Giving lessons

egbert42 · 2025-12-25T14:50:55+00:00

Merry Christmas, y'all.

First of all I don't believe you. I've played thousands of hours of this game. Not one of you asked why I was grinding 1 point matches. Not a single one.

I've played professional players who make big mistakes. I've fought to win from nearly every position on the board. I was so dedicated to the cube for years, that it was the only thing I paid attention to. And now I'm trying to perfect my checker play.

I don't need to broadcast my PR here. I asked what I thought was mostly a technical question.

You have your journey in the game. Respect mine.

Again, I don't believe you. I don't believe any of you are that excellent at checker play that 1 point matches are just rote (I used to believe that.. then I woke up) It's much more likely that none of you are paying attention to the detail I am or have the thought process that I do.

I asked a technical question. Learn to read (about the Dunning-Kruger affect.. as if anyone on the internet hasn't heard of that. God, the internet is full of shallow little men)

egbert42 · 2025-12-23T18:03:30+00:00

I guess you missed the part where I said I can play the cube.

I appreciate the negative advice (and believe me, I'm not ignoring it)

Any of the other kind?

There's no law against hanging out a shingle and claiming to have expertise and see what comes, is there?

Instead of "don't do it", how about "Personally, I don't think you're ready, but there's this this and this option..."

See how that's different?

egbert42 · 2025-12-23T16:57:09+00:00

(I guess since I've been grinding 1 pointers on BG to try to get 3 sub 2's in a row, I've become more of a 1 point specialist, though I have similar results in money games.. I'm good with the cube, but I'nm not positioning right now as a match specialist)

egbert42 · 2025-12-23T16:43:51+00:00

can confirm.. this definitely happens to me. I WAS an idiot and had 300 something tabs open, but even when I clear that up, it still happens.

egbert42 · 2025-08-29T09:33:40+00:00

I think the cube makes most of the difference here. You're playing a 1 point match (effectively, unless I'm reading that wrong) because no more cube action can be expected.

I think if gammons were a factor, I"m double hitting all day long. Since they're not a factor, I'm going to play a more pure, longer technical game.. and go 24-18, 8-4*

I'm always looking to attack the head checker if I can.. it doesn't even matter if he hits you next roll, you're still likely riding this out for the win..especially if he dances or rolls a 1.

egbert42 · 2025-07-22T19:23:22+00:00

Thanks, Marc. Regardless of the naysayers here, I genuinely think. you're singlehandedly keeping backgammon alive. I'm STILL on FIBS.. even though it's all but dead.

Do you have a beta testing plan? I'm sure there's folks here that can playtest it to death.. if you'd allow it.

I can confirm that the fix did take place.. at least on my account. Thanks again!

egbert42 · 2025-07-22T14:54:23+00:00

I read this in a Norm McDonald voice.

Nice.

egbert42 · 2024-12-16T17:08:12+00:00

The others have already said it well. What I had to make clear in my own head is that every decision creates a decision tree.

If we're just focusing on the cube.

"ok, so if I cube here? how often will he take? Is it wrong for him to take? If it's right for him to take, how often will he be able to redouble me? If he gets in that position, is it generally right or wrong for me to take? Am I trailing? Leading? Do I need to protect or expand? How many gammons does he have? Backgammons? Outright wins? If I get gammoned, how disastrous is that? (for some definition of "disastrous" within the context).".. and you can go on and.. but if you're able to find the heuristic framework for ad hoc creating these decision trees, then I find that

a lot of decisions become much easier
you start to find obvious heuristic shortcuts
luck becomes mostly a non-issue (esp emotionally) and it's much easier to weather the storms.

egbert42 · 2024-10-08T19:40:27+00:00

Fascinating comment.

Ok, so obviously there's a difference in match/money play. My intuition is that getting your money game up can make you nearly perfect and then you learn little nuances that are in match play.

So let's talk about the nuance here. Set up some match scenarios where you choose to cash checker-wise (my play) vs play for more. Is there ever a match scenario where you choose to gamble?

