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Walter Trice is one of backgammon’s leading analysts. He is a
regular columnist on Gammon Village (www.gammonvillage.com).
At only $50 a year, Gammon Village is fantastic value for news and
analysis. It contains a large archive of articles by Trice and
others.
Boot Camp is a revised collection of 57 articles first published
on Gammon Village. Unfortunately the original 2004 edition was
marred by many misprints. They are generally minor and about 80%
of them are listed on the publisher’s web site. I have not seen
the revised edition but I presume that corrections have been made.
Another irritant is the failure to head each chapter with its
number. This makes cross-reference between chapters unnecessarily
tortuous.
Trice has been playing and analysing backgammon for decades. Boot
Camp frequently contrasts how playing styles have changed over
time. He is the world’s foremost authority on non-contact bear
off. He has written software to calculate the “effective pip
count” (epc) of any home board position. Epc is the average number
of pips which you will roll to bear off. The difference from the
actual pip count is called “wastage”. For example, two checkers on
the 3pt have an epc of 12.48 and thus a wastage of 6.48. In
general correct bear off technique is to minimise wastage. Gammon
Village subscribers can find this software in the Trice archive
for November 2004 to February 2005.
Boot Camp covers most types of problems that arise in backgammon.
The numerous illustrations are very well chosen and you can have
confidence that Trice’s analysis is accurate and based on much
deeper understanding than most of us will ever acquire.
In his Introduction, Jeremy Bagai of the Fortuituous Press claims
that Boot Camp is “accessible to beginners; essential for
experts”. This needs qualification. The content of Boot Camp
ranges in difficulty from the different rolls you can get with two
dice to when to double different types of back games.
Interestingly the chapters which are “essential for experts” are
also “accessible for beginners”; I mention some of these below;
they are first class and concisely explain a huge amount of wisdom
which Trice has accumulated.
However chapters which cover material with which experts are
familiar will often be difficult for beginners. Here Trice is
often too wordy; there are a lot of long paragraphs which I found
entertaining but that is not a style which is suitable to teach
key ideas or to serve as a reference where you can easily look up
the advice. The explanations of doubling strategy could be much
clearer. In particular, Trice’s coverage of the key concepts of
match doubling (equity tables, doubling windows, free drops,
mandatory takes) is of course accurate but will be too difficult
for many readers.
However the reader who is prepared to work hard will improve his
or her understanding of many aspects of backgammon. Boot Camp
helped me sort out my thoughts on the following topics.
Non-contact doubling
Trice distinguishes four types of race: (1) low wastage positions
where you can formulate reasonable doubling windows based on each
player’s pip count; (2) end games where you look at how many rolls
(without doubles) each player needs to bear off; (3) positions
where you summarise one player’s board in terms of rolls and the
other player’s in terms of pips; (4) positions with uneven
distributions of home board checkers where Trice recommends the
Ward adjusted pip count.
For (1) Trice presents a table which divides the leader’s pip
count into twelve bands and gives the maximum extra pips with
which the trailer can just take. The alternative criterion (for
example, in Woolsey’s Encyclopedia of Backgammon) is that the
trailer can take with extra pips equal to 10% of the leader’s pips
plus two. For example, if the leader has 100 pips, the trailer can
take with 112 pips. It turns out that there is negligible
difference in the answers. I prefer “10% + 2” because it is easier
to remember and because I was the first to propose it (Chicago
Point, January 1990).
Back games, prime versus prime games, middle game attacking
Which back game anchors are best when your opponent is bearing in
and when he is bearing off ? How should each player move his
checkers ? When should you double a back game ? How do you move
your checkers in a prime versus prime position ? When should you
double in these positions ? When should you play aggressively and
particularly when should you double in the middle game ? About 40%
of Boot Camp addresses these questions. Trice backs up his
analysis with Snowie rollouts of many positions. This is the most
valuable part of the book from which all players can learn a lot.
Conclusion
Publisher Jeremy Bagai says: “You’ll find very little hand-holding
in these pages. Drill Sergeant Trice starts from scratch, and
makes it his personal job to mold you into a lean, mean, winning
machine.” My complaint is that a little more hand-holding would
have helped in places. Nonetheless, Boot Camp is essential reading
if you want to improve your game.
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