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.

alanback: That would explain why the active ratings tend to slowly rise, but I believe (but cannot prove) that the average rating rises slowly over time.

alanback: I figured it was something like that. But this is the key to the ratings inflation you find in the more frequently-played games on this site, is it not?

I just won a game in hyper against someone with the exact same rating as myself. We both had established ratings. Somehow, I gained 10 points, and my opponent lost only 8. How? It's no wonder ratings inflate over time on this site, with stuff like that going on.

grenv: Yes, I agree with everything you just said. I also found that when the cube was first introduced, hyper players would take the most outrageous doubles, sometimes giving up 4 (or 6) points where they should've given up just 1.

Pythagoras: Yes, both are important, but I would rate the cube higher. And the more "luck-dependent" the variant, the higher premium I would place on the cube. I've won multi-point matches of hyper on this site where I've won as few as 1/3 of the rounds.

Andersp: That's not even close to the position I was describing, so I hope you're not talking about my "advice."

Andersp: As aggressive as you are, I'm surprised you would talk this way. Of course, the sense in doubling would diminish as the strength of your opponent's inner table increases. However, let's say I have three pieces left on the board and my opponent has two pieces back and a locked up inner table. I double in a heartbeat! What are the chances my opponent catches up to me before I get out and around?

Pythagoras: Doubling when on the bar is not 99.98% stupid. There are plenty times when I pull way ahead of someone, bear most of my pieces off, and then get hit. In those situations, it often makes sense to double, as I will probably still be ahead when I get off the bar, but not so far ahead that I will get the gammon I was likely shooting for before I got hit. Moreover, people will often take HORRENDOUS doubles in situations like this. So auto-pass in a cube game makes no sense at all. But if it were available as an option, I would have no objection (who would?). I would just have it turned off.

Czuch Chuckers: It's 2-1 in a match to 3, and it's been doubled once. Could it be that the doubling feature has been turned off because no future doubles could possibly affect the outcome of the match?

alanback: Ok. When you say that this is "How rumors get started," I misunderstood.

From that last round, I would say that this person plays almost exclusively single point matches, to take a double that bad with a rating that high.

alanback: That last double accepted looks very shady. However, if this person had hacked the dice, wouldn't they have a better hyper backgammon record than 20-18?

grenv: I agree. In regular backgammon, a double tap can be devastating. In crowded (though I, like grenv, have limited experience with the latter) closing up the inner table is important, as you do not want your opponent using those extra pieces to create a strong "back" position (more than one point made in your inner table). The latter can easily lead to getting hit/locked up on the bar toward the end of the game, which is when that really matters, in crowded.

Having said all that, I have completed all of 4 games of crowded (though my record is 3-1). So take that for what it's worth.

I'm ranked 6th on this site in pente.

Rating difference between myself and the #1 pente player: 136 pts.

I'm ranked 62nd on this site in hyper backgammon.

Rating difference between me and the #1 hyperbackgammon player: 130 pts.

Woohoo!!!

Hrqls: I like racquetball too (never played squash). I also play tennis and bowl. None of these fun pursuits ever struck me as particularly relevant to backgammon...

playBunny: Because they're the 8th rated player. Out of 8, in this example. I'm with alanback--I've never heard of any system but this for a single elimination, bracketed tournament. I think we have different definitions of "fair." In a tournament where one loss puts you out of it, those with higher ratings should be protected against one another in the early rounds. Just as in multi-section tournaments, the same thing is accomplished by "balancing" the sections (#1 overall seed is #1 in sec. 1, #2 is #1 in Sec. 2, etc...)

playBunny: The seeding in the older format "section" tournaments makes sense. The seeding in the brackets does not. It should be 1-8, 4-5 on one half and 3-6, 2-7 on the other, thereby balancing more than just the first round.

Czech, I may not have been #2 when the thing started, I think I was, as it didn't start that long ago. At worst, I was #3 and still should not be over there.

http://brainking.com/en/Tournaments?tri=85132#1

As the #2 seed in this tourney, shouldn't I be on the other half of the draw from alanback?

Sorry, alan. Others may want a crack at you while you're on top, but not me.

I once read in a backgammon book (I think it was Robertie--I haven't read that many) that the break even point for taking a double should be 25%. If you win 25% of the doubles you accept, this person wrote, over the long run, you won't be behind any more points than if you dropped every game for single stakes (for instance, over the course of four such games, you'll be down 6-2 instead of 4-0, etc.).

This reasoning seems to me to miss one crucial factor--volatility. In a nutshell, I would rather be down 4-0 than 6-2 in, say, a 9 point match because 6-2 puts me closer to losing. Consequently, I think you need to adjust that 25% up--you need more than that to accept, and you need less than 75% to double. But I don't know how much to adjust that. I guess it would depend on the count in the match, length of the match, etc.

Thoughts on this?

Thanks to both of you. Most of the reasons both of you gave made sense. However, I still say splitting with a 1 is a liability, though it may be the best of some bad options with 5-1. It reduces your chances of getting an advanced anchor. There are the three rolls grenv mentioned split, but there are four rolls (double 2,3,4, or 6) that get you there without splitting.

grenv: Ok, disagreeing is great. I figured most people would. I just can't figure out why. What about my reasoning doesn't make sense?

I don't think this move would help in gammon save situations because it is more risky than the move you suggest, not less. I don't like 13/8, 24/23 because it doesn't really accomplish anything. Splitting your back men without getting any real separation between them, in my experience, makes it harder to get them out rather than easier. 13/8 doesn't build anything, as you already have 3 pieces on the 8 point. So disagreeing is cool, but why?

grenv: I didn't say 13/8, 24/23. I said 24/23, 23/18. Much different move.

