miss obvious plays and generally play like a clown."
At first - I'd doubt that you play 'like a clown'.
Second - there's an facet of learning a college mentor of mine once pointed me to - that is, that our brains need to reorganize new input so that it can use more efficiently.
I'm no neurologist, so I cannot elaborate on that, but I started self-examining my leaning behavior regarding both college subjects and chess playing.
My conclusion is that, whenever someone learns sth. of dcent complexity, skill may first seem to decline until that process of reorganization carried out by the brain is completed.
E.g. in chess:
Some to time ago did a lot of analysis work regarding some Sicilian Opening lines.
I had the feeling that overall grasp of chess improved (and in fact if did), but during the months I carried out those analysis tasks my scores, esp my blitz scores, worsened.
I experienced about the same regarding bg, so could it be that the decline in playing performance you're noting is simply due you processing all the input you get from your various bg-related activities thus its basically a sign of 'learning'?
With best regards,
D.
boop says: well I knew back games were a touchy subject but I didn't think all hell would break loose! ... anyway there's a happy ending as Dorbel is hovering around and above the 2k point again on fibs. YAY!
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