My "Backgammon Rules of Thumb" at https://docs.google.com/document/d/1kL8S4H7rJaAHnUhrTJc0fGcIH5-eo7cMXqvvt6-wWig/edit
includes Dimitri's Rule:

Dimitri's Rule: “Never double without a new point in your home board.” (there are exceptions)

I don't remember where I got this, don't know who Dimitri might be, and
can't find any mention of it anywhere via an internet search.

It's certainly overstated, but the fact that we have a phase for its
exceptions ("pointless double") indicates that there is some sort of
general rule for there to be exceptions to.

Perhaps something like this would be better:

"You usually need to own at least one additional point in your home
board to double, but there are many exceptions."

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Monday, October 31, 2022 at 3:47:11 PM UTC, ah...Clem wrote:

My "Backgammon Rules of Thumb" at https://docs.google.com/document/d/1kL8S4H7rJaAHnUhrTJc0fGcIH5-eo7cMXqvvt6-wWig/edit
includes Dimitri's Rule:

Dimitri's Rule: “Never double without a new point in your home board.” (there are exceptions)

I don't remember where I got this, don't know who Dimitri might be, and can't find any mention of it anywhere via an internet search.

It's certainly overstated, but the fact that we have a phase for its exceptions ("pointless double") indicates that there is some sort of
general rule for there to be exceptions to.

Perhaps something like this would be better:

"You usually need to own at least one additional point in your home
board to double, but there are many exceptions."

I did once play at a club where it was common practice to point out this rule to beginners.
As bg rules go, I don't actually think this one's particularly bad.

Paul

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Monday, October 31, 2022 at 11:47:11 AM UTC-4, ah...Clem wrote:

My "Backgammon Rules of Thumb" at https://docs.google.com/document/d/1kL8S4H7rJaAHnUhrTJc0fGcIH5-eo7cMXqvvt6-wWig/edit
includes Dimitri's Rule:

Dimitri's Rule: “Never double without a new point in your home board.” (there are exceptions)

I don't remember where I got this, don't know who Dimitri might be, and can't find any mention of it anywhere via an internet search.

It's certainly overstated, but the fact that we have a phase for its exceptions ("pointless double") indicates that there is some sort of
general rule for there to be exceptions to.

Perhaps something like this would be better:

"You usually need to own at least one additional point in your home
board to double, but there are many exceptions."

Are you sure you didn't misspell his name too and it's from Dmitriy Obukhov? That would be my guess if the name wasn't misspelled. He helps run the BMAB and is active enough online/in bg.

Stick

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 10/31/2022 4:52 PM, Stick Rice wrote:

Are you sure you didn't misspell his name too and it's from Dmitriy Obukhov? That would be my guess if the name wasn't misspelled. He helps run the BMAB and is active enough online/in bg.

I have no memory of where I saw this, where it came from, who
Dimetry/Dmitriy is, so zero confidence that I spelled it right.

Do you have contact info for Dmitriy Obukhov? If so, I could ask him,
and if he's the originator he might be able to provide the actual text
rather than whatever vague recollections I might have of it.

Any other corrections or suggestions for improvement again cheerfully
accepted.





--
Ah....Clem
The future is fun, the future is fair.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 1/11/2022 9:42 am, ah....Clem wrote:

I have no memory of where I saw this, where it came from, who
Dimetry/Dmitriy is, so zero confidence that I spelled it right.

Dmitriy is the CEO of BMAB, you can contact him through the BMAB
website.

https://bgmastersab.com/contact

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 10/31/2022 8:19 PM, Simon Woodhead wrote:

On 1/11/2022 9:42 am, ah....Clem wrote:

I have no memory of where I saw this, where it came from, who
Dimetry/Dmitriy is, so zero confidence that I spelled it right.

Dmitriy is the CEO of BMAB, you can contact him through the BMAB
website.

https://bgmastersab.com/contact

I'd be rather surprised if it turned out to be Dmitriy, because my
impression is that he's not the type to promulgate "rules" of this
type. There is one piece of wisdom that I associate with Dmitriy,
which is his insistence that everyone learns differently, and so it
makes no sense to try to shoehorn everyone into a one-size-fits-all
coaching framework. I find this to be true not just for backgammon,
but for almost every skilled activity, and am continually amazed at
how often this nugget of wisdom is ignored. In any case, that's why
I would be surprised if Dmitriy champions such a sweeping
generalization.

