Betfair and TrueMoneygames

February 6th 2005

One of the attractions of online backgammon to many players is the ability to remain anonymous, so real names could not have been mentioned without the players’ permission. Both Anthony and Murray were delighted with their success and happy to be named.

The sponsors were also happy as they both signed up new clients by virtue of the conditions of entry which made it compulsory to join their respective sites, although no entry fee was required to participate.

The online Backgammon revolution has begun and although online backgammon activity has been possible for a good few years, there is a growing feeling (particularly in the UK) that this is the new poker.

Backgammon can learn from the poker example and strive to emulate its spectacular success. In many ways, it has even more potential, particularly as a television spectacle. A hand of poker is meaningless to someone who doesn’t understand the game whereas even to those who don’t understand the finer points, backgammon can be appreciated and understood on a basic level as a race and an appealing visual spectacle.

Time will tell if backgammon reaches the online heights scaled by poker but I wouldn’t bet against it.

Clyde Wolpe
Backgammon Executive

My Betfair Tournament

By Anthony Patz

Sunday, February 6th.

Sunday was a good day. I’d had a great workout in the morning and spent the rest of it watching the South African eleven best England in an exciting one day match (maybe not a good idea to mention this?). Now it was seven pm local time and I settled down to experience my first real-time internet competition on TMG.

The tournament was jointly sponsored by Betfair and Truemoneygames to the tune of  $10 000 in prizes. I registered just before the start and watched the entrants climb to 94. Being new at this I wasn’t quite sure what the exact procedure would be when suddenly my screen pinged and there I was facing my first (Italian) opponent.

He was almost my last, as I was soon trailing 1-3 in a match to 5 but finding myself (black) in the following strong position:

#

#

Usually hesitant to double from the bar, I was trailing and it was a great opportunity to notch up another point. To my surprise and Snowie’s disdain my opponent took without hesitation.

It turns out I’m only about 55% to win here but my gammon chances 37% of the time make it a huge drop and certainly a correct double at 4-away 2-away.

Suddenly things were looking quite exciting as this promised to be a pivotal game and the adrenalin started to pump my side at least. I entered and hit with a 64 and he returned the compliment with 62 (which incidentally Snowie defined as a blunder, preferring him to keep the 2-point made).

About ten moves later I had improved my position quite a bit to here, when things started to unravel. Firstly he threw a double five depriving me of a large part of my hostages, and giving himself some desperately needed timing (never mind putting two of my checkers on the bar):

#

#

At this point Snowie considers us even, but I sat on the bar for some time to reach the following position, where my only real hope is that my opponent would not be able to extricate his last two checkers on my 1-point:

#

#

The dice had other ideas, and put me out of my misery the very next roll by giving him a double six.  By now my equity had dropped from 1.48 after the double-take to -0.76.

And things did get worse when I found myself in this position with my opponent nearing bearoff and my home board beginning to collapse, taking away what little hope I had of containing a possible late hit. My equity at this point being -0.90.

That hit came when my opponent had only taken off three pieces and after I’d ‘only’ buried two pieces, so, if I could cover the slotted 5-point with one of my two remaining spares, I would be about 90% favourite. As it was my winning chance was a reasonable 62% from here:

#

#

That euphoria lasted exactly two rolls, with me being unable to cover, and he rolling the dreaded double five.

I finally started to bear off trailing my opponent by 13 pips and five checkers off, with my equity back down to -0.90:

#

#

The situation didn’t improve much ‘till I was thrown this consolation roll which still left me trailing with an equity of -0.25 (win chance of 37%, equal to my original gammon chances when I’d doubled so long ago):

#

#

I managed to hold on to the end with the following deciding last roll coming out in my favour:

#

#

I went on to win the match 5-4 from a clearly disappointed opponent (some of the Italian he used in-between the wishes of good luck I still need to look up).

There was no respite between matches so it wasn’t long before I was in serious trouble again:

 At this point in the first game I am sitting in familiar territory on the bar with two checkers, staring a certain gammon in the face (My opponent’s odds being 91% to win 81% gammons).

#

#

I managed to get the odd checker in only to be hit loose until I rolled the following joker, entering and eagerly hitting his blot on the 17-point:

#

#

Although I was still trailing, my equity had improved hugely from -2.0 to -0.17. Snowie preferred not to hit the second checker, but rather to bring down two builders/blockers from the midpoint:

                          # 

                                                                  #                

I’m pretty sure its reasoning is as follows. If he hits my blot on the 1-point I lose most of the gain from the joker. By holding a point in his home allows some guarantee of re-entry which might otherwise be threatened by the two 'spare' checkers in the outer board. Also, with a bit of luck, I do get a shot at one of those checkers at least, which puts me in a safer position if I can simultaneously cover the blot.

