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”Chouette and More” is an interactive CD by Mary Hickey, based on
her columns that appeared on Gammonvillage.com. It is subtitled
The World's First and Only Backgammon Sci-fi Soap Opera. The CD
starts with an excellent general description of rules for a
chouette, wisely noting that everyone’s rules are slightly
different, and that it is imperative that all players know the
rules before beginning play.
The initial ten columns contain some basic strategy, especially
insightful with the responsibilities and difficulties of being the
Box, Captain, or a Crew Member. These include doubling decisions,
when to more aggressively fight for your point of view as a member
of the crew and when to choose to fight another time. Unlike
regular backgammon, the team concept of chouettes is a great
learning tool, where less skillful players can benefit from the
suggestions of the better players on the crew.
Column 11 introduces the main cast of characters that are present
through most of the remaining columns. Mary has done an excellent
job of describing each character and their style of play, along
with entertaining back story that helps to make the characters
more realistic. Connie Magnuson plays an adequate yet
unimaginative game, Kendrick is Connie’s best friend, and there
are other players of various skill levels and tendency to steam or
“go on tilt” as the poker players say. Each article offers 3-4
problems, either cube or checker plays. Answers to the problems
determined by one of the popular “bots”, Jellyfish, Snowie or Gnu
are also included.
Chapter 21 is where the Sci-Fi comes into play. Due to a last
minute cancellation of the game at Connie’s, you visit an area of
town that seems to have been permanently stuck in the 70’s and
early 80’s; at least the players have been stuck there. Mary has
taken actual positions recorded from games of that era, which was
pre-bot and reflect the styles of play in that era, and show how
much the game has changed since the introduction of the better
analysis tools that we have now.
The remainder of the columns cover many more cube and checker
plays, and Mary provides a very good analysis of why the top plays
are best.
As chouettes are almost always a money game, I would like to see a
discussion of how players should budget their funds before joining
in a chouette. Chris Bray has covered this topic in his Wind
series of books, reprinting his columns from the London
Independent.
In the “about the author” section, Mary notes that among the
titles she has won was a blitz event in Las Vegas in November or
2006. This was the first American Backgammon Tour (ABT) event that
I attended, and I was one of Mary’s many victims in that
tournament. I’m still not sure how I trailed 4-0 Crawford after
only one game, but Mary was gracious as always in victory as she
is in defeat.
I highly recommend purchasing the CD. I am not aware of any other
book or CD that explains the inner workings of a chouette, and how
you should adapt your play to profit in these situations. I have
found that chouettes are a great learning tool and have greatly
improved my knowledge of money game plays and strategy. It is no
surprise to me that Mary is the reigning US Open champion, as she
is a very knowledgeable championship level player who has also
been giving backgammon lessons for several years.
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