phenomenal video... not for the quiz aspect (which is fun too), but the value of hearing you think out loud about each position, running mental checklists, and highlighting all of the variables to consider, and the weight of each, that lead you (and us) to a final decision is invaluable as a teaching/learning tool . Please more of this.Thank you!
Thank you so very much, Marc, for this video! I sincerely urge you to provide us more like this. Your detailed analysis and sound explanations are very useful. 👏👍
@@Marcolino10DK spectacular video! I cant share it because unfortunately I dont have a single backgammon friend! It is not popular in Portugal and especially within my age range (I am 33). I often play at bgtrain but sometimes I cant understand why a certain play is better than the one I chose. That is why I found the videos very very helpful! Thank you very much. Btw, it seems like someone is cleaning the kitchen while you are making the video :)
I have been following you for some time and I have to say that I like your humility and the way you explain, it is very instructive. I also follow your opinions at the backgammon galaxy group in fb :) . Please keep doing instructive videos like this.
At 24:20 you wonder why not lifting the blot is such a big blunder. The main reason for this is that you have access to the cube. If red dances, you have a double/pass anyway, no matter whether you left a blot there or not. So the only difference comes from the variations where he does not dance. Obviously, in this case you do not want to have had the blot there. You can check this by giving the cube to red. Then it is correct to leave the blot by a small margin.
first problem is interesting. My play was to rip 4. I think the point is that an open gap on the four point against the three point anchor is not much of a concern as the problem numbers are buffered - threes can be played from the five point, and twos or ones from the two point. I can think of one reason for the 6/5, which is that it protects against the 33 anti-joker.
Hi Marc, thanks for this great and instructive video and for drawing my attention to this great training tool. By the way, there is a very convenient way to check the results with XG: simply copy and paste the position ID (from below the comment box) to XG. :)
do you still use bg train? I have been using it for a little while now (about 50 positions), and am noticing that many of the positions it is giving me are VERY basic no brainers, like a cube decision when you have 2 on the bar, are down +100 pips, you have no board, and the opponent is already bearing off... like a -2.285 error to take. Do the positions get harder as your rating goes up, or has the website just reverted to showing random positions that lack the "challenge".
Thanks for the great video! I was quite surprised by the evaluation at 28:17 as well. In fact, for money, this is a borderline play, according to XG++ (0.005). It must have something to do with the difference in strategy between money play and trailing in a short match. I say this because for money, XG says breaking the deuce-pt actually wins very slightly more games than breaking the 8-pt; but when trailing 3-away/5-away, splitting the 8-pt is better in every department-singles won, gammons won, and gammons lost (albeit the difference in gammons won is not as significant as it is for money).
Marc, at 29:17 you put the position to XG. You can do it faster by copying the Position ID (on the bottom of the page) and pasting it to GNU or XG. EDIT: in GNU you can put it in this format: "Position ID: 2D4HA0DbjMHBAA:cAmgABAAAAAE" in XG one need to remove the "Position ID: " and paste only "2D4HA0DbjMHBAA:cAmgABAAAAAE"
There should be a training section built into Galaxy that is subscriber based where the site culls blunders from every match and categorizes them based on GR. It should allow you to play through the blunders from players at your current level to try and help you improve. Users can then rate the positions to bring the best ones to the top. Just an idea.
We already have the categorization algorithm ready, we just haven't had the time to implement it yet. That is the functionality of the "Blunder database" that you see in the analysis lobby, but it doesn't work yet.
