After winning the 2013 British Open of Backgammon, I have decided to try my hand at writing Backgammon articles commenting on the psychology of the game, the influence of technology, analyzing various cube decisions, and various other themes. Below is the introductory paragraph of my first article, if you wish to read the whole article and see the various positions and analysis click here. If you would like to view the annotated game in ExtremeGammon format email me and I will send it to you.
Since the bot revolution of the 1990s, all major aspects of backgammon theory have been explored and our understanding ofkey concept such as the race vs. timing, the price of gammons at different match scores, and the play of backgames and blitzes have all been transformed. Not only has big-picture theory progressed at breakneck speed, but these developments have rapidly trickled down from World Class players and theoreticians to large sections of the backgammon community via the staggering quantity of excellent educational backgammon literature published over the last twenty years. First Bill Robertie and Kit Wolseley explained the "real meaning" of the bot revolution with Robertie elegantly describing the concepts of connectivity, robustness, and non-commitment, and Wolseley bringing matchscore-influenced checker play to the masses. Now with websites like GammonVillage and authors like Steve Sax and Stick pushing our knowledge ever forward, few key tactical, theoretical, or match score dependent issues remain to be solved. In fact, it seems that top quality backgammon literature has simply become the juxtaposition of a few positions connected via a theme, such as Prime vs. Prime, 3-away 4-away cubes, or holding games at different scores, and drawing some conclusions about this position "type" . Some -- such as Ryuichi Shiina -- believe that now that we have found the holy grail of rollouts, analysis and grand concepts are no longer necessary. Yet, with all this wealth of potentially edifying and money-making knowledge at our finger tips, even the most diligent student of the game can only learn so much from study alone. Backgammon will always remain as much of an art as it is a science. And that is what makes the game truly great.Click here for the article