Backgammon Is Not As Cruel As You Think

Are you one of those backgammon players who agree with author Barclay Cooke when he says that "Backgammon is The Cruelest Game"? In his book, Barclay points out how nasty the game of backgammon can be if you get some bad dice.

However, top ranking player Phil Simborg says that he recently came to believe that Barclay was wrong, and that backgammon is really a very nice and kind game. Let's listen to why he believes so, based on his experiences below.

Take for example, the position below. I was playing someone for considerably large stakes, and I was black, holding a 2 cube, and it looked pretty hopeless for me. Especially with white on roll, I didn't have much of a chance. In fact, according to the computer programs, white is favored to win this game about 93% of the time, and just about all of those are gammons, with about 14% backgammons for extra fun. But can you guess what white rolled?



If you guessed 6-6, you're right. That's exactly what he rolled, and he left me two blots. Can you guess what I rolled? Right, I rolled a 6-1 and hit both blots and I went on to redouble him to 4, and then I won a gammon!!! So instead of losing 4 points, I won 8.

Now, how could anyone say that backgammon is a cruel game when wonderful things like this can happen?

Well, maybe my opponent didn't see the humor of this situation as well as I did, but it was quite fun for me. The point is, everyone gets their turn at really great rolls and really bad rolls, and if you only remember the times where you got unlucky, of course it seems like the cruelest game. The trick is to only remember the times when you got lucky.

To quote Albert Schweitzer, "Happiness is nothing more than good health and a bad memory."

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