Forum Archive : Match Equities

Does it matter which match equity table you use? From:   Klaus Evers Address:   none Date:   15 November 2005 Subject:   Is the Ortega/Kleinman MET really way off ? Forum:   GammOnLine As an Intermediate player, I never made up much thoughts about METs. My first introduction to that subject came with the fine book of Ortega/Kleinman: "Cubes and Gammons near the end of a match". That was an eye-opener for me, and from that point on I kept the current match score into account while playing matches; esp. at -2; -4. Recently I had a discussion with an expert on FIBS, and he looked at me like I came from the stone ages when I told him I still used Ortega/Kleinman's MET. Another player (good, but not WC) said it didn't matter much, as long as you at least use one at all and stick to it. Who's right? Marty Storer  writes: Choice of MET is "important" in the sense that if you can get anything at all out of a MET, you want it to be as accurate as possible. Every driblet of equity counts, and saved driblets can mean many monetary units over your lifetime. It's "unimportant" in the sense that the good player said. Both Ortega- Kleinman and a more modern table (e.g. g11) will steer your plays and cube actions in the same direction. You need to know when (at what scores and in what types of positions) to be aggressive, and when to be conservative. For example, how is a score of -3 to -2 different from pure GG (-2 to -1 Crawford)? What are examples of how you play differently at those two scores? I submit that the answers won't depend much on the specific MET. Though the specific MET will occasionally point you to different decisions for the same score, that won't happen too frequently or with too great an equity difference. Much more important is to be able to look at the score and "feel" the strength of the bias towards conservativism, aggression, simplicity, or complexity. First you want to get to the Zen-like state of having the right feelings: to instinctively or involuntarily start steering your play in the right direction. The beginning of such a state is to start slotting and building at GG, versus splitting and running at GS. Then you can make refinements: adding more reference positions to your memory; trying to figure out how much to change strategy against much stronger players (e.g. you'll play simpler positions better than complex positions, but complex positions are more volatile, so, how do you play opening 51 at -3 to -3 against Neil Kazaross? how does your take-point change in a straight race? in a holding game? etc.); refining strategy against weaker players; and there's really no end to refinements you can make. So if you've already memorized a Woolsey-Heinrich-like MET, you can keep using it for a while, with no really bad consequences. But if you want to be as accurate as possible, ditch Ortega-Kleinman/Woolsey-Heinrich for g11 or for one of the built-in bot MET's. Once you start looking deeply enough into positions for Gammon Price to be important, you'll definitely want the most accurate MET you can get.   Did you find the information in this article useful?           Do you have any comments you'd like to add?

 

Match Equities

Constructing a match equity table  (Walter Trice, Apr 2000) 

Does it matter which match equity table you use?  (Klaus Evers+, Nov 2005) 

Does it matter which match equity table you use?  (Achim Mueller+, Dec 2003) 

Does it matter which match equity table you use?  (Chuck Bower+, Sept 2001) 

ME Table: Big Brother  (Peter Fankhauser, July 1996) 

ME Table: Dunstan  (Ian Dunstan+, Aug 2004) 

ME Table: Escoffery  (David Escoffery, Nov 1991) 

ME Table: Friedman  (Elliott C Winslow, Oct 1991) 

ME Table: Kazaross  (Neil Kazaross, Dec 2003) 

ME Table: Kazaross-XG2  (neilkaz, Aug 2011) 

ME Table: Rockwell-Kazaross  (Chuck Bower+, June 2010) 

ME Table: Snowie  (Chase, Apr 2002) 

ME Table: Snowie  (Harald Retter, Aug 1998) 

ME Table: Woolsey  (Raccoon, Apr 2006) 

ME Table: Woolsey  (Kit Woolsey, May 1994) 

ME Table: Woolsey  (William R. Tallmadge, Jan 1994) 

ME Table: Zadeh  (Jørn Thyssen, Mar 2004) 

ME Table: Zorba  (Robert-Jan Veldhuizen+, Dec 2003) 

ME at 1-away/2-away (crawford)  (Fabrice Liardet+, Nov 2007) 

ME at 1-away/2-away (crawford)  (Ian Shaw+, Apr 2003) 

Match equities--an alternate view  (Durf Freund, Oct 1994) 

Neil's new numbers  (neilkaz, Aug 2011) 

Neil's numbers  (Kit Woolsey+, Oct 1994) 

On calculating match equity tables  (Neil Kazaross, July 2004) 

Turner formula  (Gregg Cattanach, Feb 2003) 

Turner formula  (Stephen Turner, June 1994) 

Using a match equity table  (Michael J. Zehr, June 1992) 

Value of free drop  (Neil Kazaross, Oct 2002) 

Which match equity table is best?  (Martin Krainer+, Oct 2003) 

Which match equity table is best?  (Ian Shaw+, Dec 2001) 

Why use a match equity table?  (Kit Woolsey, Feb 1999) 

Worth memorizing?  (Alef Rosenbaum+, Feb 2003) 

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