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BGonline.org Forums
Into the Fray
Posted By: Joe Russell In Response To: Into the Fray (John O'Hagan)
Date: Tuesday, 26 June 2012, at 4:02 a.m.
I agree with John, Stick has a deep understanding of the game and makes fewer blunders than anyone else. While I may not understand the game as well as Stick, I am able to appreciate his depth of knowledge and ability to weight and explain important features of a position. I was at an art gallery recently and the person I was with was reading about one of the paintings and remarked; I don't even understand that first paragraph(it was an opaque, to me, description of what the painting represented). They asked me if I understood it. I wanted to seem the consummate art connoisseur and say yes, but then I would have to explain it to them, which I may not have been able to do so well. We asked a docent and they explained it to us and we both understood. Like the docent did with the painting, Stick can make an opaque backgammon position seem clear.
I have been playing backgammon at a high level for over 30 years and I have been friends with, and shared knowledge with, many of the top players of different eras. Never have I come across anyone that has the grasp of backgammon that Stick has. Wilcox Snelling's and Falafel's general ability and John O'Hagan's cube analysis have impressed me more than any other players in my career. No one has ever impressed me with their ability to explain a position like Stick. There are many players that are among the very best that I have not discussed a lot of backgammon with: Mochy, Michy, MCG; David Wells, Ralf Jonas(some actually, but not extensively), and the top Danes, so I can't give a strong opinion as to their ability to explain the game, but I can with Stick. He, in my opinion, is the best at understanding the game and the best player (PR wise) in the U.S. and, likely, the world. I voted for Falafel as the number one Giant, because of his results of the last two years and because Stick has been fairly inactive, but if I had to bet on what American player can play with the lowest PR, I would bet a stack on Stick.
Also, to say Stick plays at a 2.3 online and this seems impossible to many, I would like to ask them a few questions: (1) how big is the sample size of Stick's online play?; (2) how big is the sample size of Stick's live play?; (3)does the average Giant play better in the comfort of his home when he is well rested or at a live event where he may be playing 8 hours a day and sleeping in a strange bed and being forced to play during hours he may have normally been sleeping?
What PR would Stick have to play to in monitored online play to prove his doubters wrong. What if he played to a 2.7? What would that prove? Would it mean he was cheating before? Would it mean he is out of practice? What about 2.5?
I hope Bill's challenge is taken up by Stick and he shows the world how good he is. But, I don't expect it to happen. Why? Several reasons: (1) it dignifies the people that are making these harsh claims; (2) there is very little to gain and a lot to lose, from Stick's point of view, since the vast majority of people consider him to be honest; (3) I doubt much would be proved, unless the original sample size of online games is very large and the test case is very large and their is a large discrepancy between them. Even then there could be logical explanations as to why the results did not match.
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