Backgammon: Sean's in the money
The tournament didn't go too well for either of us this week. We both went out in the first round (I had been 6-0 up in a match to 7 but it all slipped away from me). I entered another tournament of 8 players but Sean had had enough and started playing a chouette.
Charlie came along this evening and gave Sean $150 towards what he owed. Great, thought Sean. If Charlie had not paid, Sean wouldn't have been so keen to play with him in a chouette again but it looked like it was OK.
I won my first match in the second tournament. Woo! I checked with Sean - the chouette wasn't going very well, he was 30 points or so down. I started my second match. It was a very long one. Now the new venue is much nicer than the last one but also stays open until 3am. Good news in some ways.
By the time I finished (lost) my second match it must have been about midnight. I went to check the chouette. Sean's luck had completely reversed, he was sitting tight in the box and considerably up. I then watched a few games.
The most spectacular game was one when Sean was still in the box and the cubes had been shipped across a few times, most were on 8 except for Charlie who had taken an auto and doubled too early - he was on 32. Sean pulled off a gammon and won 120 points in a single game! He was eventually knocked out of the box but played on for a little while longer.
Sean ended up at the end of night (~2am - not such good news the next day) on around +120 or $2400 or ~£1000!!! He collected a bit of cash but also a lot of IOUs, including one from an Australian chess Grandmaster and a large one from Charlie.
He's considering not entering the tournament next week and just playing chouettes.
The tournament didn't go too well for either of us this week. We both went out in the first round (I had been 6-0 up in a match to 7 but it all slipped away from me). I entered another tournament of 8 players but Sean had had enough and started playing a chouette.
Charlie came along this evening and gave Sean $150 towards what he owed. Great, thought Sean. If Charlie had not paid, Sean wouldn't have been so keen to play with him in a chouette again but it looked like it was OK.
I won my first match in the second tournament. Woo! I checked with Sean - the chouette wasn't going very well, he was 30 points or so down. I started my second match. It was a very long one. Now the new venue is much nicer than the last one but also stays open until 3am. Good news in some ways.
By the time I finished (lost) my second match it must have been about midnight. I went to check the chouette. Sean's luck had completely reversed, he was sitting tight in the box and considerably up. I then watched a few games.
The most spectacular game was one when Sean was still in the box and the cubes had been shipped across a few times, most were on 8 except for Charlie who had taken an auto and doubled too early - he was on 32. Sean pulled off a gammon and won 120 points in a single game! He was eventually knocked out of the box but played on for a little while longer.
Sean ended up at the end of night (~2am - not such good news the next day) on around +120 or $2400 or ~£1000!!! He collected a bit of cash but also a lot of IOUs, including one from an Australian chess Grandmaster and a large one from Charlie.
He's considering not entering the tournament next week and just playing chouettes.
posted by Zoe at 5:02 PM
1 Comments:
Zoe, like most Cambridge mathematicians I have met, cannot do basic arithmetic. I ended the evening +200 on the score sheet. We were playing for $5 a point (I would not play for any more). So I ended the evening $1,000 up which is about £400. Being 200 points up is pretty rare in a chouette (at least it is for me :-). Chris Bray in his excellent 'What Colour is the Wind' writes 'unless you can pay out a 150 point loss, come back for the next session and not immediately start chasing the lost points, you are in the wrong game and you will not be making completely rational doubling decisions'. I got very lucky in the chouette although some of the cubes taken from me had the faint air of the irrational about them! I will post a couple of interesting positions from my matches here as soon as I get a moment.
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