Exchange

General Go Discussion
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I am trying to learn how to play this game. I am a master level backgammon player. I will teach someone the basics and more advanced tactics in that game in exchange for some basics in this one

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Hi @AreaS4, welcome to the forum! I hope you’ll stick around - even if nobody here takes you up on the backgammon offer, you’ll find a lot of people here willing to help you get started in Go.

I actually learned a little bit of backgammon recently after hearing about it from a mathematician. It was interesting to hear that there’s a lot of math involved in backgammon strategy, maybe making it more similar to poker than go and chess. Do you do a lot of mental calculations in your games? What kinds of math are used?

In go, by contrast, I don’t think there’s ever much math involved beyond counting stones and territory and comparing the counts of various moves.

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In the Go Forum on the other hand…

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Hello there,

There is a ton of math in high-level backgammon, from Pip counts to take points and match equity tables. It is very important to know the odds of dice rolls and combinations. The basic idea is to always maximize your equity in any position. Meaning what? You play the move that gives you the best winning chances. Its interesting as Backgammon was one of the first games to have analysis done by neural net bots. (Like alpha go).

Here is an example:
" When to double

Cube decisions are straightforward in last-roll situations, assuming gammon chances are negligible. You should double if you are a favorite to win, by even the slightest amount.

The game has become a one-roll proposition, and you have a choice between playing at the current stakes or at two times the current stakes. If you are a favorite, you want to play at two times the current stakes, so you should double. Otherwise, you should not.

When to take

Conversely, in a last-roll situation, you should take an opponent’s double if you have more than a 25% chance to win the game. Consider the possibilities after your opponent doubles: you can take and lose, you can drop, or you can take and win.

  • If you take and lose, you lose twice the stakes.
  • If you drop, you lose the stakes.
  • If you take and win, you win twice the stakes."

https://www.bkgm.com/articles/Bell/TheDoublingCube/index.html

And yes there are a lot of Poker Pro’s who also are pros at backgammon. Gus Hansen Marc Olsen, Dirk Schiemen (sp), Wilcox Snellings.

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