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Things learned from Backgammon (and Chess)"Chess teaches you to fight to the bitter end; backgammon teaches you to quit before it gets worse." Ray Brinzer observes on the attitude differences between two similar and dissimilar skill games. In chess, he says, you are trained to play until either player drops, while in backgammon, you are generally advised to quit before the costs of your blunders will be doubled, and redoubled, and redoubled. And that makes backgammon, in Brinzer's eyes, a much more sophisticated game (OK, I added the much), "requiring judgment were chess merely requires tenacity."
Although, chess enables you to quit in dignity, half point richer than the null you would have obtained by losing, while in backgammon, needless to say, once you say no to the cube, you sacrifice one point (at least; still accepting the doubling cube in a lose-lose position would demand further sacrifices).
Thus, backgammon players think like gamblers, calculating their odds and managing their money, while chess players act like Olympic athletes, stretching their muscles to the breaking point. And back to Ray Brinzer, a wrestling coach and formerly a national champion, his game preference remains loyal to chess "Better to leave your leg in a trap than to hope for a friendly trapper."
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