He immediately came on with a double two, but I was offered compensation in the form of a double three, allowing me to hit his loose checker from the midpoint and cover my liability on my 1-point:

#

#

I had so wanted to improve my board by making my 3-point by unstacking the 6-point, and had only to wait for the next roll to be able to do so:

#

#

That led to an easy win with the final match score 6 – 2.

After those close brushes with extinction the next round was uneventful, except that by reaching the final 16 (my first round being a bye) I was in the money to the tune of $100. While in itself not a fortune, it was still a milestone, a sort of mini trophy that would forever signify that I had actually got somewhere. I was playing from my home office in the garden and tried at this point to raise some interest from my wife who was in the house somewhere.  She had never seen me play (and still hasn’t) but this didn’t seem to raise too much excitement. Although in fairness by the time I made the semi-final I was being fed supportive warm snacks from the house.

I won that round 5–2 and then had my first time out. Using the outstanding TMG tournament chart I was able to see that my potential opponents were only just beginning their 4th round match. Judging this an excellent opportunity to observe their respective styles I joined as a spectator. What was of additional interest was that one of the players was a fellow South African, but I didn’t recognize the username. He recognized my initials however and quickly identified himself as Neville Eber, probably South Africa’s strongest player (reaching the semi-finals of Monte Carlo a few years back).

While this brought home the obvious fact that the more one progressed the tougher the competition was likely to be, it didn’t stop me holding thumbs up for a fellow Johannesburger playing only a couple of miles away from me. When he unexpectedly lost I naturally assumed that my new opponent was going to be a difficult hurdle to overcome. Surprisingly it was one of my easier encounters with a 5–1 outcome although Snowie did credit me with quite a few bad moves. It was also at this point that John Clark joined the spectators. Have yet another champion player observing my play puts another form of pressure on one, although I was immensely grateful for his warm encouragement.

That was one of the really nice elements of the tournament, have friends and acquaintances from all over being able to watch. In addition to the aforementioned, a quick telephone call resulted in two of the top players in my club hurriedly joining the spectators (one had to install TMG software and has since been a regular user) and I received telephonic congratulations from Clyde Wolpe also in London who was following my progress.

Reaching the semi-finals had the added advantage of lengthening the matches to 7 points, slightly reducing the luck element. Winning the first game 4 points by gammoning on his initial cube was useful and I soon found myself 6–1 on Crawford. At this point my opponent decided to make a come back winning a natural gammon and the next automatic cube to reach 6–5 and double match point.

In the decisive game it took me a while to pull ahead, at the time of the automatic double on the first roll I was 50.4% to win, and by move nineteen I was still 50.4%!  After that I pulled ahead steadily until I was in a dominant position and it began to dawn on me that I was in all probability into the finals.

I had some time to reflect on my good fortune as my opponent was still involved in his semi-final. In all I had played opponents from Italy, Germany (2), Sweden and Denmark and was going to meet a New Zealander in the final. All this in the space of about 2½ hrs sitting at home.

My opponent, and the eventual winner, immediately suggested we split the pot, which I thought was a very good idea otherwise it was tantamount to playing a 9 point match for a $1,600 stake. This was followed by frenetic calls and messages, with the spectators getting involved with help and opinions, until the sysop confirmed that this was official.

With $3,300 pre-guaranteed the finals were very relaxed affair. Initially the sysop wanted one of us to resign so he could settle the amounts but we were still fairly hyped up and almost needed to play the match out. I tried to win but it wasn’t to be but I really enjoyed the match.

According to Snowie my opponent had the preponderance of luck, rolling ten jokers to my four, but we tend to focus on these normal short-term runs. If you’re going to have a ‘reversal’ the best place is at the end, because if it comes at the beginning you get knocked out. Looking back at my tremendous good fortune to survive the two early rounds I can only feel fortunate.

Of course I enjoyed the tournament immensely; who wouldn’t with an additional $3,300 in one’s account and one’s club mates playing with a bit more respect. It was well organised and efficient, and I recommend everyone keep an eye open for the next one.

##

#

#

#

#

#

#