Chessmaster1000: That's a good point, most of the time these programs will calculate expected result, meaning they will double the number of gammon chances etc. In this site we should only be worried about winning %ages.

playBunny: I think my move on turn 6 is better, but I can't say why. As for the other turn I suppose that other move was available, but I don't like giving up advanced guarded points in my opponent's home base while leaving everyone as a blot to get messed with.

As I say, "Luck beats skill."

So I won the game despite playing poorly, or am I better player than you and this machine doesn't know what it's talking about?

What are plies? One person's turn, or both players making a move? Or something else? You say the machine only thinks 2 plies ahead? I think lots further ahead when I play Backgammon. Leaving blots or missing them on purpose can be arguable as to which is the right thing to do at that time as compared to the long run, but in a individual game the dice are rolled now and you get what you get. The very first moves of a game are argued about in some cases! The starting position hasn't changed in over a hundred years and yet experts will still debate about what to do in some cases. Even a roll of double fours as player two's first roll has debate about it. As for later in the game, I can see experts debating the merits of a particular style or play. How does the machine come up with its recommendations? You did some explaining earlier on the BrainKing discussion board, but someone had to write down for the machine how think about going for the win. Let alone how it would dispense advice.

Do these machines ever play against each other? I've heard some of you guys saying they've played against people and have done very well in recent years.

Walter Montego: Does the form of Backgammon that we play have anything to do about these assessments the machine spits out? Single game strategy is different than gambling for money and that's different than playing a set match. And then there's the way that I would play, just a series of games counting gammons and backgammons but no doubling cube.

I believe that the PlayBunny took into consideration, what kind was the game (single or not etc...) for making his analysis with GNUBG. The results and the suggested better moves are very different of course if the game is a single one and it even depends from the current result of the match (In a single game of course is 0-0)........

Walter Montego: The first was move 6 and it was hitting the wrong blot. Should have been hitting on 11 from your anchor on my 5-point. I guess you didn't want to break that anchor?

The second was move 19. Again it looks like you didn't want to bust that anchor. You came off the bar and sent the man out missing my two blots. He got tapped on the head for being nice! ;-)

playBunny: Hard to imagine this machine saying my failure to hit a blot is a bad play. I think I hit too many blots in games and leave myself open for lots of trouble. Which move in the game is that, or is it the only time I didn't hit your blot when I was able to out of 12 times?
Does the form of Backgammon that we play have anything to do about these assessments the machine spits out? Single game strategy is different than gambling for money and that's different than playing a set match. And then there's the way that I would play, just a series of games counting gammons and backgammons but no doubling cube.

Walter Montego: Do you really want me to say here? lol. The program graded your play as "Beginner". It is a very harsh judge, though, and all of the top players whose games I've analysed get "Awful!"s and "Beginner"s as well as the "Expert"s and "World Class"s. ("Top players" doesn't mean world-circuit top players, but those at the sites at which I play).

I've made my GnuBg stricter on evaluating individual moves than the standard version (so, for instance a fairly good move on the standard is a Doubtful move on mine, a Doubtful on standard is a Bad move on mine). On that basis you got 6 Doubtfuls, 2 Bads and 1 Very Bad. (Standard settings: 2 D, 2 B and 1 VB)

The two Very Bads were failures to hit blots. The two Bads were both doubles (a 4-4 and a 5-5). It's a surprisingly common error. Many of the games that I've analysed show good play apart from a failure to take the best advantage of doubles.

The bad luck that Walter is referring to is me being hit and sent to the Bar 11 times. And with that last hit I was on the Bar for 13 straight rolls despite the 4-point being open the whole time. Odds of 10,000 to 1 or something. Walter was very hospitable though, and I got very drunk for free in his bar. ;-)
Walter vs playBunny

All that being hit forced my own play somewhat and I made 1 Doubtful move and 1 Bad one. Overall I was judged as "Advanced" (which is the category below "Expert").

Revenge is not happening yet, either, as that dice guy is still working overtime creating doubles for Walter, lolol. He won our last Best of Three and is looking to take this next set, too. [I say that hoping to provoke Fate into doing something before it's too late. ;-)]

playBunny: I won that game. Knowing the dice guy is more important than having a machine. Are you ever going to learn how to roll a four? :) That was amazing in its luck (bad) to have happened.

Of the three games we played, that was the only that had all them blots getting hit. At one time we had more men in the opponent's home base than in our own. :) In that game, does this machine say I played badly and got lucky or played it well and took advantage of good dice for me and bad for you? Or does it say something else?

Hrqls: There could be no disputing such a stringent delineation. Yet I see no problem with analysing a game that's finished. I'm wondering, then, what advantage there is in denying yourself the analysis of a BainKing match. In fact I've done just that with a game against Walter. It brought me into a game situation territory that I only rarely get into and, to me, it was an opportunity not to be wasted.

playBunny: the most fair way to use a bg program would be to play separate games with it and analyse those .. nothing connected to the site, the games on here, the mvoes done, the dices rolled, etc.

keep it separated and there will be no problem at all .. you will just train yourself by playing with a nice teacher

If your opponent agrees to the use of a program then it would be okay. "Cheating" should be defined as the (surreptitious) use of such programs with intent to create an unfair advantage. I can't see many players agreeing to the use of programs.

