The Strong Arm

Backgammon is a game of startling turnarounds, crushing defeats, nightmare endings, last second heroics, getting yourself in a mess of trouble, and then learning your lesson the hard way when you get backgammoned on a 4 point cube that you had no business offering or accepting.  It often comes down to an exciting ending that toys with your emotions. At times, the game can even be cheap, underhanded, rude, or downright bastardly.  Nothing exemplifies this more than The Strong Arm, a deus ex machine bridge that saves boatloads of hopeless backgame pieces and turns backgammons into victories and friends into enemies.

Imagine yourself with 3 pieces in your opponent’s home board behind an impenetrable wall advancing with devastating timing.  Your homeboard is the projects. Points 6, 5, and 4 are vacant lots paved with broken glass and loogies; Points 3, 2, and 1 are severely overcrowded.  You’ve got no hope, right? Even if you hit your opponent’s blot, they’d slip right off the bar, wouldn't they, those jerks?! What to do? Fear not and use the Strong Arm!

If you connect your pieces across the board, that is if you connect stacks on two points directly opposite each other (the 1 and the 24 or the 2 and the 23 for example), you’ve Strong Armed. Don't try to keep your pieces spread out. If you've got pieces in your opponents home, stack up on the point across from them! The moment your pieces touch across the board, a bridge is built between them, a Strong Arm extends and rescues your children who were so far from home. You still occupy both points, in fact each of your pieces in the Arm occupies both points at once. They can move forward from either point. Pieces that were in your opponent’s home board can move forward in your own home board, or if you want, you can still take the long way home and more them forward from your opponent’s homeboard. But that would be silly. The Strong Arm is for winning. Flex your muscles, bear off, and steel your jaw in case someone spits in your eye. Strong Arm- them's fightin' words!

Excerpt From: Sleeve of Crete. “909 Backgammon Teaser.” Desert Mast Press, 2012.

Board Making: Scrap Marble

The 3 Elements of Backgammon are Rules, Luck, and Imagination.  The Skill of Boardmaking is a physical construction of the rules, perhaps imaginative, perhaps not. It spreads the game to new places, whether you've found yourself without a board to play on or if you're making a gift for a pupil.

Scrap Board: Marble, Brick, Shale (??)

Back in April I was strolling through the streets of Pereira talking on the phone to my mom and my sister, when I spied some marble scraps in the grass.  I stuffed them in my backpack with no plan but much aesthetic pleasure at both their look and feel. A few weeks later, I realized they'd be perfect for a backgammon board.  I sketched the board triangles on a paper, penciled them in on the slabs, and then began wandering around my apartment looking for sharp implements. Two manual can openers, a dull pocket knife, and a broken bread slicer later, I had my board! The pieces are also made of scrap rock, one is a brickish tile and the other is a flakey shale tile. I also picked up some wood chips that I migh chop up to make another team.  I found a large hexagonal and screwy nut for the doubling device.  

Dawn and Katrina are visiting from the USA, and we played a few games on the board to much glee!  Two fantastic features are the "crevasse" bar and the bear off landing area.  The dice also bounce off the marble quite delightfully.

Make some boards, teach your friends to play and give them board presents, leave boards at your favorite boardless bars!

Happy full moon!
-Weamo

CONSTRUCTION PICTURES

Love and Hate

by Stevie Weller

I've got a bit of a reputation as being the best backgammon player in the world. Maybe it's because I won the August 2006 monthly Phoenix Tournament, or maybe it was when I won the Wooden Dragon at Bandon Beach, OR in 2009, but I think that after I won the 909 Point Tournament against

Alex Vittal, everyone's been afraid to play me. I'm getting way too much credit, though. I'm really not that great. Vittal swears I should take my game to Vegas, but betting money on a game just seems like it would ruin the fun and my luck. Thomas Boltz once picked me up at the Phoenix airport (Skyharbor) on his bicycle. While I was waiting for him, a taxi driver saw the backgammon board in my hands and challenged me to a game at $10 a point. I said I'd play him but not for money. Of course, I won. I bet that if I'd bet anything, I'd have lost the game and the money.

I was the 5-2 (a backgammon monster) at a Halloween party in 2011. I brought a board, and I played a few strangers. One of them claimed that no one could beat him two out of three games. That was lgood enough to get my blood broiling. I won the first, but he won the next two. Now, if you know a thing or two about backgammon, you'll know that three games is an insignificant sample size, and that anyone can win two out of three games. But that really didn't matter to me then because he won two games, I lost, and I would probably never see him again. There was no way I could regain my honor. Which brings up the question that all of this has been driving at, what are we playing for?

