I had been looking into some backgammon history related to cube theory: specifically racing cube theory. Some of the more commonly known decision criteria in this field are iSight, Keith, Kleinman, Thorp, Trice, Nack-57/58, and 8912. In November 2014, Michelin Chabot, a chess and backgammon player, published a revised document called "Money Cube Action in Low-Wastage Positions." N.B. I couldn't find a date for his original publication, but it must have been some months earlier than that. In June 2014, Axel Reichert published a document entitled "Improved Cube Handling in Races: Insights with Isight." N.B. Chabot's (earlier?) methodology is mentioned in this In February 2015, Chabot published another paper, "Analysis of the Article Entitled: “Improved Cube Handling in Races: Insights with Isight”." In my opinion, the most valuable and interesting section of the latter paper relates to Chabot's analysis of these competing decision criteria and his conclusion: "To determine what the best practical approach is, it is necessary to consider the precision or accuracy of the analyzed approach as well as the effort needed to memorize and use the analyzed approach." So, as I understand it, in layman's terms, they are trying to discover not only the most accurate racing cube formula, but also to balance that accuracy with the one that is easiest for us to calculate over the board. A very useful criteria! Does anyone in the backgammon community have knowledge of analytical mathematics? I think it would be really useful to see an impartial comparison of the different approaches and a ranking of which is optimal in terms of 'accuracy' combined with 'ease of use.' For ease of access, here's a link to a zipfile containing the 3x pdfs of the articles in question - drive.google.com/file/d/1d3PFfBeP7qh2-3-CUlzLNtmpZW98s-zI/view There is a noteworthy wall of silence about Chabot's claims within the backgammon community. Is this just because nobody has taken the time to scientifically evaluate it? Or was Mr. Chabot _____ ? Is it possible that Chabot is deserving of more recognition than he received?
Most people won't bother memorizing different formulas, windows, etc. You should also check which method does best overall (race+bearoff). Waiting for part 3.
Joseph, I know you're a busy man, but I'm curious what could make "LUCK" (let's say dispersion) lower and SKILL higher, and my question is: if in non-contact positions we throw a double higher than, say, 3 (i.e. . 44 55 66 ) then if we moved 3 times instead of the standard 4, how much would it damage our fundamental knowledge of racing formulas? could this be the best for the game? walk 3 times all the big doubles in non-contact races. thank you for attention
There are many ways to reduce luck by changing the rules. Any change, even a small one, would require rebuilding the tools to understand this new variant. In short, I can't answer your question. There are, of course, other backgammon "variants" which have a higher skill component (Machbusa comes to mind), and I would try those before changing the rules of our successful variant.