By the way, over a decade ago on BGOnline, svilo claimed (perhaps
jokingly) that "My granddady told me: you don't double before making
a home point."

http://www.bgonline.org/forums/webbbs_config.pl?read=111409

---
Tim Chow

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Timothy Chow <tchow12000@yahoo.com> writes:

he's not the type to promulgate "rules" of this type

As you know, I am this type, especially to bring beginners up to
speed. There is a highly recommended book about "satisficing" in
decision theory: "Simple heuristics that make us smart". One of my
many projects in the pipeline is "Backgammon by rules of thumb". So I
belong to "that" party. (-:

I just quickly browsed through a long session of GNU Backgammon
playing my mutant doubling bot. It took 481 games to come up with 10
doubles by gnubg that had NOT made an additional home point (pure
races omitted, of course, I am using other rules of thumb for these
...).

Then a small Unix command line showed for the full session of 3000
games the following results:

Board strength | Doubles
1 | 88
2 | 529
3 | 715
4 | 465
5 | 242
6 | 47

Of the 88 doubles in the first row, 19 were pure races, so only 69
contact doubles without an additional home board happened. Out of 2098
doubles.

Only 1 exception about every 30 games is a very good rule of thumb. To
me, it is just an application of PRAT (Position, Race And Threats),
and a very simple sanity check that saves a lot of time over the
board.

Best regards

Axel

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Tuesday, November 1, 2022 at 2:40:48 AM UTC, Tim Chow wrote:

On 10/31/2022 8:19 PM, Simon Woodhead wrote:

On 1/11/2022 9:42 am, ah....Clem wrote:

I have no memory of where I saw this, where it came from, who
Dimetry/Dmitriy is, so zero confidence that I spelled it right.

Dmitriy is the CEO of BMAB, you can contact him through the BMAB
website.

https://bgmastersab.com/contact

I'd be rather surprised if it turned out to be Dmitriy, because my
impression is that he's not the type to promulgate "rules" of this
type. There is one piece of wisdom that I associate with Dmitriy,
which is his insistence that everyone learns differently, and so it
makes no sense to try to shoehorn everyone into a one-size-fits-all
coaching framework. I find this to be true not just for backgammon,
but for almost every skilled activity, and am continually amazed at
how often this nugget of wisdom is ignored. In any case, that's why
I would be surprised if Dmitriy champions such a sweeping
generalization.

...

From my experience of how ideas get named after people, my guess would
be different to yours. My guess would be that, at least twice, Dmitriy was heard
to say (something [after a game or match] like) "I'm really not sure about your double. You only had a
one-point board and also ..." Other people who heard this then wanted to make this into
a rule and "Dmitriy's rule" was a natural choice for the name of the rule because they'd
heard Dmitriy refer to the concept.

My point is that, if indeed the rule is really known as "Dmitriy's rule", then this is not at all
inconsistent with your observations about him.

Paul

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 11/1/2022 4:37 AM, Axel Reichert wrote:

Timothy Chow <tchow12000@yahoo.com> writes:

he's not the type to promulgate "rules" of this type

As you know, I am this type, especially to bring beginners up to
speed. There is a highly recommended book about "satisficing" in
decision theory: "Simple heuristics that make us smart". One of my
many projects in the pipeline is "Backgammon by rules of thumb". So I
belong to "that" party. (-:

To be clear, my praise of Dmitriy's principle that "everyone is
different" does not mean that I denigrate rules of thumb. I use
many myself. Your study of racing cubes is highly valuable; it
is not humanly possible to make such decisions well without some
kind of heuristics. What I would say, though, is that the value
of a particular rule of thumb will vary from player to player.
Some players might find a particular rule of thumb useful, while
others might not. Some players might use lots of explicit heuristics
while others might use only a few, relying mostly on general intuition,
or maybe on a large stock of memorized reference positions. Even in
the case of racing cubes, where you need *some* rules, different people
may choose different rules; some may follow their chosen rule to the
letter, while others may make exceptions. And so on.

