10 ms·

The Chaos of the Dice: A backgammon hustler’s quest to gain an edge (2013)

63 points by philshem 6y ago

philshem 6y ago
> Unlike chess, backgammon is tactile, fast-moving, even loud, with checkers slammed down and tiny dice sounding like rattlesnakes as they traverse the board. Casual players who believe that they are good persist in the illusion because the element of chance obscures their deficits. At its heart, backgammon’s cruelty resides in the dramatic volatility of the dice. Even a player who builds flawless structures on the board can lose to a novice. The good players simply win more often. As a result, backgammon is often played in marathon sessions that reward physical stamina, patience, and emotional equilibrium. One notable match lasted five days, with both players getting up only for bathroom breaks. The loser fell to the floor. > Chess players can visualize what the board might look like twenty moves ahead, but in backgammon the dice offer twenty-one random possibilities at each turn. The game must be encountered frame by frame. --- Sadly, Matvey Natanzon (aka Falafel) passed away this year. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matvey_Natanzon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matvey_Natanzon
- pretendscholar 6y ago
  I'm sure the rest of the statement is true but there are fast time-control variants of chess that are very tactile over the board. Bullet chess is a minute of total time per side so moves are blitzed out at lightning speed.
- boldslogan 6y ago
  In this case your citation of the the Wikipedia page has no citation... any other news of what actually happened?
  - taion 6y ago
    There's a Times obituary. It was cancer: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/03/nyregion/matvey-natanzon-dead.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/03/nyregion/matvey-natanzon-...
  - duskwuff 6y ago
    It's cited at the head of the article, where his death is first mentioned. https://www.economist.com/obituary/2020/03/19/falafel-died-on-february-14th https://www.economist.com/obituary/2020/03/19/falafel-died-o...
biolurker1 6y ago
I read HN just so that I can stumble upon an article like that once in a while
- fortran77 6y ago
  All due respect, but you can subscribe to the New Yorker and stumble upon an article like that once a week!
  - sixstringtheory 6y ago
    You can’t know all the places to look and you don’t have the time to look in all those places, no less filter it all for the best content. This is why I and many others like aggregators. That’s not to say we don’t also have New Yorker subs. I do, through my library–I can read it on my iPad–but I don’t have time to read every issue cover-to-cover. And I definitely find less than one article per issue really resonates with me personally, for any given publication and depending on where I’m at in my life when an issue goes to press. I bet there are plenty of people who don’t even know what the New Yorker is; your suggestion doesn’t help them. HN very well could introduce them, just as it’s introduced me to plenty.
    - dsohn0 6y ago
      LOL so you should limit suggestions to what people already know of? What is the point of suggestions then. How completely assinine.
sramsay 6y ago
I absolutely love backgammon. I think people dismiss it as not being on the same level as chess or go because of the "chance element," but that element is probably better described as "management of risk" or "the calculation of risk," and it is remarkably deep. And while it's true that a novice can beat a grandmaster in a single game, you can be sure that you would have been destroyed in six games by a player like Natanzon. The other nice thing about it is that while two strong players can break each other's brains over it for hours, it's also a fantastic casual game that's just good fun with coffee and conversation (as it is throughout much of the Middle and Near East). I'm always hoping it undergoes a resurgence one of these days. Stranger things have happened!
- nemo44x 6y ago
  To me a major difference (besides dice) is that Backgammon has the concept of points which a player can double the value of during a game and if the opponent refuses then they forfeit. But once you’ve doubled then the opposing player gets the next opportunity to double. This is the part of the gave that really sets apart the good players I think? Over a series of games you have to calculate your advantage at certain points. I think this element makes it more a game of skill (like chess where there is no randomness and all game knowledge is shared at all times) than people give it credit for. I can also see why gamblers like it so much. Nothing like a mid game “more action” button.
  - T-hawk 6y ago
    Right, the doubling cube is what sets apart the good players. For every possible state, there is an expected value of your outcome, from the current state averaged over all possible continuations of the game or match, if you make perfect moves and your opponent also does. (This can be denominated in either cash/points value within one game, or in expected match-win value across a match of multiple games.) The swing of backgammon is in the imperfect moves, and in how much expected value each one costs you. It's not that hard to study checker strategy well enough that you're rarely losing more than 1% or so of a game's value; even if you make imperfect moves, they're generally still pretty good. But the doubling cube can account for much greater swings; a mistake like doubling too early or incorrectly responding to your opponent's can easily cost 20% equity or more.
gerdesj 6y ago
Do computers destroy top backgammon players in the same way as chess and go?
- moomin 6y ago
  No, they’re _much_ better. Backgammon AI has achieved supremacy years before chess.
  - gerdesj 6y ago
    Who gets to roll the dice 8) Would you mind pointing me at some sources please? I'd be intrigued to see if any algorithms or other insights have come out of the AI stuff.
    - currymj 6y ago
      TD-Gammon from 1992 was an early success of neural network based reinforcement learning. Descendants of the technique remain standard today in RL.
    - shoy 6y ago
      Snowie, and Jellyfish.
  - Syzygies 6y ago
    For anyone interested in neural nets Backgammon makes a fascinating example. Essentially, AI computes the value of each position. Like a dome roof, the entire height could be off by a fraction of a percent, but all that matters is the relative values of the possible next moves. These valuations converge much faster than the overall function.
meowster 6y ago
I'm an average player it seems, but I've had the problem of easily beating every free backgammon app on Android, that is until I discovered Backgammon NJ. It was $10 when I purchased it years ago, but it's well worth the money. One of these days I'll have to actually try to study the game and work on strategy, but until then, I like pitting myself against the difficult computer every-so-often.
YeGoblynQueenne 6y ago
>> “I’ll give you fifty bucks right now to eat one of those pies,” Mr. Joseph said, pulling out a crisp bill. What toxic assholes - the lot of them, all those romantic characters in the article that could well be the summary of a Tom Waits song. They just come across as a bunch of toxic fucking jerks that don't mind endangering each other's health for the pleasure of winning some money off each other. The guy who got the implants for a year on a bet? How the fuck is that healthy? Maybe it's all good because he liked them after all - and hey, he got to meet ladies! What the hell is wrong with these people? It sounds like they all have very severe undiagnosed mental health issues.

