Backgammon Learning

Learning

Matchqiz and Jellyfish

From:   Gilles Baudrillard
Address:   gbaudr@imaginet.fr
Date:   1 May 1997
Subject:   Re: Matchquiz
Forum:   rec.games.backgammon
Google:   5k9pgj$3rv@belzebul.imaginet.fr

> Could someone tell me if the demo version of matchquiz looks and works > the same as the $20 ones. The demo version is very boring looking. It > is hard to concentrate with the black and white colors. I came back to backgammon one year ago after having stopped the game at the beginning of the 80's.(I was a *very* poor player at that time) So I have purchased both JellyFish and Kit's annotated matches. The conjunction of the two has made me make tremendous improvements in the level of my play after some months of learning. Learning with JF focus mainly on the tactical aspects of the game without giving any theoretical explanations,but this allows you to get progressively a good feeling of what is good and what is not good. Matchqiz allows you to learn the foundations of the game and to understand strategical and long term issues (like timing) as well as technical plays (JF has some flaws in these two areas) And - may be the most important - you will find in Matchqiz all what you have to know about cube management in match playing. The fact that the matchqiz has a very poor interface is not very relevant.More important is that Kit's style is very nice and that the annotations are understandable by low-level players. (This is not the case of all authors !) However,learning backgammon needs A LOT OF WORK and concentration,regardless of the interface.If you really want to make progress,you will quickly accomodate with the interface. All that is to say that the 20 USD per match is definitively a very good investment. I have recently reviewed all the series of the matchqiz.It seems to me that Kit has slowly evolved these last years and the annotations of the last matches are sometimes contradictory with the first series. For example,early splitting of the backmen is now much more recommended that it was some years ago. So in case you decide to purchase some of Matchqiz series,I advice you to start with the most recent ones.They look more "modern" (and more consistent with JF's style of play) Gilles ( 'gillesb' on FIBS )

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