Backgammon Books
Starting Out in Backgammon by Paul Lamford
that this book is simply the best one available for players who are
seriously interested into
the game from beginners to advanced players.
it is not for someone who just wants to know about the rules
in order to play occasionally.
It contains a lot of important concepts and - contary to many other
beginners books - contains
nearly no errors. and - its rather cheap
The ideal reader for this book is someone who has already played a lot
of backgammon and has a
feel for basic checker play, and is now ready to become good. People who
don't yet have a feel
for the ebb and flow of the game will be better served by books like
Robertie's Backgammon for
Winners and Backgammon for Serious Players--those books are built around
annotated games.
Lamford takes a different approach, packing an exceptional amount of
useful information into a
slim volume. Lamford tells you things that experts know but that you
won't learn from any
moderate amount of over-the-board experience. It is a beginner's book in
the sense that he
tries (reasonably successfully) to distill the information into maxims
and rules of thumb that
are fairly easy to remember. The books is exceptionally clear, but it
says most of the
important things exactly once. One often wishes for more examples or a
more extended
discussion. Whenever you feel this way, you should reread--the
information was there, it was
just so concise that you didn't get it the first time.
Backgammon by Paul David Magriel Jr., Renee
Magriel
A professor of mathematics, Magriel organizes the principles and
strategies in a very logical manner. He writes in concise non-technical
language, breaking down every aspect of backgammon so its easy to
understand even when discussing advanced theories of the game.
The definitive backgammon book. Can turn a beginner to an expert. Well
written, logically organized, with several examples and clear
explanations. It is very complete, covering all aspects of the game. I
particularly liked that it recommends to the beginner openings that
generally lead to uncomplicated games and later (once the reader has
become more experienced) switches to openings that lead to more involved
game play. I have read several backgammon books, and this is by far the
best. Definitely worth its price.
501 Backgammon Problems by Bill Robertie
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.
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.
The 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.
Overall an excellent book suitable for either beginners who have learned
the very basics or a good refresher book for more advanced players.
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