Backgammon News

July 8, 2008

Michigan Summer Championships - Tournament Report

by Phil Simborg

This year’s 33rd annual tournament in Novi Michigan again proved to be the top backgammon tournament in the US for many reasons: A huge field, great players, big prizes, and extremely well-run. Carol Cole and her staff have this tournament business down to a science.

For me, personally, it was a really great tournament, as I got to watch some of the best players in the world go up against each other; I got to play (and beat) some of them myself; and there were many terrific opportunities to learn a lot about backgammon.

There were computers all over the room and people constantly putting positions into Snowie and GNUBG to learn about difficult checker and cube decisions, and not only did we get to see the right plays, we often had discussions and commentary by experts and authors like Kit Woolsey, Neil Kazaross, Mike Corbett, Perry Gartner, Steve Sax, and others.

It was no surprise that Neil Kazaross won the Open Division. He is the all-time point leader in the U.S. and consistently rated as one of the top players in the world, and he was clearly the No. 1 pick to win. He beat Stick Rice in the finals. Stick has been touted as the next great player of the future, and he has quickly proven this claim. Chicago’s Bill Davis won the Consolation, defeating Mary Hickey (who has proven to be one of the best female players in the world).

The Masters was won by a true master, Malcolm Davis, another Giant of the game, and he defeated Steve Sax in the finals.

The Howard Ring Memorial tournament was won by a great player from Minnesota, Steve Brown.

In Bill Davis’ late round match with Kit Woolsey, I saw a very interesting position and took a picture of it. Bill was losing 7-9 in a match to 11. Kit holds a 2-cube, so gammons and backgammons don’t matter at all. Bill (White) has a 6-3 to play, and the real question here is whether or not he should move a checker off the 24 point.

In the actual match, Bill did not move off his opponent’s 1 point. I thought this might be an error, because if his opponent rolls a 2 he leaves a blot, and by leaving the checkers there, a 2 does not leave a blot.

After the match, I asked Bill and Kit about the play, and they both felt that in the long run, you actually get more wins by staying back. When you leave the ace point now, you really get hurt if Black rolls 1-1, 2-2, or 2-1. Even if he rolls a 2 and you get the shot, if you don’t hit it, the match is probably over. By staying, you might roll a 1 yourself on the next roll and be able to split, and that gives you the potential for double shots if Black rolls a 1.

Someone pointed out how important it is to make the 5 point with the 6-3 in this position, but the interesting thing we found is that it’s not about this factor at all. If you change the roll to 6-2 so that you can’t make the 5 point, it’s STILL CORRECT to stay back. That’s some of the benefit of working with the computer programs.

I had a great match with one of the top players in the world and found myself in a very interesting position.

I was Black and losing 1-2 in a match to 9, and I was on roll. What do you think the proper cube action should be? Should Black double? If Black doubles, should White take?

According to the computers, this is not a double, and it is an easy take. What I saw here was a potential to take a major advantage. I hit with any 1, 3, or 4, and I might hit two. So I saw a lot of “market losers” and decided to double. My opponent thought for a long time, and he dropped!

Now, I was fairly sure this was a take, and I wasn’t sure at all it was a double, but I have always believed in “Woolsey’s Law” when it comes to giving the cube. Basically, the theory is, if you are not sure whether to double or not, it is better to double. If you double, and it’s a mistake, you give your opponent a chance to make an even bigger mistake by dropping. That’s exactly what happened here, and even though I was playing one of the better players in the world, you can never be sure what your opponent is going to do.

There were over 200 entrants in the tournament and the weather was great, and we all had a terrific time. I mentioned that many of the best players in the world were there…here is a list of just a few of them:

Neil Kazaross, Steve Sax, Malcolm Davis, Petko, Kit Woolsey, Joe Russell, Dana Nazarian, Mike Corbett, Frank Talbott, Richard Muniz, Stick Rice, Scott Casty, David Rockwell, Drew Giavannis, Tak Morioka, Victor Ashkenaze, Steve Brown, Bob Glass.

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