"Terry" wrote

Luck plays no part in backgammon at all. What do you think will
happen if you play the backgammon world champion over 100 games.
The better player will always win over a period of time.
Luck obviously plays a part if you only play 1 game.
Some people say there is more skill to poker then in chess and I tend to
agree.

Toss a coin once and luck dertermines whether you win or lose.
Toss it 1000 times and what do you think the result will be.

According to you Bridge is all luck because it depends on card deal.

You do not understand the meaning of the word "luck" or the mathematical
definition of "chance."

To say that "luck plays no part in backgammon at all" is beyond ignorant.
You roll the dice, and you make the best move on that basis. You can win or
lose the game, but given an equal skill level the guy with the best dice
will win. Is that not luck, or chance?

Over 100 games there is a decent chance that a very good backgammon player
will beat a world backgammon champion several times. There is almost no
chance you will beat a 2600 chess player one out of 100 games, even if he's
on crack, drunk, and has just screwed 13 women in 2 hours.

wrote

But in tournament chess, there *is* luck of a kind. In a typical Swiss
system tournament, your pairings (particularly in large sections) have
an element of chance. I've been paired against an 1800 player in one
round and a 300 player in another.

In my original post I cited situations like this as the "luck" in chess.
Still, if you play the best move you will win all the time. That's the great
thing about chess.

I've followed tournament bridge for 25 years and read avidly on the subject
although I hardly ever play. The element of luck in bridge is substantial,
and all great players recognize it. I would imagine it would be much more so
in backgammon. As one poster pointed out it's relatively common for a duffer
to beat top players at bridge. I have had incredibly good rounds against
sitting world champions. I've played in events where 2600 equivalent bridge
players playing together finished out of the money and I placed ahead of
them. A game where expertise is buttressed by statistics is, in effect, a
game of chance.

On 14 Dec 2006 18:27:13 -0800, wrote:

The point is that the world backgammon champion is not going to play
you one game for a million dollars. You will have to win a 25 point
match, as well as a bunch of other matches that are very long, and this
means you have to be very skilled with the cube.

So this combats the luck factor a bit, but you can still have a streak of
bad luck and it may decide over winning or losing a tournament. This
element is missing from chess altogether (where the participants also play
series of matches, not just individual games).

Another point about this "debate" is that you can play top level
backgammon well into "old age," depending upon how you define it, and
it seems to me that one gets better as one gets older at backgammon (up
to a certain age, of course) whereas the opposite is true in chess.

How old have the ten recent backgammon world champions been when they got
their titles? Chess masters still play better than most people even at an
older age, but it is true that champions "peak" in the first half of their
lives.

As to the "control my own fate" idea; I like the fact that I can make a
minor error in backgammon and not necessarily get squeezed to death, as
a good chess player can do to you (Karpov was considered the best at
doing this).

According to what other backgammon players have said, a good player will
always win versus a weaker player. So unless you are taking that statement
back or disagree with the other backgammon advocates, you will still lose
against a world class player. I could point out the handicap system of go
here, but a professional player will "crush" a novice player even if the
beginner gets nine handicap stones. But as long as people are not on
totally opposite ends of the spectrum, it does help. Then again, this is
about chess vs. backgammon, so go is not necessarily relevant (it is, to
me, the only alternative to chess, though). So, anyway, as a causual or
club player, you won't play chess against GMs. Makes no real sense to,
either.

Lastly, there is the "fun" factor. I can play backgammon against a
person or top program and learn a lot, whereas chess involves "study"
that is not fun at all.

That's an individual preference, though. Personally, I enjoy reading about
tactics and strategy, and doing puzzles or problems. It's part of the fun
for me, but I'm a casual gamer only, so when I do study, I do it when I
feel like it, not because I have to.

