Opening Concepts (Backgammon Odyssey)

I was a little skeptical of this book considering some of the reviews, but having seen Michi on YouTube I decided to roll the dice on this one. The book nicely outlines all the basic principles of pure backgammon, and the proverbs do stick with you. They actually are popping to mind when I play. It's worth it to learn that "Double hits are strong tiger play!"

This book is simple yet incredibly effective. It takes true sophistication to understand a topic to master level and explain it in the simplest terms with proverbs (rather than complex mathematical formulae) to aid memory. Also, in a timed game you do not have time for complex calculations, these overarching principles allow you to make better decisions almost instantly. Excellent buy and his other two books are equally compelling!

Great tips to help explain why certain moves (mostly in the opening phase) are correct. Could do with some proofreading and lose the graphics, they take up valuable space.

So you have memorized all the 2nd moves. Great. Now how about moves 3, 4, 5... Hit loose, split, run, make a point??? It is not always easy to know what to do in the early stages of the game. This book will help you learn those plays.I especially liked the sections on splitting and priming. But the whole book was excellent.As noted in another review, this book has a unique way of guiding you through the thought process. I found that to be its biggest strength. Similar problems can be found in other books. But learning how to think through these early game decisions will really help improve your game.

Very nice organization of the material around "proverbs". Suitable for beginners, intermediate and advanced players. After reading it a couple of times, I can find the right decisions in many more early game positions.I personally do not care much about the drawings in the book, but it is a good way to decrease the density of the material for the beginners.Overall, it is a very practical book (at least in my case) with immediate return on investment.

I have read several book on backgammon and frankly I could not understand them. This books offers several easy to understand concepts. Buy it.

Excellently presented, and structured. The translation retains the colorful personality of the writing, and the content is broken down in a intuitive manner from ace point games, deuce point games, and any number of situations that may arise during the back game.

A very easy read with increasingly provocative backgammon puzzles that illustrate and reinforces the opening concepts.

This is not the first backgammon book I have read, but for me, a relative beginner, learning the correct plays is relatively easy, but understanding WHY is so important to me!!Opening concepts has given me a great base with which to grow as a player.I especially like Michy’s early admonition to be thankful for even the ‘bad’ dice!! It is a game, and meant to be fun! After all, life does not always give us double sizes :)Thank you Michy and Roland!

Even if I am above the intermediate level at this game, reading this book gave me a lot of knowledge and a better understanding of WHY we have to play in a certain way to be correct.The teaching method approach is really easy to follow, with excellent explanations and examples. It certainly improves your game and understanding, which I find to be a must if you want to develop yourself as a player.

This book fills the knowledge gap between 'What is Backgammon?' and 'How to calculate match equity?'It is concise and is divided into various lessons that are tailored to teach you the theory of the game. It is not just a collection of problems & solutions.It tremendously helped me in the Opening and Middle phases of the game. I learnt many new keywords and phrases which I can now use to analyse many positions in the game with confidence.The illustrations of Nono not only provide comic relief but help to remember some key concepts as well!

Très bon livre sur les ouvertures au backgammon. À compléter avec Celui sur les fins de partie du même auteur.

A truly wonderful backgammon book. This is a very practical book, the tips you get from the grandmaster are so easy and quick to implement into your game. I think it has a lot of character this book. The style and approach is quite different from other authors, which makes it even more interesting. Furthermore it's quite an easy read, it only took me a couple of days, so you have no excuse from reading it!There are some great new terminology from this book, "double tiger play", "break the mountain", etc. This visual use of terms is very powerful as a human heuristics to understand backgammon strategy. And adds much more flavour to the backgammon jargon. I love it!The proverb system: Personally, the proverb system of the first chapters is not really my style, but it can be extremely powerful if you are a beginner or intermediate player trying to make good backgammon moves. I prefer a bit more conceptual and strategic way of thinking. We are limiting ourselves if we think in these strict pronouns as soon as we get past the opening game. The proverbs work very well to the opening game. So it's coherent with regards to the title, but I think the title is a little bit strange, because this isn't just a book about opening concepts. This is a full on backgammon strategy book, that deals with tips in many other aspects of the game other than the opening game. But some of the principles are derived from the opening game, so maybe the title is okay. This is the only critique point I have for this book, namely that the proverbs are a little bit weak when we go past the opening game.The first couple of chapters deals with the opening concepts, and this is very good, especially if you have never studied the opening game before. After these chapters, the real gold starts to appear... These are some truly great chapters, that goes deep into the territory of backgammon theory, and we get a great insight to how the mind of Grandmaster Michi works. I want more!!! :)I hope we will get to see many more books from Grandmaster Michi-san and Roland, since they have only covered a small fraction of possible interesting themes in the game. The content was so good and easy to apply, that it leaves the reader wanting more.