Hrqls: ROFL, wait for meeeeee tooooooo.

LionsLair: *nod* i almost had you added to it until i noticed that it was still provisional .. while the other variants werent .. funny that the variants are established but backgammon not :) .. i didnt expect that so you were on the list for a short time :)

Marfitalu: true .. and some players have their rank timed out (too long no finished game, red date behind ranking)

when i have some more time i will make a new list without anti, and maybe just the top 10% (or maybe a bit % more in case i am not in the 10% of all ;))

Walter Montego: its html
<i> is the starting italic tag </i> is the closing italic tag
<i>hello</i> would give hello

<pre> and </pre> will make a text fixed font

Walter Montego in fixed width would be

Walter Montego

which can be done with <pre>Walter Montego</pre>

Hrqls: There actually are fewer than 100 players with established ratings in Anti. However, I'm #38 if provisional ratings are included.

While I'm waiting for my other games to play out, I'll play some anti to see if I can get an established BKR. Anybody want to play?

Marfitalu: guess I'll need to complete 6 more b'gammon games to make this list then... :o)

Hrqls: I take it this is all 'established BKR' rankings?

Marfitalu:

Marfitalu: Mainly because anti is silly. I think many more would play the others. I don't play race much but could be persuaded if the moves were quick.

Hrqls: I'm not sure what to make of your advice for making neat columns. I'll re-read it and try to put it into use soon. If I have trouble, I'll post some questions on the Computer discussion board.

Thank you very much for narrowing the columns. It all fits into the window now and I don't have to scroll sideways at all. Makes it a lot easier to compare the various numbers and people. Plus the other posts on the page are back to more managable widths too. For some reason, one wide post box and they do it to on my screen.

Walter Montego: ok changed it .. i copied it from excel (in which i made the list) to notepad (to remove the borders) and then into the brainking box .. this copying added tabs between the columns .. i now replaced the tabs by spaces (2 or 3) by hand

to make the columns come out ok you will have to used a fixed width font (most of the times courier is used for that) .. that way the letters and numbers and spaces all have the same width .. otherwise the 'i' and 'm' and ' ' all have different widths .. to achieve this you can place the text between 'pre' tags .. just like 'i' tags make a text italic will the 'pre' tags make the font of fixed width

Hrqls: Good job again, thank you for your effort, as before you've done it!

Hrqls: Would you be so kind as to narrow the gap between the columns so that I don't have to scroll so much horizontally to view your post, nor deal with the extra width until your post has cleared the front page? Just a few spaces per column should shrink it down to fitting on the page.
Thank you.
It's very nice how you are able to line up the columns. How are you able to do that? It'd come in handy for some of my posts and messages on this site, but everytime I type them lined up they don't appear that way after I post or send them.

A new list of all players who are in the top 100 of all 6 gammon variants (sorted by average ranking) :

Name		Back      Nack      Anti      Race      Crowded   Hyper     Average	
Marfitalu	2274  24  1987	 7  2044   3  2015   6  1964  12  2183  27  2078  13
Pedro Martinez	2248  37  2019	 5  1938  10  2026   5  1873  37  2277   2  2064  16
Hrqls		2280  18  1970	12  1889  15  1970  15  2024   6  2163  46  2049  19
arpa		2270  48  2028	 4  1721  35  1981  10  2128   1  2190  23  2053  20
laszlo		2277  21  1867	55  1934  12  2070   3  1885  33  2254   7  2048  22
Incognito	2201  83  1983	 8  1974   7  1976  14  1968  11  2196  21  2050  24
basplund	2208  82  2018	 6  1991   5  2010   7  2004   7  2153  59  2064  28
TC		2256  30  1885	43  1937  11  1948  23  1983   8  2159  53  2028  28
chessik		2238  50  1851	65  1846  19  1824  86  1976  10  2174  39  1985  45
whikki		2189  98  1873	52  1852  16  1880  49  1846  49  2171  40  1969  51
Vikings		2200  84  1825	81  1964   8  1837  78  1798  70  2145  71  1962  65

i know it would have been better to take the top 10% or something like that, but that was way more work ;)

grenv: Maybe the math is that it defines what is a completely superior player !

gambler104: Maybe, but I'd love you to show me tha math behind the numbers.

grenv: The cube decisions are definitely harder. But there is still a lot of luck even with the cube in hyper. In regular backgammon, a completely superior player will beat a weaker player 9 out of 10 times or more if they play a 7 point match with the cube. In hyper, I would say that number goes down to about 7 out of 10.

alanback: I'll have to take another look at Hyper and try it with the cube.

grenv: Definitely a thinking man's game, with the cube.

alanback: agreed, my rating shot up when the doubling cube was introduced. In fact in hyper there are more difficult doubling decisions than in regular backgammon I think.

grenv: Correct.

skipinnz: I felt the same way until I started playing hypergammon with the doubling cube. I think adding the cube makes skill predominate over luck, assuming the match is long enough (say 7 points or more).

Also, of course, all luck evens out over time, so with enough experience, skill differences will still emerge.

alanback:When I said it wasn't the same, I was really refering to the chance/luck factor in Hyper. Too many doubles remove any skill factor IMHO

alanback: As could Nackgammon.

skipinnz: Hyper is in fact a subset of regular backgammon, since it would be possible (though unlikely) to reach the hyper starting position at the end of a backgammon game.