63 points by philshem 6y ago

> Unlike chess, backgammon is tactile, fast-moving, even loud, with checkers slammed down and tiny dice sounding like rattlesnakes as they traverse the board. Casual players who believe that they are good persist in the illusion because the element of chance obscures their deficits. At its heart, backgammon’s cruelty resides in the dramatic volatility of the dice. Even a player who builds flawless structures on the board can lose to a novice. The good players simply win more often. As a result, backgammon is often played in marathon sessions that reward physical stamina, patience, and emotional equilibrium. One notable match lasted five days, with both players getting up only for bathroom breaks. The loser fell to the floor. > Chess players can visualize what the board might look like twenty moves ahead, but in backgammon the dice offer twenty-one random possibilities at each turn. The game must be encountered frame by frame. --- Sadly, Matvey Natanzon (aka Falafel) passed away this year. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matvey_Natanzon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matvey_Natanzon

pretendscholar 6y ago
I'm sure the rest of the statement is true but there are fast time-control variants of chess that are very tactile over the board. Bullet chess is a minute of total time per side so moves are blitzed out at lightning speed.
boldslogan 6y ago
In this case your citation of the the Wikipedia page has no citation... any other news of what actually happened?
- taion 6y ago
  There's a Times obituary. It was cancer: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/03/nyregion/matvey-natanzon-dead.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/03/nyregion/matvey-natanzon-...
- duskwuff 6y ago
  It's cited at the head of the article, where his death is first mentioned. https://www.economist.com/obituary/2020/03/19/falafel-died-on-february-14th https://www.economist.com/obituary/2020/03/19/falafel-died-o...

