BS: Backgammon or Chess?

Subject: BS: Backgammon or Chess?
From: catspaw49
Date: 16 Apr 13 - 11:24 AM

In the spirit of the old 'Cat, here is a true BS thread.....absolute crap that don't matter a damn!

Which do you prefer? Backgammon or Chess?

Over the years since I learned both games I have noticed that most folks may play both but seem to have a strong preference for one or the other. I also wonder why they prefer the one they do and if that is in any way related to the rest of their life. So just for the hell of it.......Tell me......Backgammon or Chess?


Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Backgammon or Chess?
From: Bill D
Date: 16 Apr 13 - 11:31 AM

Chess.... but I almost never play anymore. I used to win most of the games I played- not because I understood chess strategy well, but because I didn't.... I played so very carefully and slowly that I often outlasted better players.

Subject: RE: BS: Backgammon or Chess?
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 16 Apr 13 - 11:56 AM

I once played chess, but gave it up for Go---a wonderful game.

Subject: RE: BS: Backgammon or Chess?
From: Charmion
Date: 16 Apr 13 - 12:04 PM

Backgammon, in a heartbeat.

If my university transcript had truly reflected my interests and activities at the time, it would have indicated a double major in history and backgammon with a strong minor in military men with a chequered past.

Subject: RE: BS: Backgammon or Chess?
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 16 Apr 13 - 01:01 PM

The question I see in my mind is "diversion" or mental exercise. There are few crucial decisions in any one game of backgammon. In chess few decisions are not. Backgammon relaxes me. Chess makes me tired.

Subject: RE: BS: Backgammon or Chess?
From: GUEST,Henry Piper of Ottery
Date: 16 Apr 13 - 02:38 PM

Both pale into insignificance beside a really good game of Mornington Crescent.

Subject: RE: BS: Backgammon or Chess?
From: selby
Date: 16 Apr 13 - 03:52 PM

Backgammon for me. On holiday in Greece many years ago 2 old guys where playing Backgammon very very fast, I was watching and asked if I wanted to play, I did, I was absolutely thrashed.
Keith

Subject: RE: BS: Backgammon or Chess?
From: kendall
Date: 16 Apr 13 - 04:00 PM

I played my first game of backgammon while visiting Dani in NC. She won, of course, but she wouldn't play chess with me.

Choose between those two? Chess.

Subject: RE: BS: Backgammon or Chess?
From: gnu
Date: 16 Apr 13 - 04:06 PM

Much can be said for both but chess, for me, is the ultimate table game. Two minds with one "flip of the coin" = ONE contest, to the end. The only random chance in chess is who moves first. Just like in an NHL fight... in that case, I prefer the John Fergusson version. >;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Backgammon or Chess?
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 16 Apr 13 - 04:25 PM

Chess.

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Backgammon or Chess?
From: number 6
Date: 16 Apr 13 - 04:49 PM

Dominoes

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Backgammon or Chess?
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 16 Apr 13 - 05:29 PM

Backgammon is boring to me, but it has pleasant association for me, with all the time I spent in Greece.
I just don't have the patience for chess. I enjoy cribbage though.

Subject: RE: BS: Backgammon or Chess?
From: Ebbie
Date: 16 Apr 13 - 07:02 PM

Strangely enough, I have never even been present when backgammon was played so I can't speak to it. But I do like - and play- chess.

Tenacity - digging in your heels - is a large part of chess strategy, I think. If you can hang on long enough for the other to make a mistake, you got it made.

Subject: RE: BS: Backgammon or Chess?
From: GUEST,Kendall
Date: 16 Apr 13 - 07:28 PM

Kinda like a court case.One slip of the tongue and the other side kills you.

Subject: RE: BS: Backgammon or Chess?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 16 Apr 13 - 07:58 PM

I never played more than a few trivial games of backgammon, usually at a party where nobody brought enough beer and most of us got tired of the same old jokes to the point of looking for almost anything to do other than "conversation."

Chess was a little more interesting, and I'd played a few lunch hour games at the office, but ...

Several of the office buddies kept pressuring me to come to their chess club, so one night I decided to humor them and went, mostly as a "courtesy" visit.

It turned out that the newly crowned State Champion showed up to "play the club" that night. He started out going around the room playing against about 30 of us, and everyone seemed amazed that as the night dragged on I was the next to last one playing against him. I KNEW he had me beat by the third or fourth move, but had accidentally picked an opening response that needed a whole bunch of moves to get to a conclusion, and kept playing only out of curiosity. It would have been the courteous thing to do to resign a lot sooner of course, but I was curious to see a few more moves.

I conceded when someone figured out that the other guy still playing was a former State Champion and long term Grand Master. (Sort of "ringer.") Their game eventually ended in a draw because the management turned out the lights, with both of them agreeing that neither of them could come to a conclusion about whether either of them had sufficient piece power left to force a win.

Never could get anyone else at the office to play another game with me, despite all of my attempts to explain that it was just an accident that I quite stupidly blundered into. Only had a few later occasions when anyone else was very interested in any kinds of board games.

Someone who actually knew a little about the game told me later that my opening defensive moves had a name that was well known, and I think I looked it up and decided he probably was right. But I've forgotten what it was called.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Backgammon or Chess?
From: Bobert
Date: 16 Apr 13 - 09:14 PM

I've never played backgammon...

