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Woolsey: The Backgammon Encyclopedia Vol 1

From:   Dean Gay
Address:   demiga@yahoo.com
Date:   20 February 2004
Subject:   BG Encyclopedia
Forum:   GammOnLine

I got a copy of Kit's Backgammon Encyclopedia for Christmas and I've just
started to get into it. I like the way it's put together, taking a look at
common positions and examining how modifications affect things. It looks
like a lot of good information in an easily digestible format.

Regarding his rollout settings, 360 cubeless trials doesn't seem very
robust to me, particularly when trying to benchmark reference positions.
I'm wondering what others think about this, and if any of you have done
independent rollouts of any of the positions which differ significantly
from what is presented.

Douglas Zare  writes:

It is true that some individual rollouts are off, e.g., one of the first
blitzing positions, 6-3 24/18 13/10, 5-5, dance. That position is about a
1.010 pass according to longer Snowie 3 3-ply rollouts, and perhaps a
1.020 pass according to long Snowie 4 3-ply rollouts. (Ironically, Snowie
3 evaluations say it is a larger pass, while Snowie 4 evaluations say to
take.) However, the positions are connected, so the rollouts of related
positions reinforce each other. Even when one rollout is out of line, you
can make a better guess based on the other rollouts.

I don't agree that these are really common positions. It is more common
to hit messier positions than these. Many types of variations depending
on tactics were skipped. These may be the right positions to look at
anyway, if you can only consider a few, but I would like to see more,
perhaps in future volumes.

Neil Kazaross  writes:

1296 rollouts would have been better. This is my only criticism of Kit's
superb book which is a must have for all.
 
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