By UKBGF reporter Will Cockerell
As we enter into the denouement of this superb festival of backgammon, we have nine players left with a broad range of work to do.
| Name | Wins Required |
| George Jacobs Len Brown Chris Bray Radu Ciortan Will Cockerell Nick Sandqvist Afshin Foulad Romolo Mudu Engin Ongel |
2 2 3 3 4 5 5 5 5 |
It’s remarkable that after some 20 hours of action there are players who still need to win five more times, but such is the ferocity of demands of international tournament backgammon.
I had a very tough match to start the day with Tim Line who chided me at the end for saying I found the match stressful – when he observed I “had led for the entirety”. But this wasn’t the case – he led for the opening games which saw sickening swings back and forth like a pinball. Also, just because someone is leading in a match, doesn’t stop the play from being stressful, especially if the play is tense and volatile.
I then collided with Shino who I hadn’t met up with since the grim environs of a private bank manager’s office in Trafalgar Square, 13 years ago, loading up a large Gucci holdall with a ton of cash. Don’t ask. Our relationship over the nigh on 20 years has been a tad spotty as he can be intimidating and doesn’t suffer fools gladly. But time has mellowed him, and I found nothing but a kindly, calm and patient soul, and more than ready to share a joke. We had some huge laugh out loud moments.
The two hours I spent in Shino’s dentist’s chair as he performed intricate root canal on me were nothing but a pleasure. The match was a whirlwind of emotion as he didn’t flinch at my 7-2 lead to 9 and chopped me down to 7-7 and 95% in the DMP race. But he kept limping and a 22 for me was telling. Suddenly he needed a 33 or better to win. Out popped 32… I only needed to find a 21 to fall across the line, but mercifully Shino didn’t make me putt out! Instead he played around with his checkers ensuring their accuracy, and his 6 seconds of remaining time expired.
I then played Seb Wilkinson and my 8-0 lead to 9 was pretty jammy to say the least. This was an interesting 2-cube from him [black] – I took and cashed a few rolls later.
I then had him drawing all but dead at 8-0 but the sign of great players is how they refuse to yield. I had a checker behind his 3 prime, he had one behind my 6 prime, but I crunched first. Grrrr.
In the next he brilliantly massaged an horrendously crunched back game to some sort of parity. Here is a 21 which XG will never be able to comprehend. There are 20 credible plays for black and the position is as much about psychology as technique. My preference is 13/11, 8/7. Seb tried hitting on the 10.
He ended up with a shot that would have got him close to parity. It wasn’t there but I learned a lot about not giving up.
Was this the greatest piece of backgammon of all time?
I am convinced I’ve never seen a better play in my career than Ollie Squire whipping over a Snowman here [8 cube] to Wilkinson in round two, and the commentator Nick Blasier would be inclined to agree, struggling to name anyone in the world who could find the play [perhaps Kazaross and Mochy, he opined]. Simply knowing even to look at the problem takes tremendous art and skill, but then considering and computing it correctly, under severe tournament conditions, with the clocking ticking like a time-bomb is remarkable.
To arrive at the right answer, Squire must do twelve things:
- Know his GWC is 14/36×100 = 38.88%
- Know 13A5A [13]
- Know 8A8A [50]
- Know 13A1A [1]
- Know 5A9A [73]
- Compute 61.12 x .13 = 7.94 [No cube, loss]
- Compute 38.88 x .5 = 19.44 [No cube, win]
- Compute 7.94 + 19.44 = 27.38 [No cube MWC]
- Compute 61.12 x 0.01 = .61 [Cube, loss]
- Compute 38.88 x .73 = 28.38 [Cube, win]
- Compute 28.38 + .61 = 28.99 [Cube MWC]
- Have the strength to accept that 28.99 is a higher than 27.38 and thus you must cube, despite the likely outcome being 0-12 in the match.
And they say backgammon is a game of luck! All of us should take our hats off to Ollie for this – he duly rolled the 65. Ollie modestly understates: “It’s just a match equity calculation if you know the match equities at the various scores. Difficult to work out accurately under pressure though.”
And just a very small note, we’ve now gone seriously accurate to 3 decimal places on KazXG.
New numbers have nibbled down a tad to 29.4 to cube and 28.0 not to.
Michy says no double – which places him outside hundreds in the world according to JB!
Maybe Michy just slipped up when he was calculating 61.12 x 0.13 followed by 38.88 x 0.5 followed by 7.94 + 19.44 followed by 61.12 x 0.01 followed by 38.88 x 0.73 followed by 28.38 + 0.61. Or he just didn’t have the strength to accept that 28.99 was higher than 27.38. Easily done I guess :-p
Indeed! Or as corrected in my comment it’s now 29.4 vs 28.0.
I don’t care what anyone says, if you’re not super hot on your MET there’s no way to get this problem.
And also if you’re not super fearless.
Ok Jon – you’re in agreement with Tim on FB – an easier problem than I thought. But in some ways this just drops my jaw even more… that such a thing could ever be considered easy. And I’ve read your simplification about 4 times and understand about two-thirds of it. Tim says all grandmasters are solving it pretty easily. Yikes. It would take me a 100 years and then another 100 to even dream of shipping this. It’s not just about the math but the ice-cold emotion of it, when you flunk, that terrifies me.
Despite what you both say, I’ve never seen a greater high jeopardy move live before that was so precise, intrictate and volatile. You’re really shipping happily here, huh? John Hurst once sent an 8 cube to Krancheva in a bear-off that was correct by 0.001. But the rider there is that something told him she may panic and pass [for a 0.4 blunder], which she did.
I don’t think Seb’s passing this, lol.
Hi, Will, we have chatted quite a bit on facebook, to clarify for other readers the reason I think its easy for Grandmaster and some close to GM level players is that they would approach it from a different perspective. The minute they received a 4 cube when trailing 4 nil in a match they would be looking for any excuse to ship it over to 8. If you start with that perspective it is a lot easier to see than thinking of it as a position in which we are underdogs. Please continue with the reports, a few sweeping statements from both of us put colour into life.
Just writing to let the aspiring players know that top level BG is not that mathematical and I can assure you that there were several players in the room that would have correctly worked it out and hundreds around the world that would have done so. Ollie would not have done any multiplications like those outlined above.
What Ollie would have done is ..
a) worked out what he gained from doubling if he wins
b) worked out what he risks from doubling if he loses
c) compare that ratio with chance of winning
a) Wins without doubling 50%, Wins with doubling 73%. Gains 23
b) Loses without doubling 14%, Loses with doubling 1%. Risks 13%
c) Gains 23, risks 13. Need 13/36. He has 14 so double.
If you aren’t sure where to get the 73 and the 14 from then these do require some multiplications with Neil’s numbers. 50 + 5 2/3 * 4 and 50 + 4 1/2 * 8.
The 1 is a reasonable guess. If you are not sure where the 50 comes from then maybe you have wasted your time reading this far!
Congrats to Ollie for getting it correct, but he had plenty of time on the clock and he is a maths whizz so I am not surprised he did.
But with practice these calculations are not as bad as they look so don’t give up Dear Reader.
Thanks for saying this Jon. I was scared of saying something in case it was thought of as raining on Olivers parade. All Grandmaster level players (which of course we all believe Oliver will soon be) would have found this quite easily in the way Jon described. Well done Oliver although I would of course expect no less the way you are playing.
Very well written . I wish I hadn’t withdrawn now !
Always fun challenging a Samurai warrior !