Backgammon: A Game of Chance

I was introduced to backgammon about 2 years ago during the dismantling of the entire Verizon Network Integration outsourcing team at JPMorgan. Clueless to the rules of backgammon, a few of us were quickly drawn into the simplicity of the game. Unlike Chess, your luck is tested instead of your wits. For those of you who are not familiar with Backgammon, an example of the anology would be chess is to Jeopardy as backgammon is to Wheel of Fortune. It is easy to learn, play and a game to enjoy without burning your brain cells. Similar to Sorry.

Some believe there is some sort of mastery skill level involved, but I can't agree totally, therefore I must still be an amateur. In a game of chance, you'll bound to lose no matter how good you are and vice versa. To determine how much of it is luck and how much of it is skill, I decided to learn and play the game. After a handful of games with my former colleagues, that simply wasn't enough. I needed to play more games and keep a good record of it. One hundred games later, I still wasn't satified. I went on and not only finished 200 games or 400 games. I racked up over one thousand on my Palm Vx. 1203 games to be exact. And here are my results against a computer. For more info and rules of backgammon, please visit http://www.bkgm.com.

58% - chance of beating a computer
8 - number of games winning streak
1% - chance of seeing a backgammon,
.0001% chance of getting a stealthmate.

My unofficial ranking is as follow:
<40%>40% Amateur
>50% Challenger
>60% Experienced
>70% Expert
>80% Master
>90% Grandmaster
>99% Wizard
>99.9 GrandWizard
100% YAFOS aka BFL

During this stretch, I went from being a novice player to a formidable opponent. In the beginning, I racked up many lost and declined many doubling to maintain a lower score. This explains why my winning percentage is only at 58% when I should be in the experienced level. It is only after breaching that 1000th game I realized how an expert thinks. Needless to say, I couldn't hang onto that mentality for long. Even during that 8 games winning streak, which I tasted the mastery level, I was very fortunate. However, I'm far from the master or grandmaster level, if there is such a thing.

Backgamming a computer is a lot harder than being backgammoned by a computer. As a human being, I often held my checkers back to a last minute attempt to hit the computer. When this strategy fails, I risked being backgammoned. Because the computer doesn't have any pride, it is programmed to escape a backgammoned at all cost. Of all the 6 times I backgammoned the computer, I felt exhilarated as if I've accomplished what is considered to be impossible. Luck or skill along can't make it happened.

Most people have never seen a stalemate in backgammoned. Some even explained that is legally impossible. However, I was one step too late in hitting the computer and closing out the board while he formed a 6-prime on his home base. Since my original two checkers were blocked by his 6-prime, my only chance was to close him out. Right after hitting him, I needed a 1-2 to get a closeout and his only chance was to roll a 2-6. Load and behold, the computer got a 2-6 to escape and I immediately rolled a 1-2 to form my own prime at home.

That was probably the highlight of my 1200+ games. Here's the rest of the statistics:

1203 Total Games Completed
Me vs Computer
1478 1103 Total Points
1158 0928 Singles
0151 0080 Gammons
0006 0005 Backgammons
0502 0700 Losses

*Big Fat Liar