Following on from my recent posts on backgammon and to be a top player requires in my experience not years of playing backgammon but intuition and an ability to interact with constantly changing game dynamics. You can play backgammon in as many different ways as you can poker and the expertise and exponents of the game at the highest level open up all new avenues.
It is really difficult to quantify what makes a top player and to put that into word form in such a way that in can be replicated. While I have the knowledge to know what makes a top player, getting to be one is a different matter as it involves doing things that are basically alien to your own personality. One such factor is in your attitude to risk. As a novice backgammon player then you may start out playing loose and this will quickly get corrected to being tighter once you know more about the game.
However when your knowledge reaches a certain level then your own optimal style based on your individual personality will come to the fore. If you are naturally risk adverse then you will play backgammon in this way or at least you will defer to this style of play when the stakes become meaningful for losses to mean something to you. Backgammon is a fantastically complex game and made more so when you inject money and human psychology and emotion into the equation.
The very best players do not just have a firm grip on backgammon theory and cube decisions but also on their opponents. If their opponent is ultra tight then an aggressive player may even double in a slightly inferior position or level position if they feel that their opponent plays poorly from such positions or if they may drop.
