Cube Handling

Forum Archive : Cube Handling

The take/pass decision From:   Otis Address:   case_hopkins@yahoo.com Date:   31 August 2007 Subject:   A limited rule of thumb for takes? Forum:   rec.games.backgammon Google:   NLVBi.51392$Lu.27441@bignews8.bellsouth.net For all us intermediates: When UNCERTAIN about a take/pass decision against a strong opponent, TEND to take when the last sequence of moves did not result in a large equity shift. The logic is that a strong opponent will tend to correctly double before he loses his market. It seems to have improved my take decisions against GNU. Don Zaemon  writes: I have a friend who bases a lot of his takes on that idea if he's playing a very strong player. He basically says: "This world class player wouldn't think of losing his market here, so I take." It certainly saves him a lot of energy in unfamiliar cube positions but if his opponents know that he does his decisions that way, they might start trying to push him so far into pass territory he'll have to wake up and start analyzing the positions. Gregg Cattanach  writes: Against robots especially, this is always a good way to go and your analysis is correct (bots don't lose their market unless they couldn't help it through some major joker sequence). Against a bot if you had the option of only taking every cube or dropping every cube, you would do VASTLY better taking all the cubes. This is also a good approach for the beginner against real opponents. Unless you are certain that a game is hopeless, you should take every cube. Also, for the beginner who hasn't enough experience to evaluate various position types: as soon as you merely SUSPECT you are some sort of strong favorite in the game, double. This will give you much better results that waiting until you KNOW you are the favorite.   Did you find the information in this article useful?           Do you have any comments you'd like to add?

 

Cube Handling

Against a weaker opponent  (Kit Woolsey, July 1994) 

Cube concepts  (Peter Bell, Aug 1995) 

Early-late ratio  (Tom Keith, Sept 2003) 

Endgame close out: Michael's 432 rule  (Michael Bo Hansen+, Feb 1998) 

Endgame close out: Spleischft formula  (Simon Larsen, Sept 1999) 

Evaluating the position  (Daniel Murphy, Feb 2001) 

Evaluating the position  (Daniel Murphy, Mar 2000) 

How does rake affect cube actions?  (Paul Epstein+, Sept 2005) 

How to use the doubling cube  (Michael J. Zehr, Nov 1993) 

Liveliness of the cube  (Kit Woolsey, Apr 1997) 

PRAT--Position, Race, and Threats  (Alan Webb, Feb 2001) 

Playing your opponent  (Morris Pearl+, Jan 2002) 

References  (Chuck Bower, Nov 1997) 

Robertie's rule  (Chuck Bower, Sept 2006) 

Rough guidelines  (Michael J. Zehr, Dec 1993) 

Tells  (Tad Bright+, Nov 2003) 

The take/pass decision  (Otis+, Aug 2007) 

Too good to double  (Michael J. Zehr, May 1997) 

Too good to double--Janowski's formula  (Chuck Bower, Jan 1997) 

Value of an ace-point game  (Raccoon+, June 2006) 

Value of an ace-point game  (Øystein Johansen, Aug 2000) 

Volatility  (Chuck Bower, Oct 1998) 

Volatility  (Kit Woolsey, Sept 1996) 

When to accept a double  (Daniel Murphy+, Feb 2001) 

When to beaver  (Walter Trice, Aug 1999) 

When to double  (Kit Woolsey, Nov 1994) 

With the Jacoby rule  (KL Gerber+, Nov 2002) 

With the Jacoby rule  (Gary Wong, Dec 1997) 

Woolsey's law  (PersianLord+, Mar 2008) 

Woolsey's law  (Kit Woolsey, Sept 1996) 

Words of wisdom  (Chris C., Dec 2003) 

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