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> Has anybody read Paul Lamford's new book "Improve Your Backgammon"?
The title is misleading as the book is quite advanced, much more than a
follow up to "Starting Out in Backgammon". I'd think you'd want to be well
over 1700 on FIBS before reading it.
Here's a list of chapters and a few of my comments:
Part One: Money Play
1. The Race - Includes a very accurate equity formula requiring some long
division
2. Technical Themes - Lots of useful and well analysed rules of thumb.
Definitely the easiest material to put to immediate use: Stay or Go? Hit or
Ignore? Slot or Not? Extra Shot? Clear or Hold? Safe or Bold?
3. Blitzes - Thorough look at how, when, why to fully attack and cube
4. Calculating Equity - Personally I can follow this material and put it to
use in quiz problems with pen and paper, but will need some major
practising before it'll affect my over-the-board decisions
Part Two: Mastering Match Play
5. The Basics - Match Equity Table which assumes slightly more gammons than
the Kit Woolsey table
6. Special Scores - DMP, 2-away 2-away (don't necessarily cube
immediately), Crawford, Post-Crawford (change of opening rolls, trap of
late doubling for the compulsory take)
7. Doubling Windows - Charts, 2-away N-away, Too Good but Not Good Enough,
Doubling When Opponent is 2-away
8. Advanced Cube Handling - Volatility, Efficient Recubes, Recube Windows,
High Cubes and Skewed Scores, Gammon Value Chart, Points to Remember
(Magriel style recap)
Part Three
9. Technology - Various links and info on bots
Exercises - There are about 40 problems across 19 exercises in the book.
The explanations are far more thorough than, say, Robertie's "501 Problems"
but not quite in the league of Woolsey's "New Ideas".
Overall
I find the writing style to be clear and concise, it's certainly a very
dense 128 pages. The drawback, like the other works of Paul Lamford's, is
that it's from a highly mathematical mindset and a bit weaker on the
general "vision" side of backgammon mastering. Certainly the race formula
in the opening chapter could frighten some readers away, but there's still
plenty of backgammon wisdom in there for those less numerate.
In terms of actual costs it's fantastic value compared to other advanced bg
books, listed on the back as GBP £12.99 and $14.95. Available from
http://www.everymanbooks.com
Alef
(1800-1900 on FIBS)
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