Some people play for money, to make friends, for the challenge, or simply to win. I like playing backgammon for two reasons, love and hate. My sister, Erin Weller, once owned a board with "LOVE" and "HATE" stitched on either side of the case.

Backgammon is certainly a game of love. How many people do I love? About as many people as I've played backgammon with. My first memory of the game is my father explaining it to my sisters and I, sitting together on the rug of our living room. From 2006 to 2012, backgammon was the national past time of my roommates and I. It's the induction ritual of the cult I belong to. Every time my family has a reunion, we play backgammon. And playing backgammon is a marvelous way to flirt. My sister's girlfriend proposed to her over a game of backgammon, right after rolling a 6-5, no less! Whatever type of love it may be, familial, romantic, or friendly, backgammon expresses it.

I don't hate anyone I've played backgammon with, but I hate losing, especially to my arch rivals! Currently, I'm engaged in an epic battle of 25 point matches against the Michael Phelan on Dailygammon.com. He won our first match with a 25-8 walloping. I've got a slight in total points at the moment, but there's no telling how long that will last before I find myself on the wrong end of an 8 cube gammon.

My first nemesis was Alexander Vittal. I told you we played a 909 point match. It lasted eight months, and boy oh boy, did I mop the floor with him! To be fair, he was completely new to the game, and I had already read the complete works of Jacoby and Crawford (backgammoners so powerful they each have a rule named after them). We started in January of 2006, and Alex struck out to an early lead that reached its peak around Superbowl Sunday. But at about 50-49, I took off, never to be caught again. As my lead grew and grew, Alex became desperate and frustrated, throwing our scoring plank into the fire pit several times, only to fish it out and demand another game (which I would win). I admit, I took great pleasure from the victories. From the time I etched the final 909th tally mark, Alex has not only derided me as winning that match on pure luck, he has also beaten me just about as many times as I have beaten him. He now claims to be better than me. I scoffing and point to my victory in the 909 tournament, but that only goes so far. History is empty without current events. A victory over Alex today isn't as good as that win in the 909 Tournament, but it is very nice, almost like restoring order to something that has been put out of place. Vittal has attempted to design at a match to test scientifically who was the better player, which ended in a draw. Honestly though, I know who the better player is. I will, however, admit that Vittal is much better at verbal combat, coming up with stinking jems such as "you've no business winning this game", "underhanded, cheap, and rude", "chair whiz", and the legendary "ass clip".

I still remember the name of the man who beat me two out of three games that Halloween night. We're facebook friends, in fact. Why do I care that I lost to him? I could beat him if we played a longer match. Do I really believe what he said, that he can beat anyone in two out of three games? Do I even believe that he believes it? I mean, who does he play against? Any one good? Probably not. Does he even know who Falafel, Bill Robertie, Nack Ballard, or Neil Kazaros are? Is it possible that the only reason I'm writing this book is just so I can say "HA! Take that. You may have beaten me in two out of three games that one night, but have you ever written a backgammon book? No? I didn't think so! Take that!" Yes, that is entirely possible. A nemesis is a powerful force.

Money is lifeless honey that has no taste. Fame is fleeting, and even while you have it, it's anticlimactic. Solving problems and improving your skills does sharpen your mind, and it is satisfying all on it's own, but what good is any of this without someone to share it with? Our opponents are the reasons we play. The pieces on the table are another brush that paints life's greatest experiences in us, bringing us together with our dear friends and family in love and in hate.

Touraj Daryaee- Backgammon in Ancient Persia

The moon is new on Thursday.  Here's a real historical paper by Touraj Daryaee from UC Irvine and the truth about Kurt "Smitty" Collins.  

I'm sitting here in this cafe, my internet at home is disconnected, a final paper for an online class is due at midnight, I've got a serious case of the coffee jitters, and if I don't leave soon, URABANANA, a very mysterious local restaurant, might close!  Look guys, I need to cut to the chase.

I've previously spread lies about fake backgammon mythology and history, and yesterday I found an authentic and really really interesting academic paper about backgammon (and chess) in ancient Persia.  My hate for internet lies/rumors and my joy at finding this study made me very ashamed of everything I've written about Kurt Smitty Collins.  Anyway, I'll have to refine my thoughts on that later.

