hobby #219

Backgammon

Playing and studying backgammon — the 5,000-year-old race-and-blocking game where two players bear off fifteen checkers under the roll of the dice. The real depth is in the mathematics layered over the luck: pip counting to know who's ahead in the race, estimating winning equity, and the doubling cube, which turns every position into a wager where you must decide whether the odds justify doubling the stakes or accepting a drop. Rollouts, match equity tables, and gammon-price theory reward exactly the kind of person who likes to put a number on a hunch.

Aug 11 7:36 PM #219 3 min

Six Losses and I Can't Tell Which I Earned

Backgammon

A regular resigned a game he could still win, and called it correct. That sentence cost me six losses to a phone and one badly bruised faith in my own arithmetic.

strategymathhistory