The UK Backgammon Federation
We will soon be ready to invite all backgammon players to join the UKBGF. Details of membership packages to choose from are on the Join page. Significant progress with our objectives has already been made, and further announcements will follow in the coming months.
The splendid UKBGF website has been sadly lacking in controversy since the five pre-election questions were provocatively posed late last year so it is a good time to raise the following divisive discussion. I encourage anyone who has a strong view either way on the following motion to get involved in what I hope will become a lively debate.
Variable pools favour the stronger, cash-rich player but penalise and
act as a disincentive to the weaker cash-poor player.
50 + D*85/(T+6)
To anyone who takes the game seriously and is of a certain age (like me) this formula will be etched in their memory. For the uninitiated, the “Janowski formula” enables one to calculate to a good approximation the probability of winning a match from any given score. This formula helps one to recreate a match equity table (MET) which can then be used to work out doubling and take points. I came across it for the first time in Kit Woolsey’s How to play Tournament Backgammon. I must have applied this formula OTB (over the board) more times than I have had hot dinners during my formative BG years living in Hong Kong, but I never knew who Rick Janowski was.
Fourteen players gathered at East Midlands Airport this weekend to get the first British tournament in the BMAB’s Masters Series underway under the watchful eye of Rick Janowski. As we reported earlier, the aim is two-fold – to win games, of course, and to play with as low an error rate as possible. To make that possible, every game is recorded on video, transcribed and analysed. And that gave the tournament a different feel from the start – instead of a wide variety of personalised boards of varying sizes, we arrived to find standard sized boards with high contrast pieces and tape marks on the tables to position them exactly for the array of cameras positioned above. Players were also shepherded to specific boards with nameplates so that none could end up on the wrong video by mistake, with Rick watching in on an impressive array of laptops…
Or “Division 2 London Player does surprisingly well against Danish Champion”
UKBGF’s Raj Jansari was over in Denmark this weekend for the Munkebjerg Championships – a regular event run in association with the Danish Backgammon Federation. It features a very strong field in the main division, and plenty of action with generous prizes right down to beginner level.
[Read more…]
Recent Comments