In the Game until the End Volume II: Ace-Point Endgame Analysis--the Next Generation

In 1993 the international backgammon community was presented with a unique research report. Authored by the American expert, Robert Wachtel, In the Game Until the End set out to address the critical “stay or go” problems that arise at the 11th hour of a well-timed ace-point game. This project was an extraordinarily ambitious one, for a proper solution to those questions required the resolution of some very thorny issues of fundamental backgammon theory – and, like all explorers of his era, Wachtel had no analysis programs to rely upon. His methods, instead, were part science and part art. He rolled positions out by hand, gathered data from other experts, extrapolated, analogized and calculated. His results have hardly been challenged in the 20-year interim. But that, of course, does not mean that they are, by today’s standards, accurate.This second volume of In the Game Until the End is both a revision of and a sequel to that early, landmark work. Employing the contemporary professional’s analysis program of choice, eXtreme Gammon 2 (XG2), Wachtel vets his prior investigations with extensive, high-level rollouts. He then employs the same cutting-edge tools to extend his research to ace-point problems of increasing complexity. But this is not another of those “because the bot says so” tracts. Always probing for the principles underlying the results, the book’s later chapters are studded with puzzles, oddities and anomalies that demand – and receive -- thoughtful interpretation. Read more