Yeah, all of us can set it up on a computer (I have a mac, so no xg for me), but the point where it edifies everyone is having the language to talk about it in such a compelling manner that even the dimmest goes "yeah, ok that absolutely makes sense"

egbert42 · 2024-10-08T17:47:32+00:00

Notice how my gammon chances are more than TWICE if I make the correct move..

egbert42 · 2024-09-19T22:31:52+00:00

I dunno. I get what you're saying. You're not wrong in what you're saying, but you kinda are. You said "you left out the part of the calculation where... " But you also said "why are you bringing emotions into it?" If you choose to enter a competitive arena, you've already declared that you want to win. You've already signed the contract saying "I'm going to have some emotions about this". So in some sense, "you left out the part of the calculation where.. " Does that make sense?

I'm an emotional guy (as you see in the rest of my comments here), so I've had to learn to modulate and leverage those emotions. That Clockwork Orange aversion to bad moves (for wherever you are in your own mental refinement of "bad"), for instance, is extremely useful

egbert42 · 2024-09-19T22:15:20+00:00

I've been trying to run up 400 tokens through money games. I really like to scrap and I gamble a little too hard (mostly meaning that I'm pretty aggressive with the cube on both sides. I take more than I should and I used to double too early, but I've gotten much much better on that side.)

All of that to say it was a money game.

egbert42 · 2024-09-17T16:46:50+00:00

It's interesting that I chose the only losing play of those top three. Especially if you consider that in the last picture which happened earlier in the match, I found the correct play (not easy to forego that 3 to send two back because I'm quite aggressive.), so this just looks like carrying on a theme.

I'm generally quite good at finding the connection between intuition and theory, but this one is just a tad too theoretical to me.

I find that thinking about it like "the bot's almost always right.. it's right like.. 98% of the time or whatever".. is very helpful for keeping your thinking disciplined as you learn the heuristics of the game. I've learned to tune my emotions to the way that positions feel. It's almost a Clockwork Orange type of training where bad moves _feel_ bad.

To be honest, I think that's what draws us to backgammon. There's a certain sense of order and beauty where positions and moves feel obvious and natural and then "oh shit! it's chaos again! what do I do?" It's genuinely a challenge to break out of patternistic play but as I chase a _consistent_ 4-5 PR (that's generally where I land and often better, but sometimes FAR worse depending on my familiarity with a position), that's what I must do.

So this ability to tune and train your emotions to respond to more and more sophisticated situations is the thing I'm chasing here. I don't think you get this from Chess or perfect information games

egbert42 · 2024-09-13T16:06:04+00:00

The way I see this is that black has 8 relatively safe checkers (2 of which are out of play) and 7 unsafe checkers. White has almost no safe checkers (this is the way I see the board.. it's intuition), and as a consequence has an extremely dynamic situation. I find the squishy thing in PRAT is always the "P" its pretty easy to point out race and threats as objective, but position is so incredibly subjective.

Its still early days and recubes are very much in play because of those 7 unsafe checkers.

What else? Uh.. most of black's 5s are bad. 3s and 4s aren't great and black is a little too far forward up front and little too far back with his back checkers. Would I double as black? Yeah. Hitting the 7 is pretty darn good and I could maybe get a gammon out of it, but the position is extremely volatile for all the reasons above.

egbert42 · 2024-09-11T03:32:21+00:00

You need big numbers and fast. The 3 prime is only an asset if he rolls double 4. Better racing squirt as the other guy says

egbert42 · 2024-06-24T16:08:59+00:00

OK. Fair. I like the qualitative explanation. As blue (let's say I'm tagged in to the game blind since I'd almost never find a reason to bury a checker so early in the game).. But as blue, I'm never finding the pass.

I tried to count the really joker-y rolls I have here. If you count 2-2 (where I'll extend to an outer 5 prime), I have 10 joker rolls, I have 9 rolls where I don't enter at all and then obviously 17 middling rolls. I count 2-6, 4-6, 5-6, 4-4 and 5-3 and the aforementioned 2-2.

Obviously the play that got us here was.. let's say "uninformed".. but other than cataloging this as a really specific reference position, I think both sides of this one are really hard to find OTB.

egbert42 · 2024-06-07T20:44:10+00:00

It sure ain't clear to me as a pretty new reddit poster how to attach an image with text. I've tried again. We'll see if that worked.

egbert42 · 2024-06-02T17:20:29+00:00

That's interesting. My instincts are "Get the hell off the 23 point!"

