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Forum Archive :
Miscellaneous
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To compare backgammon and poker you need to understand the basic
differences of the games. First let's take a look at the standard
tournament structure.
Backgammon:
- Players are divided into flights primary based on their skill level.
- All matches are played heads up.
- The draw is random (no seedning).
- When a match is over one player has 100% ME and the other 0% ME.
Poker (No-Limit):
- Everyone plays in one flight
- You are playing against several players
- When a table is broken up you don't have to leave with 0 or all
the chips (unless it's a shootout)
These differences make it impossible (or at least very difficult) to
compare the two games. On the other hand it seems quite obvious to us
heads up poker championships is the common ground for comparison.
At the world backgammon championship (WBC) there are between 250 and
300 participants. Every match is played to 17 points in the opening
rounds and 25 points in the final. By reasons beyond my understanding
the WBC is played without clocks which make a standard match last from
3 to 7 hours.
To have the same go for a heads up poker tournaments you would have to
play with very deep stacks, which the better player benefits from.
Now, the games. To master any of the games you have to be extremely
skillful. The higher level any of the games are played at the more
facets of the games comes into play. At this level it could be an
endless discussion about details of each game. I think it's more
interesting to look at the general (and up) level of play. Let's compare
games again.
Backgammon:
- The rules are quite easy but even the simplest strategies takes
some practice and work to grasp.
- A good (might not be the best) strategy is to try to make the
objectively best move.
- A sound mathematical understanding of the game won't get you far.
- Understanding game plans is the key to the game. Long time
planning.
- You have to make both easy and (really) hard decisions.
Poker (standard NL tournament, not heads up):
- The rules are extremely simple. Learning to play ultra tight and
betting hard with good cards will get you surprisingly far in the game.
- A good (definitely not the best) strategy is to try to make the
objectively best move.
- A sound mathematical understanding of the game will get you quite
far.
- Understanding that poker is a game of information is the key to the
game.
- Understanding the dynamics of "what has happened in recent
hands" is crucial in reaching a fair playing level.
- You have the option to have a hand selection which will generally
keep you out of harms way.
- You can chose not to get involved with the best players at the
table.
I think the understanding of poker is undeveloped even among most poker
players. The idea of never having to face a computer telling you what
was right or wrong leeds a lot of players into believing they never or
seldom make mistakes. As a backgammon player you know exactly what you
did wrong and the magnitude of the error.
The fact that you can do reasonable in poker with little understanding
of the game adds to the misconception of how difficult it is to
learn/master the finer thinks of poker strategy. The most important
part of poker is to get information and not give any away. Yes, I know
-- nothing new here. I have been playing full time poker for two years
now and I tell you that most players don't use that concept much.
Information costs and most players are not willing to pay. They rather
play their hands in the dark. I can compare it with not wanting to
leave blots in backgammon. Leaving a blot is a kind of payment for
getting a chance to improve your position. Everybody does that in
backgammon except the novices.
My conclusion is that the luck/skill ratio is about evenly shared between
poker and backgammon. It takes more skill to play backgammon but you
have more ways to avoid troubles (read: bad luck) in poker.
Regards,
Peter Hallberg
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Miscellaneous
- Backgammon computers (Graham Bayne+, Mar 2005)
- Backgammon in famous paintings (Dan Scoones, Mar 2000)
- Backgammon versus poker (Peter Hallberg, June 2006)
- Backgammon's popularity (Anon+, Sept 2003)
- Board orientation (Daniel Murphy, Mar 1999)
- Calculation versus instinct (Kit Woolsey, Jan 1998)
- Checker play versus cube play (Gregg Cattanach, Oct 2004)
- Checker play versus cube play (David Montgomery, Jan 1998)
![[Recommended reading]](pics/Star2.gif)
- Copying positions from books (Stick+, Nov 2005)
- Famous people who play (Carem Wiklicm+, Dec 2002)
- Free lesson (Donald Kahn, Apr 1999)
- General tips (Hank Youngerman, Aug 1998)
- Giants of Backgammon list (Raccoon+, Mar 2006)
![[GammOnLine forum]](pics/GammOnLine.gif)
- Handicapping (Kees van den Doel+, Aug 2003)
- Handicapping (flash, Aug 1998)
- Handicapping--Pass or pick a roll (Michael J. Zehr, Dec 1997)
- Handicapping--Rerolling 5-4 (Mary Hickey, Feb 2004)
- How bots rate you (Phil Simborg, Mar 2010)
- Initiatives by local clubs (Raccoon, Mar 2006)
- Is online gambling legal in the U.S.? (Chuck Bower+, June 2006)
- Maximizing earnings (Stanley E. Richards+, Oct 2005)
- Money management (Carly Robson+, Jan 2009)
- Money management (Gnoh Mon+, July 2004)
- Money management (Adam Stocks, Jan 2003)
- Money management and the Kelly Criterion (Stuart Thomson+, June 1999)
![[Long message]](pics/Long.gif)
- Notation (Dean Gay, Feb 2000)
- Notation (Kit Woolsey, July 1995)
- Position cards (Francois Hochede, Jan 2004)
- Posted diagrams are scrunched up (Dale+, Sept 2000)
- Top women players (Tami+, Nov 2006)
- Typesetting backgammon (Jason Lee+, Apr 2006)
- What is Zbot? (Douglas Zare+, Dec 2003)
- What is backgammon? (David C. Oshel, Aug 1997)
- Why do people play for money? (Hank Youngerman+, Sept 2005)
- World Champions (John Bazigos, June 1994)
- rec.games.backgammon mini-FAQ (Daniel Murphy, Mar 1998)
From GammOnLine
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