501 Essential Backgammon Problems: 2nd Edition [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

For those of you unaware, Robertie, former two time world champion, has already written many books on backgammon and together with Kent Goulding co-published the sadly now defunct, but at the time premier magazine "Inside Backgammon".

As the title suggests, it is a compilation of 501 problems, split 360 checker plays v 141 cube actions. (67 doubles 74 redoubles). After the introductory chapters covering notation/probability/basic doubling strategy etc, there are 26 chapters covering many of the important concepts in backgammon from the opening to the bearoff. These are:

The Opening, Flexibility, The Middle Game, The 5-point, One Man Back, Priming Games, Connectivity, Hit Or Not?, Crunch Positions, Action Doubles, Late Game Blitz, Post-Blitz Turnaround Games, Ace-Point Games Back Games, The Containment, Game Post-Ace-Point Games, Saving The Gammon, The Race, Various Endgames, Bearing Off Against Contact, The Blitz, Breaking Anchor, Too Good To Double?, Playing For A Gammon, The Bearoff, Holding Games,

The book manages to cram the 501 positions and analyses into 384 pages of a book measuring just 23x15cms. This is achieved by squashing the diagrams with the effect of making the checkers oval. The problems in each chapter are all bunched together first and the solutions at the end of the chapter hence cutting down on the need to avoid looking at the analysis.

It's target audience is everybody from beginner to expert level. The only group that maybe wouldn't find many parts of this book valuable would be world class players.

The problems are typical of positions that appear in everyday backgammon and not unusual or tricky positions that an expert may get wrong. The difficulty of the problems range from very easy to hard with the majority in the intermediate/advanced level. My guess is that the book would be suitable to players ranked up to elo 1900 on F.I.B.S. or Gamesgrid. Robertie has attempted to create a book of reference positions whose characteristics the reader can hopefully remember and apply and adapt over the board and for each problem, he typically gives a succinct 8-10 line analysis.

There are no references to any of the neural net backgammon programs in the book. I checked all the positions by rollout and did discover some disagreements between the bots' conclusions and Robertie's analysis. There were around 12 cube problems whose equity differed by more than 0.04 and also some checker play differences. Some of those positions would make good reading for the more expert players.

My only major criticism on the book is that in some of the checker play problems Robertie doesn't analyse all the potential choices or rejects one when in fact the equities are quite close.

The reasoning behind this maybe that that the merits of that checker play do not fit in with the theme of the chapter or are too complex. And on a personal note I prefer to see the pip count in diagrams.

Overall an excellent book suitable for either beginners who have learned the very basics or a good refresher book for more advanced players. Marks out of ten 8.5.

Robertie's solutions so closely mirror my JellyFish Tutor recommendations that I have simply dropped the examples into JellyFish and only consult the book when I have a disagreement with the bot.

Therein is the second value in this book for me: Robertie's analysis is succinct and sticks to themes over theory. When I do perhaps 50 positions quickly, only noting where I differ from the bot, and then read Robertie's suggestions for these positions, I usually find a recurring theme pointing to a weakness in my game.

For me, this book is ultimately what I've made of it, Robertie has provided the necessary resources and I recommend this book as such.