LionsLair: *nod* i even started to make a little program which would create those lists automagically .. but it got a bit stalled :)

the variants are definetly different
mostly they concentrate more on a specific aspect of ordinary bg

crowded and race more about building, race from the start, crowded from a specific point .. hyper is more about aggressive play and counting the chances to succeed or be hit .. nack is a bit more about the backgame than ordinary bg

but then again i am not a pro .. i only play this game for about 2 years .. and almost only on this site :)

grenv: I for one definitely wouldn't class Hyper as the same, as the other variants of gammon.

grenv: I wouldn't go as far as calling them essentially the same. The share many similar qualities but each has its own, unique strategy.

Hrqls: I remember this list...it is one of the main reasons I started playing regular b'gammon, as I wanted to be ranked with the likes of the top players as well, but never played in all 6 variants to even get recognized as one of them...

KotDB: Good point about the rating medians, but that could be simply fixed by adjusting ratings for each game.

Personally I don't like crowded backgammon (takes too long) so I'll never win the pentathlon. Problem is many people only play 1-2 variants.

As far as the pentathlon analogy goes, it would really only work if there were 5 very different games, but these are all essentially the same.

My goal was to get into the top 50 in all gammon variants except anti and then start an invitational, multi-point, random gammon tournament with those 5 variants, inviting only those who were also top 50 in all 5. Even that list was very small at the time--5 or 6 players when I looked. But I'm not there yet, and alanback is leavning. Oh well.

Thad: in december we had a somewhat similar list.

i dont think the 'show subject' link worked at that time already .. and i am not sure if alanback was on this site for real already :)

anyway here are 2 posts with lists :
http://brainking.com/nl/Board?bc=26&ngi=448298
http://brainking.com/nl/Board?bc=26&ngi=448120

KotDB: I suggested those to Fencer once. He didn't seem to interested. :-(

I would LOVE to have them on my main page right between my 'Your best BKR' & 'Your best rating positions'!

Thad: Yes, it is. It's too bad BrainKing doesn't use the Glicko rating system -- we could get RDs into the mix.

Perhaps, rather than looking at BKRs directly, we should look at percentile ranks.

KotDB: Your second point is an excellent one.

I suppose you could compare each player's BKR in each game to the mean and find out who has the highest weighted average above each mean, highest deviation, or something similar.

This is getting quite complicated. ;-)

Ouch. I didn't mean to post that all in bold. If I weren't a pawn I would fix that.

Thad: Yes it would seem so, but I only skimmed the thread since so many messages were new.

But I disagree that the rating would be provisional just because one type was missing or low number of games. We need to stipulate that the games are essentially the same for this exersize.

grenv: Might I suggest the following:

BKR * games played for each variant.

Then add the total and divide by total games played.

Isn't that what I said? ;-)

Might I suggest the following:

BKR * games played for each variant.

Then add the total and divide by total games played.

People playing only one variant are therefore not punihed and a somewhat realistic BKR is reached (i.e BKR based on 25 games not counting for as much as one based on 500 games).

KotDB: Weigh the BKRs based on the number of games of each type played. That should give a decent BKR for all types. If a player has not played at least four (since that's what BK requires to have a rating in any game) games of each particular variant, then they would be unrated for purposes of this discussion and if they have not completed at least 25 games of each type, then they would be provisional. I'm not sure if anyone has completed enough games of all types, but perhaps someone else can look that up. ;-)

Chicago Bulls: No, not zero. The default BRK is 1300.

Yes, of course it's a question of definitions. This whole thread has essentially been about how to define overall strength in these five games. I've proposed one plausible quantitative definition. It's obviously not perfect; it inherits all the flaws of the BKR system, and it may have additional ones. I'm not convinced it's the best definition, but I haven't thought of one which is clearly better.

KotDB: One reasonable measure of overall strength might be average BKR across the five games. I doubt you'll find anyone who can top alanback's 2160.

And what if someone has not played 3 variants for example? We will put 0 to calculate his mean BKR value? So i don't think this is a reasonable way.....
And to measure what...? Overall strength? How do you define overall strength......?

alanback: Leaving on top? Well yes if you define top as the top 5. But no, if you define it to be number 1. If you define it as the best overall with statistics on Brainking then probably yes.....
If you define it generally then no, we don't know for sure.....

You said: "I have been in the #1 spot in most of them at one time or another in the past"
The point is: If you start reminiscing the past for successes then you are already history!

Anyway it's a shame you will leave, but oh well. You know better:-) Do you intend to return someday.....?

SafariGal: But what if no one ranked #1 in one game has sufficiently strong credentials in the others to be considered the best overall player? As it turns out, of the five top-ranked players, only arpa has established BKRs in all five games. Do you really consider 54th, 4th, 10th, 1st, and 24th better than 5th, 3rd, 2nd, 5th, and 4th?

One reasonable measure of overall strength might be average BKR across the five games. I doubt you'll find anyone who can top alanback's 2160.

SafariGal: Well, I asked for your opinion and you gave it. Thanks for your view. One reason for my posting was that I did feel somewhat deficient in not being #1 in any variant.

However, as has been pointed out, I have been in the #1 spot in most of them at one time or another in the past. Most recently I was #1 in Backgammon Race about a month ago.

SafariGal: i wouldnt be surprised if he was #1 of one of them in the past though :)

alanback: it would seem fair to me that someone claiming the "top" would at least be #1 ranked in 1 of the variants. It appears to me you are not!! So I refute your claim. Your claim is a personal assessment of yourself and others and it not the perception of others. I would consider you "very very good" at best. Far far better than I

Vikings: hehe .. he will just tumble down head first ;)

alanback: you can't leave, you aren't on top of all of your stairs

alanback: Well, I am not quite as good as you alanback, but I also hope to get there some day. I am top 30 in crowded, race, and hyper, but my backgammon and nackgammon rankings are rather low.