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During the 70s backgammon heyday, there were lots of books coming out.
Bruce Becker's B'gammon for Blood is a real howler. My favorite part of
that book is the chapter on doubling. His checker play might raise a
few eyebrows, but he's a good gambler.
As an aside to the infamous Bruce Becker. Lewis Deyong, author of _The
Playboy Book of Backgammon_, some time in or around 1980, issued a
challenge to this Bruce Becker person, whoever he was. It was something
like a challenge to a 17 point match, with Deyong willing to lay 6 to 5
(I think it was $6000 if Becker would put up $5000) provided that Becker
would use the opening moves he recommends in his book. Either Becker
never received the challenge, or he simply declined. To this day, no
one in the B'gammon community knows who this mysterious Bruce Becker
really is (last I heard, anyway).
Speaking of Lewis Deyong, his above mentioned book is highly highly
highly entertaining. The instruction is poorly organized, however.
Very difficult to read for learning. Great for just spending an hour
recounting exaggeraged backgammon (highly highly highly?) stories.
There is the one story about how Claude Beer (a tough competitor, but
not a "recognized expert") beat the late Barclay Cooke in the finals of
a tournament through sheer gutsiness, taking every opportunity he could
to make "big" plays. Deyong talks about how Beer, finding himself tied
at double match point, had to play a "gutsy" 5-2 to clear his midpoint
against Cooke holding Beer's Bar point, leaving a four to lose the
match, rather than play it safe and hope for a double on the next roll.
Cooke responded with a woeful 6-2 and thus lost to Beer. Deyong, in
praise of Beer's courage, concludes (I paraphrase), "...certainly Beer
was lucky to win the match. But how many others would have lost with
the same dice?"
Well, as it turns out, I met Barclay Cooke at the World Amateur
Championships in 1978. As he tells it, it was Barclay that rolled the
5-2 and cleared _his_ midpoint, and _Beer_ hit to win the match! But
that didn't fit in with Deyong's point about playing with courage. So
he changed the facts a little. Barclay tells the story about when he
"confronted" Deyong with this (as background, if you don't already know,
Barclay Cooke was not much of a stereo-typical self-proclaimed arrogant
genius, but, relative to the field, a mild mannered gentlemen of the
game.), and Deyong responded, "But Barclay, no one will ever know!"
Barclay, in his famous gentlemanly and good-natured but exasperated
tone, said, "But Lewis! _I_ know!"
The best thing about the teachings of Barclay Cooke (IMHO, of course
:-) is his attitude about luck. He was fond of saying, "good players
always roll well!" Or when doing the commentary on a match, and one
player produces a few good/great rolls, "ohhh! He's a great player!"
(his tone was nor malicious, just good-natured, if a little sarcastic).
Of course, his comments were tongue-in-cheek, but his attitude was
clear: Backgammon is a capricious game where the "right" play often,
give the outcome of the dice, turns out to be a loser. To be a
self-proclaimed expert and always insist on your own plays is to ignore
the nature of the game, and the fact that your play could well be the
"right" one.
Oh well , enough of Uncle Shu's Backgammon Stories. Maybe I'll tell you
more later if you finish your vegetables at dinner and don't talk back
to your mommy.
sl22@andrew.cmu.edu
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