Fifteen men in each home board
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum
“Today”, said Goldilocks, “we are going to look at three positions which are useful in calculating cube actions in bearoffs.”
The UK Backgammon Federation
Fifteen men in each home board
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum
“Today”, said Goldilocks, “we are going to look at three positions which are useful in calculating cube actions in bearoffs.”
By Paul Lamford
“What do you make of this position, Watson?”, asked Holmes, arriving at the Baker St Backgammon Club just after the last member had left:
By Paul Lamford
Three Positions: Goldilocks and the Three Spares
Goldilocks was surprised by the correct actions of the following, but not surprised that all three bears got them wrong. Can you do better? Try them first before seeing the rollouts.
By Paul Lamford
by Foxymoron
I am a great fan of George Bernard Shaw. He was an exponent of the clever riposte. He had an exchange with Chesterton, a large man, who said of Shaw: “I see there has been a famine in the land.” Shaw, a man of slight build: “And I see the cause of it.”
I used one of Shaw’s exchanges (with Churchill) when someone was organising a backgammon tournament at a far too expensive wine bar in North London. He said, “Come along to the first night this Wednesday, and bring a friend, if you have one.” I quickly replied, “I can’t make that, but will come to the second night, if there is one”.
A few of us silver foxes are old enough to recall, the “shot that was heard around the world” – Gene Sarazen’s epic double eagle to the 15th at Augusta in 1935. Well, now we have the backgammon equivalent: “the cube that was heard around the world.”
I have gotten wonderful feedback on it from many of the greatest players in history, and it goes right to the very heart about what makes backgammon, and in particular matchplay, such an absorbing, fascinating and challenging paradox.
Initially, I was chided in some quarters by those saying the cube is not as complex as I was making out, but subsequent investigations have blown that theory out the water – in fact the play by young star Ollie Squire has dramatically risen in my estimations, not declined.
The cube is “a play, within a play, within a play”, Shakespeare would have purred:
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