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Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!seismo!hao!hplabs!sri-unix!WILKINS@SRI-AI.ARPA
From: WILKINS@SRI-AI.ARPA
Newsgroups: net.chess
Subject: computer backgammon
Message-ID: <3243@sri-arpa.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 19-Jul-83 14:00:04 EDT
Article-I.D.: sri-arpa.3243
Posted: Tue Jul 19 14:00:04 1983
Date-Received: Thu, 21-Jul-83 17:09:57 EDT
Lines: 23

From:  Wilkins  


	"decvax!decwrl!qubix!lab"@Ucb-Vax:
	"I hardly consider a one-inning baseball game a decent analogy to a
	backgammon match, particularly a match decided 7-1."

You seem to be implying that a lop-sided score like 7-1 has something to say
about the relative merit of the players involved in the match.  If so, you
know little about the vagaries of the dice, probability, or how much luck is
involved in backgammon.  In fact, it would be harder for a lesser
baseball team to win a one-inning game by any margin (baseball being much more
a game of skill than backgammon) than it would be for a lesser backgammon
player to win a match 7-1 or 7-0, so my analogy gives the benefit of the
doubt.  The FACT is that the program is not even a strong intermediate
backgammon player, and people that try to make more out of it because of this
7-1 score simply do not understand how meaningless this isolated data point is.

David Wilkins

P.S. Could the moderator fix the mailing list so I don't get a bunch of
"this mail non-deliverable" messages back every time I send something?  Thanks.
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