joshi tm: Frankly I think the cube needs gammons and backgammons to work properly. Why not have them?

playBunny: Well I think it should be:

subject: you're a loser

You failed, yet again, to win a tournament. Give up and stop embarrassing yourself.

nabla: I actually wait until the next frame to send a message, since messaging on the reject doesn't show up in a useful place.

For instance if you sent a note to me after rejecting a double I would never read it, since I just delete the annoying messages without opening (in mid game - at the end of the match i will read the message).

bouncybouncy: I didn't say you were cheating. However if one player moves slowly it is the OTHER player who is going to suffer. Or more accurately the player whose turn it is when sleep overcomes him/her will lose. This doesn't seem fair.

Even if I'm playing someone I know is moving every minute I still wouldn't set up 1 hour moves in case we don't finish before something comes up.

bouncybouncy: Yes, I guess if you moved quickly, but all it would take is a couple of slow moves to throw the opponent off. I would think a fisher game with a 6 hour limit (no bonus) would achieve the same with no possibility of being screwed.

DARK PHOENIX: How can you play a game of backgammon with 1 hour limits? Chances are you would need sleep before the game finished, so the winner is just the person who stays awake the longest.

LionsLair: I think the answer to the first question is "no", however who says arrogance is bad?

bouncybouncy: Personally I will always say "good game" or something like that at the end of a match.

To do so at the end of a frame in the middle of a match is kind of like shaking hands at the end of the first set in tennis.

alanback: Of course "wishing" good luck doesn't intend to influence the dice, but does seem to indicate a desire that your opponent be lucky. This is falacious at best.

Pontificate merely means to speak in a dogmatic manner, it doesn't imply infallibility. In fact given it's derivation it's surprising it doesn't mean exactly the opposite.

alanback: Actually I am always wishing myself good luck, why on earth would I want my opponent to get all the luck? If you deny that you are fooling only yourself.

Of course at the end it's only a game so how come all the philisophical pontificating?

What the? Did I wander into some other board by mistake?

nabla: Perhaps it's not too bad. Had he doubled should Hannelore have accepted?

alanback: As I suspected, though it's nice to see the numbers. :)

I'm surprised that there is a debate about this, I'm pretty sure that any other move is a blunder.

Um, I still believe that you should always double immediately when your opponent is 1 away. There is no disadvantage to higher stakes, and your opponent does not get the advantage of holding the cube.

For example if you trail 6-4 up to 7, and you don't double. You can wait until you get into a position where you threaten gammon so much that your opponent will drop and you get to play the next game for the match, however had you doubled early you would be playing for a gammon to win the match!

It's possible that your opening roll is so good that your opponent would pass (for example you roll 3-1 and your opponent rolls 2-1). Now you may be too good to double if the score is 6-5 since you will erase your chance of a gammon.

Hrqls: You should always double immediately.

Your opponent will always accept.

If you wait until you're winning by too much your opponent may choose not to accept. This is bad. Remember redoubles at this stage are not going to happen.

If you wait until you're losing or the game is close then your opponent will accept and there's no difference.

Marfitalu: Or not care about ratings so much.

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.

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

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.

alanback: As could Nackgammon.

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.

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.

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).

Matarilevich: Yes. April 12, 2052

Matarilevich: 3 days per move x 996 x 2 + vacation = about 22 years. Good thing they moved a little quicker, but still.

jryden: It is not an error. The rules say you have to use both dice, but there is no rule that says you need to move the maximum number of pips.

SafariGal: I'm just annoyed that I play every day, yet time out in 8 games all of a sudden. Then I have to wait months for certain opponents to move.

SafariGal: i think you're making the same point as me. :)

SafariGal: And I play ALL the time.

SafariGal: It was a tournament, and really with adding only 3 hours, once you run out of time it's impossible to keep up unless you don't sleep. Whoever goes to sleep first loses.

Well, i ran out of time on about 6 games in the last 2 days despite playing moves constantly.
Watch out for the new time controls, they can be extremely difficult to keep up with when the added value each move is less than the time it takes to get some sleep. I'll resign all my current games with such controls.

Marfitalu: That's what I meant. You can't make a good cube decision without being able to play the checkers.

pentejr: I agree the cube is very important, but even a good cube decision can be undone by bad checker play.

Hyper checker play is not all that difficult, so the cube seems very important here. I've found that many people miss an obvious double which ends up costing them.

Andersp: But you had 2 pieces on the bar and were 100 pips behind, who gave you such advice??

It's incredible how quickly the conversation always descends into pedantry

All: I always exaggerate the position for effect :)

Yes, i meant >50%, which is not the same as cube decision by the way.

Pythagoras: Yes, i had it round the wrong way, with 3 pieces you should always win, with 7 you should always lose. With 4-6 it depends where they are... according to the research I just did. :)

pentejr: If one of your 3 pieces is on the bar then the chance of him catching up is very high, i'd say about 75%

Where is the bunny when you need him? Anyone care to do some rollouts on a computer to find out?

Andersp: Actually I think the only time you'd double is if it's your last piece.

pentejr: THat is exactly why the link should be there. In the situation you described you could choose not to click it, however in most situations you would.

Pythagoras: The implication was that implementing the feature is somehow expensive.

However, I believe it to be a personal preference of the programmer independent of any real cost.

I think it could be solved with a link that says "Autopass this game until I can move a piece". Even if the cube is an option you may want to click this link.

BIG BAD WOLF: I actually don't think it matters that much, opponents ratings being more important. Point is you can delay all your losses by months on end and effectively engineer a good rating, albeit temporarily.

I have to say I get annoyed at people not moving when they are about to lose, so I think that a frame of backgammon should be over when it is mathematically impossible for one player to win.

It would also stop people from continuing to play out the game instead of resigning, as they should.

Of course if the value of the result is important and unknown (gammon/backgammon/single point) then it obviously needs to continue.

Vikings: touche

Vikings: Has it occurred to you that anti-backgammon is a silly game? Just checking.

JMD & NIRVANA: What I'm wondering is why you think we care how good you think you are? You clearly have some issues to deal with that have nothing to do with backgammon.

Let's get back to talking about something interesting.

alanback: That seems to be a bug to me, should be no draws, but if we have to have it it should apply to the match not the game.