What can Backgammon teach us about Ordering the Disorder?
What can Backgammon teach us about Ordering the Disorder?
And a 'Guest Post' about his life from Wilcox Snellings (Former number 1 Giant of Backgammon) and an introduction to Backgammon Galaxy
In a break from the heavier and quite depressing topics of Ukraine, Oct 7, the wars in Gaza and Lebanon and the existential dread many of us feel about the upcoming election, we wish to shine a light on a more fun and yet still serious topic:
What can games of skill and chance, of risk and reward – like Poker and Backgammon– teach diplomats, policymakers, and interested participants about how to Order the Disorder?
In this episode of the Disorder Podcast (Listen here), Jason Pack is joined by the former #1 Giant of Backgammon, Wilcox Snellings. In the 1990s, Wilcox was considered by his peers to be the best player in the world. The duo discuss: Wilcox’s upbringing, New York’s gambling culture, the milieu of high stakes gambling and its myriad lessons for confronting disorder with probabilistic calculations.
We explore how concepts of expected value and game theory, which underpin modern economics, derive from gambling. They also explore the concepts popularized by Nate Silver in his new book 'On the Edge', which focuses on the dichotomy between ‘the River’ (i.e. the community of risk takers) and ‘the village’ (i.e. the community of PC, play-it-safe, left-leaning establishment elites). Wilcox and Iexplore how today’s crop of political leaders often fail to utilize the principles of risk vs reward calculations and fail to grasp inherent causal connections when making decisions. In the Ordering the Disorder section, Wilcox and Jason link the failure of left and centrist politicians in tackling the challenges of campaign finance, taxation equity, and income inequality to their risk averseness.
(Listen to this fairly amazing episode here)
Or Check out the Disorder Pod in general here
If you enjoyed this episode and want to hear its partner episode with Sander Lylloff the 2022 World Champion of Backgammon, it will be dropping as an Ordering the Disorder substack only episode right here next Wednesday the 23rd so keep your eyes peeled.
Next week that special bonus episode of Disorder will drop only on the Substack so hope you’ve subscribed.
For More Background on Backgammon and its myriad lessons about life, the Enduring Disorder, and Political Leadership:
Listen to the World’s current number 1 Giant of Backgammon Mochy talking to Jason’s friend Etan Ilfeld:
Venture into online backgammon and amongst the stars on Backgammon Galaxy:
https://www.backgammongalaxy.com/
Watch a Youtube Documentary produced by Backgammon Galaxy about the World Championship of Backgammon which features both Wilcox and Jason (it is 4 full parts stream it to your TV)
For another more personal interview about Wilcox’s life:
Read more about Nate Silver’s book:
And a fairly cogent critique of Silver’s book:
https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/09/20/on-the-edge-book-review-nate-silver-risk/
Read Jason’s article written in Dubai three years ago about Backgammon, peace making, and the Abraham Accords:
And check out more articles on Backgammon and Politics:
https://www.jasonpack.org/backgammon
Watch Jason Play a commentated tournament backgammon live from Dubai starting at 3:51:00
And now for a guest post with a free association of different topics from Wilcox himself:
Costa Rica is now my home….. my roots are in Louisiana, from the northern rural city of Monroe to the Big Easy city of New Orleans. I largely grew up in NYC, but balanced that a bit with a couple of months in Monroe every year.
NYC and its culture of risk taking? Well, the “sink, swim or thrive” mentality is a pervasive ethos there, surely. I attended a prestigious private school for ten years and it was plenty competitive, instilling at least a sense that you had to be elite smart to have a chance at making it big. Risk-taking wasn’t really being taught except in some of the better history classes.
America’s ethos… yeah, a lot of risk-taking got the whole party started… explorers, merchants, those fleeing religious persecution. These people had courage, generally knew the risks and decided on balance they were worth taking on. Between disease and wars, life had always been tough for most, so why not take a shot at a better life or even possibly a thriving one in an unexplored and fertile land?
NY again – if you want to live at all well in NY, you need money and/or connections to start or to pair your skills with opportunity in a timely fashion while hanging in on the cheap for as long as necessary
I learned backgammon around 1975, played some in NY clubs and in college, but my prime NY backgammon days were 1988-1991. So I missed much of the glamorous era, even the sexy scenes at the Playboy Mansion, etc. Playing at the Coterie Club on Madison Avenue sometimes hinted at the coolness, though. Chess has the understandable appearance of being pure skill and the requirement to be a genius or a chess-specific savant. Poker was the only hidden information game of the three and wasn’t very spectator friendly, other than feeling some of the tension. At the time, poker seemed destined to not be chic, plus there was always a concern with cheating. Celebrities were playing backgammon, it was featured in some James Bond movies, the dice factor magically changed players’ fortunes frequently… and all could be seen, even if not necessarily well understood.
Yeah, from roughly 1990-1996 I was considered the best. It was a great feeling, and I knew I had earned it. I was smart, I was fanatically curious about the game and quite importantly, I worked like a dog to keep improving my game. You’re never the best forever, but being the best at anything you value is rare air and it gave me confidence which bled into other parts of my life. I would ultimately meet my business mentor and my wife thanks to backgammon. Then our son turned on to the game in 2015 and our backgammon bonding had him in the game to this day and my returning to the game for good after a two-decade absence.
I read the few good books available. I asked top players questions, listened to their answers and their explanations in other contexts as well. I reviewed all matches with at least one elite player that I could get my hands on. I was strong already at that point, but I wanted to find any patterns where they were making one type of play and I was making another. Out of respect and trusting such a high level consensus, I then tweaked my game a little, assuming they were right.
I also took generic backgammon positions where I didn’t know the answer and felt it was important to know, especially if the best choice turned out to be significantly better than others. I set the position out with one choice and played the game from there sometimes hundreds of times. I then did the same with the main alternate choice. If, adding up the data, the choices were close, I learned something. But if the choices were not close, I learned quite a bit. At some point, a friend designed a program to make this process way faster, but my subjectivity in making evaluations was still essential. It wasn’t pure science, but definitely improved my game.
Bg – life well-lived question. Whatever you do, study hard, learn from the best where that’s possible. Understand what’s realistic, the nature of the probabilities in your niches. Evaluate what you’re willing to risk in terms of time and other resources. Dream big, but pay close attention to details. Never forget than the ground is constantly shifting… you need to be nimble, physically and mentally healthy. Change is a constant – a while back, I heard that only 15% of the Fortune 500 companies meaningfully mirrored their original business plans!
Socrates – just a mention of his core directive: “Know thyself”… know what you value and never concede a value without sincerely scrutinized justification… know your strengths and keep working them out… know your weaknesses and shore them up, be aware they can be exploited if you’re unconscious, both the emotional and the informational weaknesses
If you want to read the rest of Wilcox’s thoughts pls upgrade to paid here:
They contain such gems as: The younger you are, especially without your own family, the more you should consider riskier ventures… Generally be more conservative than your models suggest.
and There are strategies for taxing the uber-wealthy and big corporations which can optimize additional revenue without the likelihood of corporate flight. I strongly suspect we aren’t close to the concern zone with current tax rates on either category. Historically, high income inequality makes a country vulnerable.
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