Chess??? Different story... Played it since I was about 8 years old but haven't played anyone who was competitive in 30 years... Playing with grand kids who are trying to learn it ain't like, ahhhh, fair...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Backgammon or Chess?
From: ollaimh
Date: 16 Apr 13 - 10:28 PM

I used to play a lot of chess, at a reasonable competitive level. I could go toe to toe with 2000 elo rated players and scare masters the odd time. I am a maximalist not a minimumalist. meaning I do not dig in and wait for a mistake. I try to play in the style of my chess heros alexander alekine,mikhali tal, bobby fischer, and gary kasparov. force the enemy to make a mistake or die trying. what's the glory in waiting it out. I used to hate tigran petrossian and karpov. they wasted their talents on drudgery when they could have pursued art.

I played go and back gammon. when the folk café I used to haunt started playing go I took it up. I beat the folk player then went to a go club and discovered it wasn't as easy as it seemed. same for backgammon. I beat all the locals then when I watched a few pros I thought better of it.

however I gave up chess because it took up time I found could be better used to learn music!

Subject: RE: BS: Backgammon or Chess?
From: Mr Happy
Date: 17 Apr 13 - 04:59 AM

Never played Backgammon or seen it played.

Chess is popular & I enjoy a game

Go is a good one too.

JinK's comment above about party boredom relieved by games?

The parties I attend are always with musical friends so we;re never bored playing music together!

Subject: RE: BS: Backgammon or Chess?
From: kendall
Date: 17 Apr 13 - 07:30 AM

I once played one of the best in Maine; I killed his Queen and he still beat me. Damned unbritish I thought.

Subject: RE: BS: Backgammon or Chess?
From: Charmion
Date: 17 Apr 13 - 08:30 AM

Backgammon is only incidentally about moving counters from one corner of the board to another. The heart of the game is the doubling cube, a device for striking terror into the heart of your opponent. Of course, like poker, backgammon is not particularly interesting until there's money on the table.

I learned the game in Germany, while in the service (I was a medic). It was popular among the fighter pilots on our base, who played a variant called acey-deucy, and one of them taught it to me during a long night shift as he suffered through the misery of an intestinal blockage.

Come to think of it, I learned all the table games I know either from my Dad (who even knew mah-jongg) or from sick people. A sound grasp of cribbage, euchre and poker is indispensable if you work in a hospital, but you should never play poker with a paranoid schizophrenic unless you are prepared to lose your shirt.

Subject: RE: BS: Backgammon or Chess?
From: Jim McLean
Date: 17 Apr 13 - 11:12 AM

Growing up in a poor, working class environment in the West of Scotland, I always thought chess was for the richer upper class but when I later found out the purpose was to catch the king ... a truly republican enterprise! ... I learned it immediately and have enjoyed it ever since.

Subject: RE: BS: Backgammon or Chess?
From: GUEST,Charmion's brother Andrew
Date: 17 Apr 13 - 04:17 PM

Charmion, I'll see your shirt and raise you Edmund's kilt.

Subject: RE: BS: Backgammon or Chess?
From: catspaw49
Date: 17 Apr 13 - 04:53 PM

Backgammon suits my personality far better than chess. Chess is too staid and lacks the risk and chance factors that make Backgammon so good. I'm with Charmion here. While there are some early moves that are limited, the roll of the dice changes everything. Learning the odds of rolls and being able to track the pips needed take time to learn but much of it is instinct. In any given ten games, the rankest amateur can beat the best pro a time or two. But the skilled player, ready to risk for reward will win most of the time.

The Doubling Cube adds highly to that risk element and the speed of the game.   I wish I was better but I win my share generally and used to play in a bar for money which will help anyone's learning curve.


Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Backgammon or Chess?
From: Don Firth
Date: 17 Apr 13 - 05:56 PM

I never learned Backgammon.

But I've played one heckuva lot of chess. I attended a chess club in high school that met once a week, and I did the same thing at the University of Washington. I enjoyed it very much, but I didn't get into the fanatical state that some people did.

One afternoon in high school, I told a fellow chess club member that I wouldn't be at the meeting that afternoon because there was something else I wanted to do. He concluded that I was nothing but a dilettante and not sufficiently dedicated to the game—even though I regularly whupped his ass!

In 1973, when I was in Pasco, WA working at a radio station, I entered a local chess tournament that was being held on my day off. I was mowing them down right and left until I ran into a seven-year-old named Gary. He came across the board like a phalanx of Sherman tanks and I got royally sliced, diced, and creamed! Gary won the tournament. He was the youngest player there.

That evening, I went back to the station and put the story of Gary's win on the sports news.

On my current laptop I have a pretty good chess program. I usually play a few games every week for enjoyment and to keep my hand in.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Backgammon or Chess?
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 17 Apr 13 - 07:49 PM

The doubling cube doesn't strike fear in me. To me it is the simplest bet possible. If you are head, offer the cube if you fall behind and the other guy doubles, you decline.

Don, Your post reminded me of a time I went to a backgammon club in Ottawa. It seems that though they played for money they were more interested in displaying their knowledge of the game than winning.

I didn't care if I won or not so I made some moderately higher risk moves but a couple of lucky rolls (about 1 in 3 odds) and I won the tournament of 8 and all three matches while enduring constant criticism.

Its a lot more fun playing backgammon with drunk Russian sailors in a bar than sober Canadian backgammon nerds.

Subject: RE: BS: Backgammon or Chess?
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 17 Apr 13 - 11:14 PM

If you are ahead