How To Be A Winner in Backgammon – Part One

Have you ever wondered what it takes to be a backgammon player with extraordinary success? What are the secrets and strong sides of world class players? Relying on very experienced backgammon players and coaches we can conclude this: To be a winner in backgammon, you need to have confidence, respect, consistency, stamina, engagement, deliberateness, decisiveness and inner-directedness. Let us describe what we mean with these qualities.

• Confidence. Winners are people who expect to win. This may seem to be an unrealistic attitude in a game like tournament backgammon, where the very best players can only win about 65% of their matches. But it works out in practice, and it makes sense. We humans are not very good at holding two mutually incompatible ideas in our heads at the same time. Envisioning a successful outcome makes it much easier to find the means to the desired goal, even when that goal is unlikely. For instance, we all find ourselves, often enough, playing a dubiously timed ace-point game with perhaps a 15% chance of winning. In this situation it is a waste of effort to think about what is going to happen if the dice break in favour of our opponent (unless the issue is avoiding the gammon, of course). Searching out all the ways we may catch a break or two ourselves, though, makes it possible to anticipate and plan for those breaks, in order to take the best possible advantage of them if and when they come.

• Respect. Winners expect that every opponent will put up a fight, and they always anticipate a serious struggle. This attitude is not always necessary in other games and sports, in which it is possible to so thoroughly outclass a given opponent that his chances are practically nil. But in a backgammon match anybody has a reasonable chance to beat anybody else. The player who doesn't respect his opponent and thinks that he necessarily deserves to win is likely to get greedy, to take risks when he shouldn't (example: setting out to play a backgame from the first roll) and to fail to take risks when he should (example: playing for the undoubled gammon too often.)

• Consistency. I am tempted to say that Winners are "relentless," but that sounds too barbaric, and it isn't quite accurate. Winners are prepared to give at least the same degree of effort and attentiveness to the last play of the match as to the first. This doesn't mean staying perpetually "hyped up", but rather pacing oneself to put forth the maximum effort over the course of the match.

• Stamina. A certain amount of sheer physical staying power is necessary if you want to play a consistently strong game for as many hours in the day as a typical tournament schedule requires. Some players, and most of the Winners, just seem to be constitutionally gifted in this department.

Common sense suggests that physical fitness contributes to a player's stamina, and it seems logical that activities which promote endurance (hiking, distance running, bicycling, etc.) would be the most appropriate, but I have no evidence that these things actually help. What I know helps during a tournament is getting enough sleep before a playing day, taking advantage of breaks between matches to rest (or even nap), avoiding heavy meals, having light snacks for quick energy as needed and (at least if you're a caffeine freak like me) rationing those cups of coffee so that the boost comes during a match when you need it..

• Engagement. Being temperamentally a rationalist myself, I'd like to be able to report that Winners are emotionally immune to the slings and arrows of outrageous dice. But it simply isn't so. In general the Winners are not the players who maintain a façade of icy detachment. They are visibly responsive to the course a match takes - they look pleased when they are winning, and when losing tend to resemble a determined defensive lineman about five yards in front of the goal line. One thing they don't do is ever completely lose control, and another thing they don't do is ever let their emotions dictate the plays they make.

Strangely enough, it is often the players who appear perfectly calm on the outside who are capable of the most irrational plays - the cube drops that are obviously driven by fear, the greedy attacking plays that are completely contrary to the dynamics of the position, and so on.

• Deliberateness. Some Winners tend to play rapidly, but most play a little more slowly than average. Even the fast players among them don't rush things, though, and if an unusually difficult play comes up they will take the time they need.

• Decisiveness. If the Winners aren't the fastest players in the hall, they certainly are not the slowest either. The slowest players are those who bog down and can't make up their minds, perhaps can't even figure out what to think about, and who will sometimes just sit and wait for a genie to come along and pop the right play into their heads. The Winners are (obviously, if you're sitting across the board from one of them) thinking about something, and their thought process always leads to a conclusion and a decision.

• Inner-directedness. This is one of the most distinctive and noticeable traits of Winners: they are perfectly happy to make unpopular types of plays, and to trust their own understanding of the game rather than try to imitate fashion and "cutting-edge theory". They stand at the opposite extreme from those players, typically beginners, who are more concerned about what the onlookers (including their opponent) will think of their play than whether it offers the best chance to win.

Of course there is no moral imperative to try to win backgammon tournaments, and it is perfectly possible to play in a tournament and have a marvellous time without really giving a damn whether you win the thing or not. Every now and then you'll win anyway! On the other hand winning is more fun, and if that is your objective then it makes sense to emulate the veterans with proven track records.

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