Video 4 Intro to the Keith Count, explanation of the first part of the Keith Count, the Penalties
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- Опубліковано 11 лют 2025
- Keith Count method, full explanation of Part 1 of the Keith Count, the factoring in of the penalties for weak distribution.
This is Video 4 of a 6-part video series designed to take the backgammon enthusiast from Beginner/Intermediate to Expert level when faced with a Non-Contact cubing decision for a cash game ( non-match. )
Im really enjoying this series - very well explained
Thank you. I remember back when I first started, even though the basics seems easy, the act of playing them correctly when you play live and remembering everything was harder that I had anticipated.
Just wait until a year after you've learned all this and these things just naturally and instantly pop into your head as you play.
Great Video, Thank you so much.
why did't you cover Cross Overs?
Can you please state the values for the doubling windows?
Dumb question... why are checkers stacked on the 1-pt penalised? Surely if all my checkers are on the 1-pt, I will bear off and never waste a roll. What am I not understanding?... :-(
No No No , that is a very GOOD question and one that every backgammon player at some point has asked.
If I give you 15 checkers on your 1-point you have 15 pips to bear off. I'll give myself one checker on each of my 6 5 and 4 points for 15 pips. I'll give you the first roll every time and we'll play for $10/game. Don't take that bet as you'll lose 100% of the time despite the pip count being the same. Why? Because I will be able to finish my game with fewer rolls than you. Lead % and pip counts and Keith counts etc etc are all variations of attempts to estimate how many rolls it will take to bear off on average.
So since we want to bear off in as few rolls as possible anything we can do to avoid having bad rolls we should do. Anything we can do to discover potential bad rolls that may be lurking in our position we should do.
Gaps on high points and overstacked low points tell us that our position has more potential bad rolls than an alternate distribution of our checkers with the same pip count.
If you and I were playing and we both started to bear off our checkers, and before you rolled your dice I stopped you and said "Go ahead and re-distribute your checkers any way you like so as long as you keep the same number of checkers and finish with the same pip count." You should say yes thank-you everytime and even out your distribution, fill high gaps and unstack low points to your best ability. You will win a higher % of the time.
Trick to understanding this is that the Keith count and other methods start with the pip count, so within the range of reasonable cubing positions we know that high gaps and low stacks increase our % of bad rolls over the balance of the game.
Many thanks for such a good explanation, much appreciated. I do understand the importance of « how many rolls » rather than automatically « what’s the pip count » when bearing off. FWIW the first backgammon book I came across when starting was Bruce Becker’s « Backgammon for Blood », which I know is now much disparaged.
Interestingly his method for counting both before bearing-off and when bearing-off were based on the number of rolls, rather than the pip-count - similar to the many « crossover » methods. For bearing-off it was half a roll for the 1, 2 & 3 points, 1 roll for the 4, 5 & 6, plus an additional half-roll for any gaps. No penalties for stacks, although it would be easy to add an additonal half-roll in such cases.
Although admittedly « an approximation » it’s a very easy and quick method.
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