biolurker1 6y ago

I read HN just so that I can stumble upon an article like that once in a while

fortran77 6y ago
All due respect, but you can subscribe to the New Yorker and stumble upon an article like that once a week!
- sixstringtheory 6y ago
  You can’t know all the places to look and you don’t have the time to look in all those places, no less filter it all for the best content. This is why I and many others like aggregators. That’s not to say we don’t also have New Yorker subs. I do, through my library–I can read it on my iPad–but I don’t have time to read every issue cover-to-cover. And I definitely find less than one article per issue really resonates with me personally, for any given publication and depending on where I’m at in my life when an issue goes to press. I bet there are plenty of people who don’t even know what the New Yorker is; your suggestion doesn’t help them. HN very well could introduce them, just as it’s introduced me to plenty.
  - dsohn0 6y ago
    LOL so you should limit suggestions to what people already know of? What is the point of suggestions then. How completely assinine.

sramsay 6y ago

I absolutely love backgammon. I think people dismiss it as not being on the same level as chess or go because of the "chance element," but that element is probably better described as "management of risk" or "the calculation of risk," and it is remarkably deep. And while it's true that a novice can beat a grandmaster in a single game, you can be sure that you would have been destroyed in six games by a player like Natanzon. The other nice thing about it is that while two strong players can break each other's brains over it for hours, it's also a fantastic casual game that's just good fun with coffee and conversation (as it is throughout much of the Middle and Near East). I'm always hoping it undergoes a resurgence one of these days. Stranger things have happened!

nemo44x 6y ago
To me a major difference (besides dice) is that Backgammon has the concept of points which a player can double the value of during a game and if the opponent refuses then they forfeit. But once you’ve doubled then the opposing player gets the next opportunity to double. This is the part of the gave that really sets apart the good players I think? Over a series of games you have to calculate your advantage at certain points. I think this element makes it more a game of skill (like chess where there is no randomness and all game knowledge is shared at all times) than people give it credit for. I can also see why gamblers like it so much. Nothing like a mid game “more action” button.
- T-hawk 6y ago
  Right, the doubling cube is what sets apart the good players. For every possible state, there is an expected value of your outcome, from the current state averaged over all possible continuations of the game or match, if you make perfect moves and your opponent also does. (This can be denominated in either cash/points value within one game, or in expected match-win value across a match of multiple games.) The swing of backgammon is in the imperfect moves, and in how much expected value each one costs you. It's not that hard to study checker strategy well enough that you're rarely losing more than 1% or so of a game's value; even if you make imperfect moves, they're generally still pretty good. But the doubling cube can account for much greater swings; a mistake like doubling too early or incorrectly responding to your opponent's can easily cost 20% equity or more.

gerdesj 6y ago

Do computers destroy top backgammon players in the same way as chess and go?

moomin 6y ago
No, they’re _much_ better. Backgammon AI has achieved supremacy years before chess.
- gerdesj 6y ago
  Who gets to roll the dice 8) Would you mind pointing me at some sources please? I'd be intrigued to see if any algorithms or other insights have come out of the AI stuff.
  - currymj 6y ago
    TD-Gammon from 1992 was an early success of neural network based reinforcement learning. Descendants of the technique remain standard today in RL.
  - shoy 6y ago
    Snowie, and Jellyfish.
- Syzygies 6y ago
  For anyone interested in neural nets Backgammon makes a fascinating example. Essentially, AI computes the value of each position. Like a dome roof, the entire height could be off by a fraction of a percent, but all that matters is the relative values of the possible next moves. These valuations converge much faster than the overall function.

meowster 6y ago

I'm an average player it seems, but I've had the problem of easily beating every free backgammon app on Android, that is until I discovered Backgammon NJ. It was $10 when I purchased it years ago, but it's well worth the money. One of these days I'll have to actually try to study the game and work on strategy, but until then, I like pitting myself against the difficult computer every-so-often.

YeGoblynQueenne 6y ago

>> “I’ll give you fifty bucks right now to eat one of those pies,” Mr. Joseph said, pulling out a crisp bill. What toxic assholes - the lot of them, all those romantic characters in the article that could well be the summary of a Tom Waits song. They just come across as a bunch of toxic fucking jerks that don't mind endangering each other's health for the pleasure of winning some money off each other. The guy who got the implants for a year on a bet? How the fuck is that healthy? Maybe it's all good because he liked them after all - and hey, he got to meet ladies! What the hell is wrong with these people? It sounds like they all have very severe undiagnosed mental health issues.