In the case of "pointless doubles," I would say that the value of the
rule for a particular person depends on whether the player is overly
inclined to double prematurely. If you're coaching a player and you
notice that they player is doubling prematurely a lot, then it might
indeed be valuable to say, "Don't double when you haven't made any
new home-board points." It really depends more on the player's
predilections than on statistics of how often the rule holds. For a
different player, who is too hesitant to double, it might be more
valuable to have some rules of thumb about when one *should* double
with only a one-point board.

---
Tim Chow

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On November 1, 2022 at 2:34:12 AM UTC-6, Axel Reichert wrote:

Timothy Chow <tchow...@yahoo.com> writes:

he's not the type to promulgate "rules" of this type

Even though I couldn't help myself to offer a "rule"
of my own at one time: "You slot. You slut.", I'm a
believe that going by any more than just a few of
them does more harm than good.

I just quickly browsed through a long session of GNU
Backgammon playing my mutant doubling bot. It took
481 games to come up with 10 doubles by gnubg that
had NOT made an additional home point....

I see playing backgammon or even gamblegammon
by such rules as counterproductive as planning your
day according to your daily astrological horoscope.

You can take any stupid advice like "don't double if
you have a blot on your 15 point if you also have a
blot on your 10 point" and look at some number of
games to see if it holds true, in order to make it into
a "rule". If that doesn't hold, you can try "don't double
if you have a blot on your 12 point if you also have a
blot on your 9 point", etc. Eventually coincidence will
validate some of them...

Then a small Unix command line showed for the full
session of 3000 games the following results:

I'm glad you still have those games. You didn't want
to share them because the files were too large. Since
processing time seems to not be an issue for you, why
not run another "small Unix command line" to reopen
them and export/save them in a compact text format
so that you can make it available for us to download?

Are afraid that other people may analyse them to find
evidence of truths that you and your ilk want to keep
denying..?

| 1 | 88 | 2 | 529 | 3 | 715 | 4 | 465 | 5 | 242 | 6 | 47 |

Of the 88 doubles in the first row, 19 were pure races,
so only 69 contact doubles without an additional home
board happened. Out of 2098 doubles.
Only 1 exception about every 30 games is a very good
rule of thumb.

What about the 47 doubles in the last row? How many
of those were pure races vs contact doubles? And at
what ratio do they occur, out of 2098 doubles? Enough
to say that "don't double if you have 6-point board" is a
very good rule of dumb? Err, I mean rule of thumb... :)

MK

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On November 1, 2022 at 6:45:33 AM UTC-6, Tim Chow wrote:

To be clear, my praise of Dmitriy's principle that "everyone
is different" does not mean that I denigrate rules of thumb.
I use many myself. Your study of racing cubes is highly
valuable; it is not humanly possible to make such decisions
well without some kind of heuristics. What I would say,
though, is that the value of a particular rule of thumb will vary
from player to player. Some players might find a particular
rule of thumb useful, while others might not. Some players
might use lots of explicit heuristics while others might use
only a few, relying mostly on general intuition, or maybe on
a large stock of memorized reference positions. Even in the
case of racing cubes, where you need *some* rules, different
people may choose different rules; some may follow their
chosen rule to the letter, while others may make exceptions.
And so on.

In the case of "pointless doubles," I would say that the value
of the rule for a particular person depends on whether the
player is overly inclined to double prematurely. If you're
coaching a player and you notice that they player is doubling
prematurely a lot, then it might indeed be valuable to say,
"Don't double when you haven't made any new home-board
points." It really depends more on the player's predilections
than on statistics of how often the rule holds. For a different
player, who is too hesitant to double, it might be more valuable
to have some rules of thumb about when one *should* double
with only a one-point board.

I quoted you entire article because of and just to say
that I liked reading it and I agree with what you said,
which seems to happen increasingly more often and
at a higher ratio to the total number of your postings,
which in turn is kind of scary but probably just because
it coincided with Halloween... ;)

MK

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

MK <murat@compuplus.net> writes:

[session of 3000 games]

I'm glad you still have those games. You didn't want to share them
because the files were too large. Since processing time seems to not
be an issue for you, why not run another "small Unix command line" to
reopen them and export/save them in a compact text format so that you
can make it available for us to download?

Because I will not work for you, let alone on a task that is trivial to
do on your own.

"don't double if you have 6-point board" is a very good rule of dumb?

The numbers (47 cases) are small because in most cases a double occured earlier, with 1 to 5 points made. Big surprise.

