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benlessard

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Go: Know the basics but that's all. Way less than 1 dan. (1 dan is I think roughly the same rank as someone who has just started winning green points in the EBU system. Not sure whether it is a good comparison, someone advise this? I seem to draw a rough line that green points = 1 dan, gold points = 1 dan professional.)

I don't know exactly how one earns green or gold points in the EBU. But I can say emphatically that earning ACBL gold points does not even remotely approach the achievement of earning a professional rank in Go. All professionals are in the top 0.1% of the total playing population.

 

I would say that an amateur 1 dan ranking is roughly equivalent to a moderately competent bridge player who expects to earn a few ACBL gold points if he plays several events at a regional tournament.

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There are quite a few people on here saying they like diplomacy. This thread caused me to look for a site and I found playdiplomacy.com which has very good and simple software. I was thinking if enough of us joined up we could have a BBF game.

 

My favorite site is www.diplomacy.ca, I'd be happy to have a BBF game.

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There are quite a few people on here saying they like diplomacy. This thread caused me to look for a site and I found playdiplomacy.com which has very good and simple software. I was thinking if enough of us joined up we could have a BBF game.

I'd be interested in a BBF Diplomacy game. I haven't played it much since college 30 years ago, but think I remember it as I used to play it lots in high school. I went to a private school and our 11th grade history teacher used to let us play diplomacy on Weds and then there was a free period and then lunch after that so we could get a lot of the game done one week and finish during the next couple sessions.

 

I recall when at college, going to a local bridge club that had an enlarged diplomacy map(Japan, China, India added and 4 armies to start with for most civs (6 for Russia)) which made for a fun game on some Friday nights..I partied almost every other night anyhow so didn't mind gaming on Fridays.

 

.. neilkaz ..

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The varient at that bridge club was different than Colonial Dip since there were no extra rules or railroad. It just had an extra SC for most countries as well as China/India/Japan added and an extra province or two in most. A good way to play with 10 players, but, we really couldn't completely finish a game even though sometimes (starting at 7 pm) we were allowed to play til 2 am. Often it was clear who'd win or a two or three way draw was agreed and other times we'd write down everything and continue the next week.

 

I signed up at diplomacy.ca and am hoping they let me into a game soon. I'll probably have to PM you with some procedural questions. thx .. neilkaz ..

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Sadly true, but it is the game with by far the most money in it, so it's worth it as long as you don't play full time imo. I mean if you can part time it and make 6 figures a year it's worth it for a while even if it's boring imo. Of course if you are successful/rich with other ventures, don't bother.

Many of my friends and aquaintances who were/still are world class or close to W/C backgammon players either gave up BG completely or put it far back on the back burner when the poker craze started. Now that options trading is basically a waste of time there are many times that I wish I'd done the same thing but even until a few years ago, trading was too good to even think of stopping. When I tried poker a few times I quickly became bored at tossing away hand after hand. I suspose that if I was trying to play professionally and good enough to do so, that I'd be less bored folding my two cards and watching what everyone else is doing. Another factor causing me to not pursue poker is that I am very bad at reading people and very bad at hiding my emotions. Of course at BG, I can sometimes get a read on whether someone is scared/confused and will make a cube error, and/or whether they don't understand the position and will make checker play errors, but I've played that game vs W/C opps for nearly 35 years.

 

That being said, when I retire in a year or two, I'll likely take a stab at more serious poker, although I may need to move at least part time to a country where I can play it online. ... neilkaz ...

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That being said, when I retire in a year or two, I'll likely take a stab at more serious poker, although I may need to move at least part time to a country where I can play it online. ... neilkaz ...

 

At the rate some bills are being discussed, you may not need to move.

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At the rate some bills are being discussed, you may not need to move.

One can only hope, but I think nothing will happen until after the Nov elections. Hopefully, a bill would also make it OK for Americans to play BG for money online again as, while no where the market poker is, it will be good for the game.

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Another factor causing me to not pursue poker is that I am very bad at reading people and very bad at hiding my emotions.
I can't speak for the higher levels of competition, but in the lower levels, that's completely unnecessary. I suspect it would be like someone not playing Bridge competitively because they can't figure out triple squeezes or something. Just having a sound opening strategy and understanding some very basic notions is enough to be consistently profitable.
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  • 2 weeks later...

Many of my friends and aquaintances who were/still are world class or close to W/C backgammon players either gave up BG completely or put it far back on the back burner when the poker craze started. Now that options trading is basically a waste of time there are many times that I wish I'd done the same thing but even until a few years ago, trading was too good to even think of stopping. When I tried poker a few times I quickly became bored at tossing away hand after hand. I suspose that if I was trying to play professionally and good enough to do so, that I'd be less bored folding my two cards and watching what everyone else is doing. Another factor causing me to not pursue poker is that I am very bad at reading people and very bad at hiding my emotions. Of course at BG, I can sometimes get a read on whether someone is scared/confused and will make a cube error, and/or whether they don't understand the position and will make checker play errors, but I've played that game vs W/C opps for nearly 35 years.