I made a post on the brainking.com board (Re: Backgammon Programs, 8. June 2005, 01:39:07) which included thoughts about cheating with a bg program. :
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The opportunity to cheat [with a bg program] is immediately obvious - you only need enter the current position and dice roll and ask for the moves. A successful cheat would not play an entire game according to what the machine said but would only use it to advise in tricky situations. In other situations it would be possible to pick the 2nd or 3rd moves, even 7th, etc, if they were not desperately worse than the best. This makes it somewhat difficult to detect a cheat.

In practice, however, if you examine the games of the top players at most sites, you will find that even the best will make bad moves and even huge blunders - as judged by the program. These programs are very exacting judges. The player will sometimes be able to argue why their move is good but more often it will be recognised that the move was indeed a poor one. This makes it somewhat easier, then, to detect a clumsy cheat. [That's in general, though. For Fencer to detect backgammon programs would be impossible as he would have to analyse everything. It takes several minutes per game and that's computer power which is not available - nor, if it were, would it be very productive use of his servers.]

Using a computer when playing against a robot is hardly cheating but when playing against other people it certainly is - unless there is disclosure and acceptance beforehand.

What about using the computer to analyse a move after it has been made? A main reason to do this is to maximise learning while that move is pertinent in the mind. The aim is to improve your play in future games by recognising the type of position and/or knowing how to act given a particular dice roll - building one's intuition or heuristics. But is it cheating, even if not as obvious as examining a move beforehand?

Well, it will have no effect on the game in some situations but in others it will. If you are attempting to trap a piece behind a prime and have been concentrating on adding a block at the front, but the bg analyser marks your move down because it reckons that you should have been trying to close the rear end first, then your next moves will be influenced as you change your plan. The computer's analysis has suggested a tactic in an ongoing situation - and therefore been of benefit even though used in retrospect.

On the other hand there are very many situations, especially at the start of the game where the volatility of the position means that tactics must be kept very fluid and every position examined as if the game were starting from there. In those situations the use of the computer would not be of much benefit in the current game.
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So, if you want to use your program, you should be aware that analysing the game after each move could still give you an advantage and this would be unfair if such usage is not disclosed. The best way to use a bg program is after the game has finished.

The same judgements could also be made if you use this board to get other people's opinions about a game while it is still in progress. Although this would be very visible to your opponent if they were a reader of the board, it could be seen as cheating.

Nonsense, if the dice roll can be entered by the player then clearly a computer could assess the best possible move. That would only apply to games where luck was everything.

Pedro Martínez: I thought I had seen where Fencer said he was going to change/update that part and he didnt think that programs were useful in dice games. It sounded like he didnt care if they were used.

I wonder what the esperanto version says

The Czech version is stricter:

1. NO CHEATING. This term includes making use of external programs for suggesting the best moves and deliberate losing in order to increase the opponent's BKR. Such behavior, if proved, may lead to the account blockage and removal of the BKR from the ratings table.

Czuch Chuckers:

Game Guidelines:

1. NO CHEATING. This includes using outside programs to help play and losing on purpose for the goal of boosting ratings. Your account may be banned, and ratings will be removed.

Is it proper to use this program to help with ongoing game sin here? And if so, is it proper to disclose this info to your opponent?

Hrqls, Abigail: Further to Mike's suggestion. If you find World Class is fast enough, then move up to Supremo. They both use 2-ply but Supremo looks at more moves at each level. (This is the Move Filter shown at the bottom of the player settings.) I use Supremo on chequer play and cube decisions for both Player and Tutor analysis which gives me a reasonably paced game on a 1GHz machine.

When you come to looking at your games to examine your mistakes, click on the move that you made and the ones above it in the Annotation window and then click on the tiny [3] button down below. This will re-evaluate all those moves at 3-ply and give you much better accuracy. (4-ply is just toooooo slow except for end-game situations or when a piece is stuck on the bar).

You must click all the 2-ply moves above yours otherwise the unclicked ones will be displayed below all the 3-ply evaluations regardless of whether they are better or not. That's just how Gnubg sorts them. You might want to click on a couple of 2-ply moves below yours as well if they are evaluated as close to yours; 3-ply may show them to be better after all.

GnuBg is as user-friendly as Mike says: As always, you must use Settings/Save settings after any changes otherwise it'll throw your new settings away when you leave the program. You'll especially appreciate this snippet of advice if you put a lot of effort in creating a nice 3D board for yourself! ;-)

Hrqls: Yes, you set the playing strength at Settings/Players. Just click on expert and select World Class. You can do this for both chequer play and cube decisions. Then do the same under Settings/Analysis and Settings/Evaluation. Experiment a bit if you like and when you're happy click on Settings/Save settings. Otherwise next time you run it, you'll be back where you started.

