PWC: Progress Report 6

I've made some decisions on how I am going to proceed with Phase 2, and I'm easing back into study mode after a short break.

One note: I've never cared for the term money game, for several reasons. First, I don't play for money. Second, money game isn't very descriptive; it implies that money is at stake (when it may not be) while not really saying anything about the game itself. Anything can be a "money game." Third, it's typically understood that money games are played with the Jacoby rule in effect. I don't like the Jacoby rule and won't be using it in my study, so stepping away from that connotation is a plus.

Likewise, I've never cared for the term unlimited games, which has become the replacement term for money games. It's a better term than money games, but it doesn't roll off the tongue well, and it too is not all that descriptive. A game of backgammon is not "unlimited." Nor is a session of games "unlimited." The length may be indefinite or unspecified, but it is not unlimited; it will end at some point.  

In any case, I'll be using the terms session play (SP) and session games (SG) from now on. I find them easier on the ears, and more descriptive of what I'll be doing. For my purposes, a session is one or more distinct games, using the cube, with gammons and backgammons counting, and no Jacoby rule in effect.

Having gotten that out of the way, I've decided on a simple approach for Phase 2: I'll be playing session games and analyzing them as usual. At the same time, I'll be on the lookout for instances where the best move doesn't win the most single games. These are cases where the SP move is likely different from the DMP play. In this way, I can work on my SP while still striving to improve my DMP skills, and studying the differences should give me a better feel for how and when to take gammons into account.

I've only got a few SP games under my belt so far, but I've noticed that studying in this way is slower than it was with DMP. I'll still be giving progress reports after every 100 games, but they will be less frequent, since I'm not getting in as many games each day.