Durham/Chapel Hill Backgammon Club

Year 1 progress of Mark Woodruff

by Ken Larsen

As of June 13, 2014 our club's Mark Woodruff has played backgammon exactly one year.  He emailed me on June 8, 2013 and asked for advice on the best way to learn how to play.  He had been a poker player but knew absolutely nothing about backgammon.  I advised that he buy a copy of eXtremeGammon (XG) and begin playing 5-point matches against it and have it automatically track his Performance Rating (PR).  He should use XG to review his errors after each match.  Through osmosis, he would learn how to set up the board and the rules/strategy of the game.  That's what Mark did.  On June 13, 2013 he began playing against XG.  On July 1, 2013 he began playing in our club.  During 2013 he compiled a match win-loss record of 10-16 (38.46%).

In the past year Mark has played 721 five point matches against XG.  Here's a chart of the moving 50 match average of his PR:

As of June 8, 2014, the average PR of his last 50 matches against XG was 12.4 (Advanced) Beginner: 22.5 to 30.0 Casual player: 17.5 to 22.5 Intermediate: 12.5 to 17.5 Advanced:  7.5 to 12.5 Expert: 5.0 to 7.5 World class: 2.5 to 5.0 World Champion:  below 2.5

For year 2, Mark plans to devote his time to book study.  He's currently reading Magriel's "Backgammon", and plans to then read "Backgammon Boot Camp" by Walter Trice.

We applaud Mark's industry.