 

That being said, when I retire in a year or two, I'll likely take a stab at more serious poker, although I may need to move at least part time to a country where I can play it online. ... neilkaz ...

 

Yes, a lot of the bridge guys are/were options guys, and I grew up hearing that I should be getting into options because it was so great...eventually I heard it dried up (little known fact btw, joe grue moved to NYC to be an options trader not a bridge pro).

 

Anyways I'll be happy to trade backgammon lessons for poker lessons at some point if you want! That said, poker is drying up a lot also, I think you may miss the boat on that one in a few years also. That said, the reverse will happen if it does get legalized/regulated in USA and we have a Harrahs, MGM, Wynn online poker room lol. Right now even Vegas is brutal for poker, the games are terrible and there don't seem to be many drunk baccarat players who come and go all in 20 hands in a row anymore. But that may have more to do with the economy and Vegas combined with good online players moving to Vegas to play than poker drying up. There is still lots of money to be made though and I am hopeful that it will be legal in USA in the next few years which will cause a boom of fish and money galore. I might even give up bridge for a few years if that happens, one of my biggest regrets is not grinding a lot more when it happened the first time.

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JLOGIC, did you enjoy grinding in real life? I found it terribly depressing.

Also, do you mean to say that low stakes over the weekend no longer have 95% drunken idiots?

 

live low stakes is still soft but not nearly as soft as it was in the mid 2000s. there are a lot more resources available to help low stakes players and the theory and such is much more advanced than it was just a few years ago. if you can find a table of drunken idiots, obv you can make bank, but even tables with drunken idiots generally have some competent players nowadays.

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I haven't been to Vegas in 30 years, but I do remember one incident. I was sitting at a $2 BJ table where I could see the front desk of the hotel (no, I don't remember which one). Some guy walks in to the front desk, checks in, hands his suitcase to the bell captain, and comes and sits down at a nearby $100 table. Signs a chit, gets a stack of black chips. Over the next 15 minutes or so, loses the entire stack. Signs another chit, and loses the stack again. Gets up, walks out to the desk, checks out, gets his suitcase from the bell captain, and leaves. "WTF?" I ask my dealer. She says "oh, that's so-and-so, from New York. He comes out every six months or so, plays, and when he loses $100,000, goes home". :blink: :o :P
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Anyways I'll be happy to trade backgammon lessons for poker lessons at some point if you want!

 

This can certainly be arranged, and hopefully we can talk about bridge a little bit, too. I might even find a way to learn something :rolleyes: .

 

There's big BG tourney at the Flamingo from Apr 18-22 and I'll be there if anyone wants to stop by.

 

The option game is dead and won't improve due to too many computers running the show with too many exchanges for people to trade it, meaning extremely narrow markets. I really will watch something to do when I stop trading (few months to a couple years from now) and BG, Poker, and Bridge would seem to be it.

 

If poker becomes legal online again in this US, there will be a huge resurgance that I hope to be able to take advantage of and yeah, this time I'll put BG on the back burner if this happens.

 

As for BG, there are far fewer pigeons that there used to be. Some of this is due to the several very strong computer programs have resulted in an increase in general skill level and also have let other players realize that their game stinks.

Some of this, like in poker is economy related and few people can spare a losing a few hundo a week just to have fun and gamble. BG lost a lot of pigeons to poker a few years ago.

 

.. neilkaz ..

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This is an aside but we're in the Water Cooler: so in Bridge we're bunnies, in poker fish and in BG apparently pigeons. Are there any other such animals? :)

 

heeeeeeeee hawwwwww (donk and donkey are used frequently in poker). Pigeon is used by rubber bridge players also afaik (but most of the rubber bridge players seem to play backgammon).

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*insert obligatory I am better than you at bridge/go without playing go joke*

 

JK I love you arend. I think scott waldron may be able to give you a run for your money. Though I'm not sure how good he is at go now, he quit bridge s a promising junior and focused on go and got to a higher level than you I believe. Though I'm sure you're a better bridge player than him these days since he hasn't played in a long time and you are better now than he was at his peak anyways so you probably have him beat overall. He was a former jdonn partner and was top 10 in the world junior pairs with him when jdonn was a nobody I believe, also played with me quite a bit back in the day. Damn, I miss him :(

 

He was also quite good at chess and a very good violinist.

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I should probably mention an old partner of mine, one of these desperately clever mathematicians who will solve high order differential equations in his head, but has issues with things like clocks and shoelaces (slight exaggeration may be involved here, but only slight :)).

 

He was a county standard bridge player, ex British national Go champion, and gave up a career as an IT consultant because he was making more money at internet poker.

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