Backgammon Skill and Luck

Is backgammon a game of skill or luck? Many people ask that. Some have very strong opinions that it's a game of luck - if you get the right dice rolls, you'll win, if you get the wrong ones, you'll lose.

Well, no reasonable person can say anything other than that it is a game of skill and luck. To say how much skill and how much luck is like asking how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. It is a question that defies a precise answer.

Let me give two extreme examples. Take a chess player who has just learned the rules and perhaps played a couple dozen games. Now, let him play a game against the world champion. He will lose. Period. Even the most amazing chess prodigy in the world will not beat the world champion.

Now take two players of comparable experience and give them each 10,000 $1 chips to bet on a roulette wheel. Require them to play for four hours and to each bet 100 chips on each spin of the wheel. The more experienced player has exactly a 50% chance of ending with more money than the less experienced one. Every bet on the roulette wheel has exactly the same house percentage (with one exception, which presumably the weaker "player" could be told, so that they both avoid that bet). Roulette is a game purely of luck.

Most games are a combination. All games of cards and dice involve some luck. Take Monopoly. A skillful player can make deals with his opponents that are more to his advantage than to theirs. He can use the rules on building shortages to his advantage. Over a large number of games he will win more often than less skillful players. But if an 8-year-old who just learned the game happens to land on Park Place and Boardwalk the first time around the board, and understands that he can build houses, he is very very likely to win this game quickly.

Over the course of a single game, or a short match, luck is a significant factor. At the same time, it is clear that some players win more often than others, sometimes by a remarkable margin. Even in a long match, luck is a major factor. Not long ago I was playing a match to 11. I was trailing 6-5 when I doubled, and my opponent took. He turned the game around and was on the verge of doubling me. Then I rolled double 4's. I was able to enter from the bar and hit three of his checkers on that roll. He wound up with 5 checkers on my ace-point. At the very end, he was very unlucky. He had two checkers there when I had two on my 2 and 3-points, and he rolled double 2's. He wound up not able to escape his checkers and lost a doubled backgammon, for 6 points. Match to me.

But what most players forget is that good players create their own luck. If you play in such a way that you have more good rolls than your opponent, of course you will get more good rolls. One thing that I do is that I take more risks when my opponent has blots in his inner board. So of course I get more "good rolls" than my opponents. I put myself in positions where I create more good rolls for myself, and fewer for my opponent.

One player, not a bad one, on the Internet Gaming Zone, told me that it was pointless for me to put up a site with backgammon tips. It wasn't so much that he thought I was overstating my abilities at backgammon, but that learning about backgammon was pointless, because it's a game of luck. Now, if someone wants to tell me "RedTop, you're not good enough to give advice," well, they might very well be right. That's why virtually all the advice on this site has come from other people - top experts in backgammon. Have I played any of them? Yes. Have I beaten any of them? Yes, but not as often as I've lost.

The argument about dice also ignores the skill involved in making cube decisions. Surely, no one would argue that after a game has been played out some number of moves that it remains "all luck." Consider the extreme case where one player has no idea when he is in a strong or weak position, so he never doubles and always takes. In effect, he is agreeing to lose two points for every point he wins. No one can win in the long run if they give those kinds of odds. In fact, I will go so far as to say this. Put me up against the best player in the world, but provide that I can double and my opponent cannot. Under those conditions, I suspect you could not find a single player in the world who would play against me for money. The doubling cube is a huge factor in backgammon, at all levels.

There is no question that over the course of a single game, or a short match, a poor player can beat a good one. But it's a question of percentages. I have played literally thousands of games on the Internet Gaming Zone. I don't have any idea what my won-loss record is by games, but by matches, it's around 80%. Am I that much luckier than my opponents? I don't think so. Not over thousands of games.

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