I played some backgammon these days with my father.
He says the following:
- I should focus on winning.
- I should focus on learning the optimal route.
- I should avoid making mistakes.
- He seem to enjoy winning.
I say the following:
- I should focus on learning.
- The best way to learn something is by making mistakes. I deliberately allow myself to make mistakes, even if this makes me lose some games.
- I really enjoy the excitement you get by being very close to winning and then to see him try so hard to beat me due to a mistake I make.
We have some disputes based on this. :)
In chess, I tend to have some fixed moves at the beginning, and then adapt to the situation. My father is very close to having an algorithm good-for-all at backgammon, which makes the game dull and boring. He just have to learn and remember his algorithm. A computer could do this very easily. Chess, and my style of backgammon, are not like that. You need flexibility. Sure, this implies some mistakes, but it’s more fun (I think).