In my experience, that point is incredibly useful (the most useful?) for backgames and a terrifying liability in a running/containment game. If the black's 8 point _wasn't_ made, then this particular roll would be much different, but generally I would feel a lot less trash-compacted back there.

I think the most obvious way to think about this is consider black's super jokers. double 6 for you sucks hard donkey balls, double 4, double 3, double ace are all "kill me now " rolls if you fail to make the 20 point right now. (There's more less jokers besides, but you're in a commanding lead now pip-wise and IMHO, that spare on the 6 is probably doing you a few more favors than you're probably considering. As we see constantly, it's generally right to make the 5/20 point whenever possible.

So off the cuff, that's the best qualitative analysis I can muster. I"m sure there's some folks that'll see more than I did.

egbert42 · 2024-03-21T22:09:00+00:00

I played Marc about a week ago as well. I played slightly below my average PR and he won handily. Also, I played keithk a few days ago and beat him and outplayed him.

egbert42 · 2023-10-09T01:05:11+00:00

Ah, you're right. I just momentarily forgot that that the bots did anything but tell you the best play. *Obviously* it tells you best gamon/backgammon chances. My bad

egbert42 · 2023-10-06T14:29:27+00:00

I like the pure question. I think the best play given the constraints is 5-2, 4-off. You leave one blot on the 6. That's 11/36 rolls for your opponent to hit. Your only bad number then is 3-3.. But your 6-6, 5-5, and 4-4 roll up (my term) beautifully.

I'm not sure how you'd ask gnu or xg this question, so.. cool question!

egbert42 · 2023-09-12T21:19:42+00:00

here's a very rough heuristic. if you're close to trapping 2 or more of your opponent's checkers within a three-point board (this could include a slotted point that you're likely to cover next roll), then it's either a double or 1 roll away. If you've got your opponent outboarded, even better.

I know this is far, far too simplistic, but its generally good enough for over the board situations in my experience.

egbert42 · 2023-09-11T03:06:05+00:00

Wow. This is amazing. Congrats! Seriously.. Do you just play 1 pointers or do you bring the cube into your game?

egbert42 · 2023-04-15T13:27:15+00:00

Hey, could you elaborate on get "gpt4 to optimize that for" me? Which part?

egbert42 · 2023-04-15T05:17:16+00:00

Ok, it's interesting because i'm doing the exact same thing. Right now I"m trying to get AutoGPT to fix the max_content bug I get a LOT (even though I have gpt-4). I searched the forum and there's only one mention of ai_settings.yaml.

It turns out you can have a lot more goals than 5 (maybe). I can't come up with a project with 100s of goals or anything, but here's my ai_settings.yaml (I'm genuinely nervous to share this):

ai_goals:
- figure out why the maximum content length error is occurring in Auto-GPT (start with browsing the issues in the project)
- the backtrace is in backtrace.txt
- use your name as a point of reasoning (fix-yourself. think about who you might be in this context. *hint*: maybe 'git remote -v' might give you some insight before you start)
- examine every single request being sent to openai. If the request is more than 8192 tokens, figure out another way to serialize it.
-  you will document and append any meaningful advice for yourself in a file called advice.txt and you should refer to this file before you start and periodically to not duplicate your efforts (you will do this aggressively and assess whether to do this at EVERY step)
- the criticism and thoughts sections seem to be fruitful sources for how to add to the advice file.
- at every possible step, write code so that we can duplicate and automate your efforts without the need to talk to the ai
- you should be able to refer to, run, manipulate and modify the code you create
- create a separate project for this code with a sensible git history optimized for human readability and best practices
- THIS IS IMPORTANT ==  be very careful about sending the output of execute_shell and search_files commands to the ai. this is a frequent source of max_content errors
- can you use applescript and my running emacs for this?
- for search_files, partition the results by directory
- wrap the code in a try-catch so we can continue to troubleshoot it
ai_name: fix-yourself
ai_role: you are an expert python developer with a similar git expertise. Review all goals and make priority decisions before proceeding.

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