Forum Archive : Match Equities

Which match equity table is best? From:   Ian Shaw Address:   ian.shaw@iee.org Date:   7 December 2001 Subject:   Re: Match equity tables Forum:   rec.games.backgammon Google:   AW0Q7.1444$Jm.76789@stones I use the Woolsey-Heinrich MET, because I can remember it! Well, almost. I learnt the 1-away & 2-away values, and use Neil's Numbers for the rest. http://www.gammonline.com/demo/equity.htm The most scientific comparison I know of is by Kit Woolsey. GammOnLine subscribers can check out this discussion by Kit Woolsey. http://www.gammonline.com/members/Jan01/articles/sneq.htm. Kit writes, "Snowie assumes a gammon rate of 26%, while for my table I assumed a gammon rate of about 21%. I agree that Snowie's gammon rate is more accurate in theory. In practice most backgammon players (even experts) do not play aggressively enough for a gammon, since they are more concerned about winning the game. Thus the empirical gammon rate is considerably lower than Snowie's theoretical rate." Ian Gregg Cattanach  writes: I use the Woolsey table because 1) I believe the gammon rate assumtions are more valid, and 2) there are several very simple algorithms to compute all of the ME values in your head. I don't know any method to create Snowie's numbers with some simple algorithm, and it isn't practical to use Snowie's numbers which are expressed in 10ths of percentages. Only a trivial number of people could effectively do 3 digit precision math for ME calculations in their head. Snowie's tables generally only differ from Woolsey's by 1.5% or less. Granted this can have an effect on a close decision, but over the board that precision isn't really required. Btw, my favorite method of coming up with the Woolsey numbers is the Turner method: 50 + (24/T + 3) * D where T is the number of points the trailer has to go and D is the differences in scores. This gets to within 1% of the Woolsey number for all scores up to 11-a, 11-a, except you should at 2% to the results for 2-a 5-a to 2-a 8-a. Also, you just need to memorize the Crawford score sequence: 30,25,17,15,10,9,6,5,3,3,2,2,1,1 as the formula doesn't work for those scores. Gregg   Did you find the information in this article useful?           Do you have any comments you'd like to add?

 

Match Equities

Constructing a match equity table  (Walter Trice, Apr 2000) 

Does it matter which match equity table you use?  (Klaus Evers+, Nov 2005) 

Does it matter which match equity table you use?  (Achim Mueller+, Dec 2003) 

Does it matter which match equity table you use?  (Chuck Bower+, Sept 2001) 

ME Table: Big Brother  (Peter Fankhauser, July 1996) 

ME Table: Dunstan  (Ian Dunstan+, Aug 2004) 

ME Table: Escoffery  (David Escoffery, Nov 1991) 

ME Table: Friedman  (Elliott C Winslow, Oct 1991) 

ME Table: Kazaross  (Neil Kazaross, Dec 2003) 

ME Table: Kazaross-XG2  (neilkaz, Aug 2011) 

ME Table: Rockwell-Kazaross  (Chuck Bower+, June 2010) 

ME Table: Snowie  (Chase, Apr 2002) 

ME Table: Snowie  (Harald Retter, Aug 1998) 

ME Table: Woolsey  (Raccoon, Apr 2006) 

ME Table: Woolsey  (Kit Woolsey, May 1994) 

ME Table: Woolsey  (William R. Tallmadge, Jan 1994) 

ME Table: Zadeh  (Jørn Thyssen, Mar 2004) 

ME Table: Zorba  (Robert-Jan Veldhuizen+, Dec 2003) 

ME at 1-away/2-away (crawford)  (Fabrice Liardet+, Nov 2007) 

ME at 1-away/2-away (crawford)  (Ian Shaw+, Apr 2003) 

Match equities--an alternate view  (Durf Freund, Oct 1994) 

Neil's new numbers  (neilkaz, Aug 2011) 

Neil's numbers  (Kit Woolsey+, Oct 1994) 

On calculating match equity tables  (Neil Kazaross, July 2004) 

Turner formula  (Gregg Cattanach, Feb 2003) 

Turner formula  (Stephen Turner, June 1994) 

Using a match equity table  (Michael J. Zehr, June 1992) 

Value of free drop  (Neil Kazaross, Oct 2002) 

Which match equity table is best?  (Martin Krainer+, Oct 2003) 

Which match equity table is best?  (Ian Shaw+, Dec 2001) 

Why use a match equity table?  (Kit Woolsey, Feb 1999) 

Worth memorizing?  (Alef Rosenbaum+, Feb 2003) 

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