Touraj Daryaee, a professor at UC Irvine, published "Mind, Body, and the Cosmos: Chess and Backgammon in Ancient Persia" in the Fall issue of the Journal of Ancient Iranian Studies in 2002.  I've found it posted in a few different formats online.  Daryaee has posted a PDF scan of the journal article with pictures on his personal website. Sasanika, a scholarly organization devoted to the study of the Sasanian Persian Empire (of which Daryaee is a member,) has a PDF of the paper on their site which is much more readable, but it does not include the pictures from the original journal article.  The Circle of Ancient Iranian Studies website has the complete paper in html format, along with some pictures that are not in the original article.

First Quarter Moon: E. Bob Oboe Update, Some more about Dailygammon.com

The E Bob Oboe Memorial Online Tournament of Friends or Friends of Friends.
As you may have heard, the tournament is progressing very slowly. Many of the first round matches have not begun yet. However, unless you specifically forfeit, you won't be kicked out of the tournament. While I personally enjoy the aesthetic commitment to a long, drawn out, single elimination tournament bracket that depends on one match to finish before another can begin, I am open to hearing others opinions about the tournament organization and rules. Perhaps we could establish a time limit for each match. Or, to preserve the integrity of the tournament, we could leave it as is, but begin another tournament or league with different rules. One possibility is a round robin tournament, in which you play each other player one time and a loss does not knock you out.

Many of the matches have taken place on Dailygammon.com, and while I've yet to play my first tournament match, I've started playing on this site. They host regular tournaments of various lengths, and there is a robust community of regular players. You can also challenge other players to individual matches, and I've played a few matches against other E Bob Tournament participants, including two 25 point matches against TheMichaelPhelan. That's his Daily Gammon handle, mine's Sleevie. I give you now a direct hyperlink to my Daily Gammon page, where you can challenge me to a match AND see my all time statistics versus my #1 Daily Gammon Arch Rival, TheMichaelPhelan. http://www.dailygammon.com/bg/user/15026

I love Daily Gammon right now, but a few things about how it runs took me a little bit to figure out:
-You do need to register for an account to access any part of the site, and they don't give you a password right away; you've got to wait for the admins to email it to you, (at max 24 hours).
-There are no email notifications about games, invitations, messages, or turns. The only way to know anything about your account is to go to the site.

-Each action you take in a game (rolling, doubling, submitting moves) is submitted to the server and saved. So if you roll your dice, get a 6-2, but then you have to run to take your spinach puffs out of the oven, and you don't come back to the game until the next day, it will still be exactly the same with that 6-2 waiting for you, even if your computer shut down in the meanwhile.
-To make the matches move faster, the computer running the site uses a clever method ("computer guessing") to give you likely scenarios and ask you what you will do. You often take more than one turn in one sitting. Above the board it may say "What will you do if the game proceeds this way?" I can explain it in greater detail, and you can read about it in the Dailygammon help section. Let me assure you that it is fair, it's not magic, and you are not playing against the computer.
-When you're making a move in a game, the game is not sent back to your opponent until you come to the two bubbles that say "Next Game" and "To Top" and press one of them. Once you do get to that point and press one of those options, the game is sent back to your opponent.

Ratings and Experience
Your Daily Gammon page lists your rating and experience, both based on the FIBS rating system explained here: http://www.fibs.com/ratings.html#explained
-Only official Daily Gammon tournaments count in the ratings and experience. So when TheMichaelPhelan beat me in our two 25 point matches, our ratings and experience did not change, but when I beat him in Round 1 of the Strawberry Stratified 2434 15 point tournament, our ratings and experience did change. That's why some people in the E Bob Oboe tournament have experience of 0 despite playing matches on Daily Gammon.
-Your experience will increase by the number of points to win a match after the match finishes.
-Your rating will go up or down based on experience, the compared rating of you and your opponent, and on the points to win the match.
-If experience and compared ratings were not a factor, and you won a 5 point match with a score of 5 to 4, your rating would go up 5 points, and your opponent's rating would drop 5 points. If you lose a match, you don't get any credit for the points you had in the match. You lost. A 21-20 loss will affect you exactly the same as a 21-0 loss.
-A forfeited match will affect your experience and your rating.

-You can export finished matches and analyze them with backgammon computer software. GNU Gammon does this, and it is free.

Enjoy the moon! In a few days it will be new.