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Ten years ago I
published my first book “Backgammon – An Independent View”. At the
time the first commercial neural net software program, JellyFish,
had just made its debut and Snowie was not far over the horizon.
Fairly early on I realised that there were errors in the book but
as it had been published using traditional methods there was
little I could do by way of correction or apology. Over time I
have periodically reanalysed all the positions in the book using
Snowie and gnubg. As a result I discovered that the answers to
about ten of the problems were wrong, some in a minor way but in a
couple of cases the original solution was way off target.
Because it is now so easy to publish books using print-on-demand
technology I decided that it would be a good idea to bring the
book up-to-date. As a result I have just released a second version
of
“Independent View” on
www.lulu.com
The original answer to this week’s position was the biggest error
in the book. Under the topic of ‘timing’ the solution of how to
play 54 for black was 12/7, 11/7 in an attempt to kill black’s
sixes and thus preserve his prime.
Computers have taught us that there is much more to this position
than just killing sixes so the question is what is the right play?
I will give away five copies of the new version of the book to
readers who not only tell me the right move but also, and more
importantly, why it is the right move.
Entries should reach me at
chris.bray@btconnect.com no later
than Sunday 12th October. |
