u/EmergencyExternal869

So I’ve recently started playing Backgammon with the goal of getting good, I’ve played a decent amount of chess and was semipro at poker, I also have a masters degree in statistics so I understand probabilities.
It absolutely amazed me that as soon as I start making Backgammon communities 50% of all the contents of posts is people accusing websites of Dice cheating, why is this?
On the App Store, the reviews for like every app are just saying there’s loads of dice cheating, this isn’t a problem in poker, at least nowhere near as much, do people really just not understand randomness? I’m obviously not an amazing back. Plan, but in my head, what people think of as the Dice being rigged is actually just their opponent (especially AI playing very well so that many of the dice rules would be beneficial.
Why don’t people just do statistical analysis on the Dice roles, you could so easily prove that the dash roles are genuine, it just baffles me how much content and time seems to be wasted on people complaining a lot dice.

So I’m on the Paralympic Judo team for Great Britain. In the time that I have spent doing Judo I’ve come up with a bit of a philosophy/system about how I think about doing Judo competitions and what I’m actually trying to do.

It’s all based around mistakes. It is not possible to throw someone if they don’t make a mistake, because if they are perfectly countering everything you do, you won’t be able to throw them. I think this is most obvious in NEWAZA, you were able to choke them only because they made a mistake when defending, you were able to sweep them because they didn’t correctly keep their base. Even in stand-up, maybe I threw someone because they misinterpreted what attack I was going for, maybe they went for an attack and it was very obvious so I threw them, maybe whatever they had been doing wasn’t working so they threw caution to the wind and I took an opportunity. We’re always looking for mistakes.

I developed something that I call the FIRE system of mistakes. There are four elements to understanding mistakes in Judo.

Frequency: you want to reduce the frequency at which you make mistakes, if you make fewer mistakes, your opponent will have fewer opportunities to capitalise on them.
Impact: when you do make mistakes (because everyone makes mistakes, no one is perfect) you need to make them have low impact, make them not huge mistakes, anything that is an egregious error is a massive leak in your Judo. You need to be able to recover from them quickly and be able to recognise that you have made that mistake in the first place
Recognition: you need to be able to recognise when your opponent makes mistakes, if you’re able to understand what your opponent is doing well and what they are doing wrong, it makes doing Judo much easier because you can see the opportunities to throw someone, this greatly reduces the amount of energy you use and makes your attacks much more effective. This is something that people in the mid grades struggle with a lot, they can do the throws… Sometimes, they get frustrated against white belts because they aren’t identifying the mistakes that the white belts are making because their white belts. Once you’re able to identify the mistakes that lower grades are making Judo will become much easier.
Engineering/encouragement: you need to be able to engineer situations by your opponent will make mistakes, take action actions, use grips, create situations that encourage your opponent to make mistakes, especially if you’ve already identified a mistake that they’re making, you want to allow them to make that as often as possible to give you opportunities to capitalise.

FIRE

Especially the last two are the hardest ones, but most people often don’t even think about what mistakes they’re making, they just want to learn the next fancy technique. 90% of my Judo is just putting people in situations that make them make mistakes, I know they’re going to make those mistakes and I recognise when they do and then I throw them. I’m also incredibly difficult to throw because I know what sort of mistakes are possible in Judo. I’ve worked very hard to stop myself doing them and every now and then when I do them I reduce its impact by Eva having it not be a major mistake or by recovering quickly (this is also where the unsung hero of Judo comes in… Gymnastics)

What do people think of this, you could actually apply this methodology to basically any competitive sports, but Judo really made me understand this concept.