Lesson of the Month—Testing Your Confidence
One of the strategies Perry Gartner has used for many years in teaching backgammon is asking players to tell him, on a scale of 1-5, how sure they are of their checker play or cube decision. At The Learning Center we use this approach quite effectively for many reasons, and we think these insights will help everyone improve their game.
Let’s take a typical checker play and use the example below. Ask yourself how you would play 2-2 in Position 1 below. Then ask yourself how sure you are of your decision with 5 being absolutely sure and 1 being very unsure. Then scroll down.
Position 1
As you can see from the XG rollout below, the correct play is to make the 4 point and 1 point. Many other plays look reasonable, but this play is best by quite a bit for a variety of reasons.
Position 1 Rollout
Now, let’s talk about your confidence level. If you gave your answer a confidence level of 4 or 5 and you were correct, terrific. This will serve as an excellent example that suggests you are right to have such faith in your opinion for this position.
But what if you made the wrong play and gave it a high confidence level? You have learned something there as well. You have learned that maybe you have too high an opinion of your opinion, and you should be a little less confident in the future even when you think you are pretty sure of your decision. Is having less confidence a bad thing? Not at all, if it is warranted. Knowing your limitations and knowing when and where to trust your feelings and opinions will help you identify areas where you need to study more so that you can gain both skill and confidence.
But there is another reason to have a good handle on the accuracy of your opinions, and that is in the actual play over the board. If you gauge your confidence level to be lower than 4, it suggests that you probably should take a longer, deeper, more thorough look at the problem. You may never get your confidence level up to 4 or 5 on that particular play, but at least you have allocated more time and energy on plays where you have the greatest doubts, and that, in itself, is going to make you a better backgammon player.
On the other side of the spectrum is the player who estimates a very low confidence level but turns out to be correct. That tells us two things. First, it might well be the case that you need to raise your opinion of your opinions and adjust your scale for future use. But it probably also means that you don’t really, fully understand the play, and perhaps you simply got lucky picking the best play. It means that this is a play you should take some time to study so you know why it was the best play for future reference.
This approach can also be used relative to cube decisions. We teach all of our students to apply Woolsey’s Law in cube decisions, and one of the key elements of Woolsey’s Law is when you are thinking of doubling, you should first ask yourself if you think your opponent should take or drop the cube. If you are sure it’s a drop, then it’s a double (unless you are too good). If you are sure it’s a take, it may still be a double but you have to consider several other factors first. But if you are not sure if it is a take or a drop, it is a double for sure. This makes good sense, because if you are not sure it may well be because it is close, and that’s the ideal time to double, and if you are not sure, your opponent might not be sure either (and he may make the wrong decision).
We apply this same 1-5 confidence level to Woolsey’s Law so that it will help you make cube decisions whether you are the doubler or the receiver. Take position 2 below and ask yourself if you would take or drop if you were Blue. Then decide on a confidence level of from 1-5 on how sure you are of your decision. Then scroll down.
Position 2
The answer to this cube decision is that it is right on the edge for Blue to take or drop, and therefore it is a definite cube for Red. If you decided that it was a take, and you were reading this position properly, you should have had a very low confidence level that this was a take, because it is barely a take. And if you concluded that this was a drop, you should have had an equally low confidence level that you were right about dropping. In either case, the low confidence level was what told you that you are not really sure whether it is right to take or drop the cube, so according to Woolsey, FOR SURE you should double if you are Red. Of course, if you are Blue all this does is tell you that the decision is close and you have to take your best guess as to whether to take or drop, but if you are reading the position correctly, even if you make the wrong decision, it won’t be much of an error and won’t hurt you much.
What if you decided it was a drop and you had a very high degree of confidence? Or what if you decided it was a take and had a high degree of confidence? Either of these results gives you excellent information. It tells you that even if you happened to be on the right side of the decision, you are not really seeing and understanding this position well. Again, an opportunity to learn and improve your game. Even if you do nothing further, the experience will help adjust your thinking about positions like this and about the application of your confidence scale.
We recommend getting in the habit of assigning confidence levels to difficult decisions, both in practice and over the board. Perry even employs this tool in doubles when the partners disagree on checker or cube decisions. If one player has a confidence level of 4 and the other of 3, the team should go with the player who is more confident (assuming the players are of relatively equal skill). Over time and studying the evaluations, the team will learn if either player has too high or too low an opinion of his confidence and that will self-adjust over time.
This is just one of many tools and strategies you are not likely to find in books or articles that we employ at The Learning Center to help our students understand and play backgammon. We hope this will encourage you to contact us about the private and group lessons and seminars we offer.