I'm pretty convince on 13/11, 6/5 for 2-1, but I would like to hear what others think on the opening roll of 5-1. I move 24/23, 23/18 with 5-1. This gives me a good chance to make my opponent's 7 point, which pretty much cripples their chances for locking in my runners. Also, if my opponent hits my blot without covering (and a cover there is pretty unlikely, just 4 rolls out of 36, by my count), I have good chances to hit back (any 6 or 7) on my next turn. Plus, every time we trade shots on my opponent's 7 point, I gain in overall pip count. What am I missing here.

I consider myself an aggressive player, and I regularly slot the 5 point with both 2-1 and 4-1. However, with 5-1, you can't generate any cover for that slot with the 5, which makes 6/5 more dangerous and less rewarding.

So...what about all that?

Hrqls: I think these rules would pretty much remove what little skill I see in the game, other than the cube. I would be interested to hear the rationale behind these proposed changes, and I would hope that if Fencer implements them at all, it would be in the form of another variant, rather than changing the existing game.

Hrqls: I know we've played, but I don't know if we've played with the cube. So maybe there's still time for mindless doubles. Sometimes I look back at some of the doubles I made, and I wonder why I made them.

Hrqls: That's a definite drop, in my opinion, I halfway agree with playBunny that, in essence, your opponent may have been doing you a favor by offering. Had I been your opponent, though, I probably would have offered, for two reasons:

1.) I'm 20 points behind in pip count, which means you're going to have a decent chance to bear at least one off even if I get you stuck on the bar for a while. So chances for gammon aren't good, I would say.

2.) If I didn't know you, I would double because many players on this site will accept a double based on pip count alone, regardless of position, so that doubling and gammoning may not be mutually exclusive here. Against a bad cube player, there's a chance to win 4 here. Now, since I have played you, Hrqls, I know you are a careful and patient player, which would make me less likely to double in this spot for the same reason. But if I hadn't played you before, this would be my thought process.

Czuch Chuckers: According to your rating graph, your peak rating was 2232.

alanback: LOL...ooops. I should have read more carefully. Ok, the average of the top 50 established could be that high. That makes more sense. Sorry.

I have noticed several times that the winner gains more points than the loser loses. Every time this happens, more ratings points get "fed" into the system, so to speak, so that there should be a direct correlation between average rating and overall number of games played, in that game.

Even at that, the average backgammon rating cited below strikes me as high. A rating of 2219 would rank you #14 out of 902 established backgammon players right now, and I am playing #451 (at the moment), so essentially, the median rating, and that individual is rated 2012. You're saying the average backgammon rating is 200 points higher than the median? There aren't that many people that are over 2200.

Are you counting every ridiculously high provisional rating into that average? That will skew your figures. Better to average just established ratings or to weight each average according to number of games played. Not that I would take that much time figuring all this out, but that would tell you more about the big picture.

Pythagoras: The latter is what I didn't know. I thought there were official rules to backgammon, but if there aren't, then you are correct--we fall back on what we think is best. That would be unfortunate, but there you have it.

Czuch Chuckers: Ok, I'm going to be nice here. Not "Nope," yep. Really. Trust me. I'm finishing a PH.D. in philosophy, and I have taken and taught logic. I wouldn't steer you wrong here. It is true that we use words in everyday English in ways different from their strict logical meaning. It is true that there is nothing wrong with that. So while there is no fact of the matter regarding these "colloquial" usages of phrases like "a piece," there is a fact of the matter regarding the logical meaning of those words when used in combination.

I'll discuss the resignation point further because it's interesting. I won't discuss this any further because it isn't.

Wow, this board is funny. It goes three weeks with nothing, then boom! Almost eighty message in two days. Anyway, I have two points on the resignation business.

First, it seems to me that the determining factor as to how the game should be set up should not be which way is easier on beginners but which way is correct according to the rules of the game. My understanding of the rules of backgammon is that PlayBunny is correct, though admittedly, I am not an expert on the game. Those of you who have played organized OTB backgammon might want to clue us in here.

However, a nasty glitch, one that can exploit all players (not just beginners) unfairly when this rule is implemented in online play, needs to be avoided if we convince Fencer to go to this system. Currently, offering a double counts as a move for the purposes of timing out, etc. Offering a resignation cannot count as a move. If it does, then you would never have to give up a gammon/backgammon on any game that has only a per move (as opposed to a total game) time limit--just offer to resign for single stakes over and over again. My wife had this happen to her on Yahoo backgammon the other day.

playBunny: In the English vernacular, everyday usage, "a piece" (to return to the original example) is ambiguous: it could mean "one and only one," or it could mean "at least one." In logic, the usage is not ambiguous--"a piece" would refer to the existential quantifier, which is to say, it would mean "at least one piece," always and forever, Amen.

grenv: I absolutely suck at anti, but now I might get established just so Hrqls has to put me on the list! There are so few people rated in anti that my provisional rating of 1589(!), were I to hold it until it became established, would still land me well in the top 100.

playBunny: Marfitalu will soon join that list. He(?) is in the top 30 in every backgammon variant, but he does not yet have an established rating in crowded and anti.

grenv: SCAM!!! He should be drawn and quartered, figuratively speaking of course. I say we flood his games page with challenges, until he either has to play some people or delete, say, 200 challenges a day...