|
Goodbye Backgammon Hello GoIn his farewell post, Baconlog says goodbye to backgammon and chess, games he has been playing professionally for several decades, and welcomes go, the only game that has not been spoiled by computers yet. He has been playing backgammon professionally since the 1970s, when the development of neural nets and backgammon bots was just beginning, no computer program was available for commercial use, and making the 2-point on the 6-4 opening roll was unthinkable.
The same with chess; involved in the US chess world since the 1970s, Baconlog has seen players change from enthusiast analysts to blind followers who put faith in the all-knowing computer software. That way, he quotes Prof. Hans Berliner, the creator of BKG 9.8, the first backgammon software who ever beat a world champion, who said that chess lost its place as the top intellectual activity. Lost to go, they both agree.
Did backgammon players lose the passion for exploring the game endless possibilities to become technocratic performers of Snowie's advices? Robert Wachtel, who has been playing backgammon (and chess) before the computers took over the game, counts in a series of articles the various ways in which backgammon computers, also known as bots, have influenced on the backgammon game.
The bots have cancelled the gap between the heavenly gifted players to the mediocre and below, who could now simply make the right moves according to what Baconlog calls "The Oracle". The bots have also taken the edge off proposition bets and other opportunities to make money fast on the expense of weak players, who now became aware of their defects. Backgammon books were taken less seriously after every backgammon amateur has installed a copy of Snowie on his PC, yet on the other hand, Wachtel puts it: "after years of wandering in the dark, we backgammon experts were saved when the neural networks, Jellyfish and Snowie were developed"
More on backgammon and chess comptuers
|