And it seems that my mind responds better to
this, in terms of learning to play better. When I look at a chess
board now, I have this feeling that only drudgery awaits. When I look
at a backgammon board, I can't wait to play

Can't argue against this, because it's a matter of preference, just like
some people prefer a steak over calimari. I look at backgammon every once
in a while, especially since it's such an old game, but it doesn't really
"grab" me. Pure skill games give me a better "feel" for improvement and
progress, because there's no luck involved. I don't play fifty chess or go
games an evening, and it seems that you do have to play a lot of backgammon
games to combat the luck factor.

M.

"Ange1o DePa1ma" wrote in message
...

wrote

But in tournament chess, there *is* luck of a kind. In a typical Swiss
system tournament, your pairings (particularly in large sections) have
an element of chance. I've been paired against an 1800 player in one
round and a 300 player in another.

In my original post I cited situations like this as the "luck" in chess.
Still, if you play the best move you will win all the time. That's the
great thing about chess.

I've followed tournament bridge for 25 years and read avidly on the
subject although I hardly ever play. The element of luck in bridge is
substantial, and all great players recognize it. I would imagine it would
be much more so in backgammon. As one poster pointed out it's relatively
common for a duffer to beat top players at bridge. I have had incredibly
good rounds against sitting world champions. I've played in events where
2600 equivalent bridge players playing together finished out of the money
and I placed ahead of them. A game where expertise is buttressed by
statistics is, in effect, a game of chance.




Poker is a game of chance ??

"Inconnux" wrote in message
ps.com...

You simply have no grasp of probabilties. Do you agree that in poker the
better
player will always win over a period of time.

Regards

yes Ive taken statistics...


But onviously never understood it.

Inconnux wrote:
'Luck' evens out over a period of time.

sure over a period of time, but in each individual game luck plays a
HUGE factor in these types of games.

It's possible to win a single game of backgammon through luck but very
unusual to win, say, a match to eight points. (Which isn't especially
long -- individual games don't last very long at all.) The law of
large numbers holds pretty well over that sort of time frame.


Although from what was posted about contract bridge, it sounds like
there is some skill in that game.

I suspect that, if you were to play some backgammon against a
reasonably experienced player, you would be surprised by just how
consistently `unlucky' you were.


Dave.

--
David Richerby Crystal Priest (TM): it's like a
www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~davidr/ man of the cloth but it's completely
transparent!

Inconnux wrote:
lol now that is pure crap... if you roll the dice and you get
crap numbers, there is NO way to win

The skill in backgammon is in positioning your men to minimize the
number of rolls that are bad for you.


Dave.

--
David Richerby Disposable Goldfish (TM): it's like
www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~davidr/ a fish but you never have to clean it!

Inconnux wrote:
Lets put it this way... If I played ONE game against the world
backgammon champion I have a chance at winning due to good dice
rolls.

But you don't play just one game. You play a match to eight and
you'll lose almost every time.


Dave.

--
David Richerby Sumerian Gnome (TM): it's like
www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~davidr/ a smiling garden ornament that's
really old!

Terry wrote:
"Inconnux" wrote:
You simply have no grasp of probabilties. Do you agree that in
poker the better player will always win over a period of time.

yes Ive taken statistics...

But onviously never understood it.

Not necessarily. Knowing that the better player will win over a
period of time isn't much use: what if that period of time is so long
that it's inconvenient or even impossible to play a statistically
significant match? The point with backgammon, at least, is that you
don't need to play for a very long time for the better player to pull
ahead.


Dave.

--
David Richerby Enormous Chocolate Shack (TM): it's
www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~davidr/ like a house in the woods that's made
of chocolate but it's huge!

David Richerby wrote:
Inconnux wrote:
lol now that is pure crap... if you roll the dice and you get
crap numbers, there is NO way to win

The skill in backgammon is in positioning your men to minimize the
number of rolls that are bad for you.

And using the doubling cube. Among those skills in backgammon are
such diverse elements as fear, surprise, positioning your men to
minimize the number of rolls that are bad for you, using the doubling
cube and, oh, I'll come in again.


Dave.

--
David Richerby Disposable Pickled.com (TM): it's
www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~davidr/ like an E-commerce portal but it's
preserved in vinegar and you never
have to clean it!