What is the ideal match length?

[Pinbacker]

Hello.

I was wondering what was the ideal match length, and I came across [COLOR="RoyalBlue"]those statistics[/COLOR]:

Matchlength : Total Matches
1 : 350
2 : 59
3 : 634
4 : 12
5 : 1184
6 : 1
7 : 492
8 : 1
9 : 42
11 : 31
Total : 2806

The match length is almost always odd. Why is that? What's wrong with an even match length?

Also, 9-point matches are 12 times less popular than 7-point matches (a difference way too big to be explained by the fact that 9-point matches take slightly more time than 7-point matches). So why are 9-point matches relatively rare?

Thanks in advance for your answers.

[ah_clem]

Hello.

I was wondering what was the ideal match length, and I came across [COLOR="RoyalBlue"]those statistics[/COLOR]:

The match length is almost always odd. Why is that? What's wrong with an even match length?

Other than the two-point match which should always immediately turn into a one-point match, there's nothing wrong with even-length matches.  Not sure why few people play them.

My hunch is it comes from the idea of a best-of-N tournament where you play N games for one point and the winner is whoever wins the most points (think of the baseball world series or hockey's Stanley cup)  In this case N as to be odd to guarantee a result and I think it just carried over to backgammon tournaments.

Also, 9-point matches are 12 times less popular than 7-point matches (a difference way too big to be explained by the fact that 9-point matches take slightly more time than 7-point matches). So why are 9-point matches relatively rare?

You are looking at the stats for one person from the year 2000.  I have no idea why he or she likes seven pointers much more than nine-pointers.  If you posted fibs-wide stats that reflect the broader community instead of one user from fifteen years ago I might be inclined to speculate.

[Tom]

I think it has a lot to do with time.

But ironically the shorter matches are often decided more by luck than skill.

You need to get above 9pts to factor out the luck of dice rolls.

Tom