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Backgammon Books

Backgammon by Paul David Magriel Jr., Renee Magriel

A professor of mathematics, Magriel organizes the principles and strategies in a very logical manner. He writes in concise non-technical language, breaking down every aspect of backgammon so its easy to understand even when discussing advanced theories of the game.
The definitive backgammon book. Can turn a beginner to an expert. Well written, logically organized, with several examples and clear explanations. It is very complete, covering all aspects of the game. I particularly liked that it recommends to the beginner openings that generally lead to uncomplicated games and later (once the reader has become more experienced) switches to openings that lead to more involved game play. I have read several backgammon books, and this is by far the best. Definitely worth its price.

Starting Out in Backgammon by Paul Lamford

that this book is simply the best one available for players who are seriously interested into
the game from beginners to advanced players.
it is not for someone who just wants to know about the rules
in order to play occasionally.

It contains a lot of important concepts and - contary to many other beginners books - contains
nearly no errors. and - its rather cheap

The ideal reader for this book is someone who has already played a lot of backgammon and has a
feel for basic checker play, and is now ready to become good. People who don't yet have a feel
for the ebb and flow of the game will be better served by books like Robertie's Backgammon for
Winners and Backgammon for Serious Players--those books are built around annotated games.
Lamford takes a different approach, packing an exceptional amount of useful information into a
slim volume. Lamford tells you things that experts know but that you won't learn from any
moderate amount of over-the-board experience. It is a beginner's book in the sense that he
tries (reasonably successfully) to distill the information into maxims and rules of thumb that
are fairly easy to remember. The books is exceptionally clear, but it says most of the
important things exactly once. One often wishes for more examples or a more extended
discussion. Whenever you feel this way, you should reread--the information was there, it was
just so concise that you didn't get it the first time.

501 Backgammon Problems by Bill Robertie

As the title suggests, it is a compilation of 501 problems, split 360 checker plays v 141 cube actions. (67 doubles 74 redoubles). After the introductory chapters covering notation/probability/basic doubling strategy etc, there are 26 chapters covering many of the important concepts in backgammon from the opening to the bearoff.

The book manages to cram the 501 positions and analyses into 384 pages of a book measuring just 23x15cms. This is achieved by squashing the diagrams with the effect of making the checkers oval. The problems in each chapter are all bunched together first and the solutions at the end of the chapter hence cutting down on the need to avoid looking at the analysis.

It's target audience is everybody from beginner to expert level. The only group that maybe wouldn't find many parts of this book valuable would be world class players.

The problems are typical of positions that appear in everyday backgammon and not unusual or tricky positions that an expert may get wrong. The difficulty of the problems range from very easy to hard with the majority in the intermediate/advanced level. My guess is that the book would be suitable to players ranked up to elo 1900 on F.I.B.S. or Gamesgrid. Robertie has attempted to create a book of reference positions whose characteristics the reader can hopefully remember and apply and adapt over the board and for each problem, he typically gives a succinct 8-10 line analysis.

The only major criticism on the book is that in some of the checker play problems Robertie doesn't analyse all the potential choices or rejects one when in fact the equities are quite close.

Overall an excellent book suitable for either beginners who have learned the very basics or a good refresher book for more advanced players.

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