Axel

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On November 5, 2022 at 2:13:51 AM UTC-6, Axel Reichert wrote:

MK <mu...@compuplus.net> writes:

[session of 3000 games]

I'm glad you still have those games. You didn't want
to share them because the files were too large.
Since processing time seems to not be an issue for
you, why not run another "small Unix command line"
to reopen them and export/save them in a compact
text format so that you can make it available for us
to download?

Because I will not work for you, let alone on a task
that is trivial to do on your own.

For the umpteenth time: as most people here who
claim to volunteer their time and effort fot the love
of bg, so did I gladly spend my time and effort to do
my own experiments, (which I have shared with you
all, including my data), partipated in discussions for
decades at the cost having endured being ridiculed
for the new ideas that I have bravely pioneered here,
which now some of you gradually embrace even if
without giving me the credit I well earnedly deserve.

I'm not asking anything from you or anyone else for
my own material benefit.

Again for the umpteenth time: I have urged you all
for long years to do your own experiments, because
you were suspicious of my results, so that you could
prove them to yourselves and others who may trust
you better.

You did your "mutant" experiment apparently not to
discover and learn something new but to prove me
wrong, which just fine. But your results instead did
prove me right.

In order to deny that reality, you don't mind spending
your time and effort, without complaining that you'll
not work for me, doing useless "smokes and maths"
analyses that doesn't apply to the original goal of the
experiment but to distract away from it.

Furthermore, still in order to deny the reality of your
results, you're hiding your data (against established
practices), to deprive other people from analysing
your data in their own way, for their own purposes.

I doubt that you would share your data even if you
were paid for it. As a step of goodwill, I'm offering
you $25 to upload your data in whatever format you
have it now, to a cloud storage, for us to download.
(A free Gmail gives 15Gb, plenty enough to upload
a couple of Gb). If you would go the extra step of
running a "small Unix command line" to convert it
to something like JF .mat file format, not for "my!"
but for the benefit of all, I'll pay you another $25. I
know $50 is a small amount but it should be enough
to show that, not only that I don't want for anything
for free, but I'm willing to pay something from my
limited retirement income for the benefit of all here!

"don't double if you have 6-point board" is a very
good rule of dumb?

The numbers (47 cases) are small because in most
cases a double occured earlier, with 1 to 5 points
made. Big surprise.

No surprise at all that you all fabricate more bullshit
to defend your previous bullshits. This is a perfect of
it. Your 3,000 games were "money games". Thus you
would never end up with a dead cube and whatever
double/s occurred earlier wouln't matter at all. If the
bot has access to the cube with a 6-point board, it's
a valid double decision. You find 88 doubles out of
2098 rare enough to come up with a "rule of dumb"
but 47 which is almost half of 88 is not rare enough
for the same "rule of dumb"...?! I don't know how you
guys live with your own bullshits even after your nose
is dipped in it time and again... :(

On the brightish side of this waste of time, I realised
that I really like the expression "rule of dumb" and I'll
use it more often from now on. ;)

MK

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

MK <murat@compuplus.net> writes:

On November 5, 2022 at 2:13:51 AM UTC-6, Axel Reichert wrote:

You did your "mutant" experiment apparently not to discover and learn something new but to prove me wrong, which just fine. But your results instead did prove me right.

Aha. And the earth is flat.

You find 88 doubles out of 2098 rare enough to come up with a "rule of
dumb"

No, I find (529+715+465+242+47)/2098 = 1998/2098 convincing enough.

Axel

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On November 6, 2022 at 2:27:42 AM UTC-7, Axel Reichert wrote:

MK <mu...@compuplus.net> writes:

On November 5, 2022 at 2:13:51 AM UTC-6, Axel Reichert wrote:

You did your "mutant" experiment apparently not to
discover and learn something new but to prove me
wrong, which just fine. But your results instead did
prove me right.

Aha. And the earth is flat.

No. It is round.

You find 88 doubles out of 2098 rare enough to come
up with a "rule of dumb"

No, I find (529+715+465+242+47)/2098 = 1998/2098
convincing enough.

No, I find (88+529+715+465+242)/2098 = 2039/2098
more convincing indeed.

1998/2098 = 0.95233555....
2039/2098 = 0.97187797....

0.95 < 0.97

I win again!

I love mathshitting contests. :) Bring it on...

MK

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)