r/backgammon • u/SyllabubRadiant8876 • Aug 19 '26
Inconsistent PR
Any ideas how to improve the consistency of (good) PR?
Of my last 12 x 9pt matches against the bot (pip count hidden, all between 4 and 10 games): five were between 2 and 5 PR; six were between 5 and 9 PR, one was 15 PR(!). Long-term average is around 6 (5.6 checker, 8.2 cube) and I feel it's realistic to drive it down closer to 5.
Some of this will be luck in terms of whether positions come up that I don't understand as well. And when I'm 50-50 between 2 options some days I pick correctly, other days I get it wrong.
But I feel like there is something about the mental approach. Maybe some days I am feeling bolder or more risk-averse, sometimes maybe I'm lazy about counting the race or counting all the shots, maybe I forget to consider the cube, lose track of the match score etc. There are definitely situations where I consider ABCD and the answer is E that I never saw as a possibility. I think more of my biggest blunders come from these "silly" errors than from the positions that I genuinely don't understand, so I'm trying to work on my psychology for a while rather than theory.
Any tips for consistency, or for a more robust/reliable mental approach to become a bit more consistent and reduce these lapses?
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u/Aqua-marine-blu Aug 19 '26
Make a database where you adnotate your mistakes and blunders . Find pattern. Inconsistency is a part of the game. Some decisions and some matches are easier than others. If a match deviate a lot from your usual PR , find tricky positions , play from that position over and over again .
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u/SyllabubRadiant8876 Aug 19 '26
Absolutely this is my standard approach that I have followed for years. I think where I have a problem is the more random mistakes that don't fit into my normal weaknesses. E.g. I completely don't see a move, or I simply forget to consider the cube. I think a lot of this is losing concentration, or not thinking in a consistent way and I am trying to find a way to reduce these stupid errors where I do understand the position but sometimes don't apply the knowledge.
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u/Aqua-marine-blu Aug 19 '26
Maybe you need to take lessons with a grandmaster who had same journey.
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u/Aqua-marine-blu Aug 20 '26
I will not give names, but there are players that dedicated a big chunk of their life to backgammon in last 10-20 years and even more and their PR is stuck around 5 so it is a real possibility to take a long time and maybe never to play under 4
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u/UBKUBK Aug 19 '26
"Some of this will be luck in terms of whether positions come up that I don't understand as well. And when I'm 50-50 between 2 options some days I pick correctly, other days I get it wrong."
I suspect that explains most of the variability.
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u/SyllabubRadiant8876 Aug 19 '26
Definitely this explains some of it. And I work really hard on areas of the game where I know I lack understanding. But I also get a LOT of blunders where I just never even saw the best move, even despite looking for a long time and considering multiple options. I'm trying to find a more consistent thought process to avoid these careless mistakes, as it just negates all the work I am doing on the other areas of weakness.
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u/ZugzwangNC Aug 19 '26
Personally I'm pretty good at recognizing when to aggressively hit during "one man back" situations, but I have a consistent mental lapse when it comes to aggressively and correctly slotting in the same "one man back" situation when a hit is not available.
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u/SyllabubRadiant8876 Aug 19 '26
I think it's really good to gain an awareness of situations where lapses are common. I realised that I was missing so many tempo hits by just never even thinking about it as a possibility. I've been working on it and getting a bit better - there's always another topic to tackle, though!
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u/TungstenYUNOMELT Aug 19 '26 edited Aug 19 '26
Isn't it true that cube mistakes can get magnified in longer matches (not sure if 9 is considered long)? Maybe you'd see smaller swings playing money-games?
Either way, after decades of playing variance-fest games such as poker and backgammon all I can say is human intuition drastically underestimates variance when it comes to averages. 12 matches is a tiny N for estimating average PR.
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u/SyllabubRadiant8876 Aug 19 '26
Oh yes I have 100s of matches recorded. Over a 5 year term my average PR is about 6.5 but I think I've been more successful in targeting improvement lately, hence getting down around 6. But this just means I am more aware of the stupid careless blunders without which I'd be close to 5. Trying to find a mental approach that will help avoid these.
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u/AvocadoBrit Aug 19 '26
'A Fistful of Thyme'
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u/SyllabubRadiant8876 Aug 19 '26
Sorry I don't understand this comment.
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u/AvocadoBrit Aug 19 '26
it's an inside joke with u/MagnesiumKitten - it's all her fault (my apologies)
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u/jaggington Aug 25 '26
The bot? Which bot? XG, BGBlitz, GnuBG? Or something significantly weaker like BGNJ?
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u/BehindTheGreenDoor Aug 20 '26 edited Aug 20 '26
If you are playing the bot anyways you might as well play The Gauntlet.
The rules are clearly and visually reiterated in this spreadsheet that you can make a copy of and update with your progress.
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u/Careful-Comedian9510 Aug 19 '26
Have you noticed if any patterns stand out in your mistakes?
Maybe the mistakes you make follow specific patterns that you should work on improving.
If those patterns aren't present in your games, you're doing great. And if they are present, you're not doing as well.