1-ply is a compromise between speed and ability. Just don't trust it too much.

Mike UK: where can you set the level ?

i have it (default) at expert (menu: settings - players - predefined setting)

GNU is not very user-friendly to put it mildly. If you want it to play a decent game then you need to set it to at least 2-ply (World Class). Similarly any analysis at less than 2-ply is totally useless. Unfortunately the higher the standard, the longer it takes to play/analyse. Hope this helps.

AbigailII: ah! that explains in indeed ... my gammon was without the cube (and it states it uses the jacoby rule indeed, didnt know what it was :))

i am training myself :)

Hrqls: By default, in a money game, you only get double/triple points for a gammon/backgammon if the cube is on 2 or more. This is called the Jacoby rule.

I also downloaded gnubg, and I don't think it's playing very good. I played a money game for a while, and it didn't take me very long to get a 132-16 lead. And I'm not a good backgammon player at all.

i downloaded gnubg to see how i would do against it .. it seems i am an intermediate player most of he time :)

(sometimes it rates my moves as doubtful, but when i then have a look at what gbubg thinks to be the best move .. its exactly my move :))

i have a question about the match types though .. i can chose for a single game, or a match for several points .. or for a money game ... what does this mean ? what are the differences with a normal match ?

i played one money game match (finished it at 4-8 (gnubg got 4 points in the last game .. i took the chance and lost :)) .. and gammoned gnubg in one of the games .. but it didnt give me 2 points .. while gnubg gammoned me in another where i already had a piece on the bar ??

Duh!!! Neither am I...wonder wHy...~*~

danoschek: r u talking to me? cause Im not able to send you anything...

and is not more than 300 below my ratings, feel free also to invite me
- we could have a nice comment exchange which my pleasance forbids here ... ~*~

Since there's no gammon, it may not be a bad idea to give yourself 2 pieces. More chance of hitting, and you may form a block.

ok, same scenario as I recently posted..... I have my opponent stuck , am I better off trying to get captured to have a chance to come back on with two pieces together? Or is it better to let him back on the board without a capture?

Pedro Martínez: Ah OK I understand.

Could you put a link to winners and rankings in here like you have for the pond games please?

Mike UK: Yes, it does, I meant the 13-5 13-5 as the best move in the Chuck's game instead of what Chuck played...sorry for the misunderstanding, my fault...

Mike UK: I think what pedro checked was the situation in czuch's game where his opponent had had opened with 54:24-20,13-8.

Pedro Martínez: Sorry to disagree again but there is no way GNU recommends playing double 4 2x13/5 as an opening roll unless maybe if you have it on 0-ply. On both 2-ply and 3-ply it recommends 2x24/20 2x13/9 which is the generally accepted best move.

Pedro Martínez: I like 8-2 6-2, but only because it isn't expected. It is probably the toughest opening roll to choose from.

YOu guys missed an important point.

In that game 13-5 (actually 12-20 since it was black) not only grabbed the important 5-point, but also put a checker on the bar. Without that the play 13-9, 24-20 is also not too bad, though the 5-point is the most important one to grab early.

6-5 is always a run, there is not even a close second to consider.

Czuch Chuckers: No doubt after me, 64 is more tricky...

Is there any doubt that 6/5 opening roll means you make a run for it?

BIG BAD WOLF: Yes, that looks like the best move to me as well. Thats what I thought I sould do, but sometimes I like to mix it up to find out what the results will be. I dont think I will try my move ever again now though :)

Czuch Chuckers: Of course it does...
BBW: That is the second best move according to the program.

Czuch Chuckers: Actually someone once told me that is was a very good strategy to "control" your own 5 space (in your home area) - and what Pedro posted, it sounds like gnubg agrees.

Myself, I would not do that. What I would do is spilt up the double and control 2 areas - for example in your games Czuch, instead of your move, i would have moved 2 pieces from 12-16, then moves 2 other pieces from 19 to 23.

Pedro Martínez: hanks. Does it change if you play second depending on the first move of your opponent, I would guess?

Czuch Chuckers: 13-5 13-5, says gnubg.

what is the accepted move for double 4s to open a game?

Czuch Chuckers: Actually, your move No. 2 was your first move in the game, having passed the No. 1. :)

Pedro Martínez: Well playing on webtv, I cannot use programs like that to help my game out. I wish I could. Seems I could sure use it! I know must have played terrible to get myself in the mess I am currently in! Sounds like I lost this game on the second move!

Czuch Chuckers: I let gnubg analyze the game and it says that your last move was the best you could make. However, it says that your play is "terrible!", marking 3 moves as very bad (moves No. 2, No. 7 and No. 10) and 2 as bad (No. 3 and No. 11). It also says that verbatim is playing like an "Amateur", having all of his moves marked as good.

Mike UK: I know I didnt have muc of a chance either way, and my instinct said that I might have a better chance not closing out my home like that, but I just couldnt let myself not do it. You are probably correct that it is marginal either way. think the way I played it, I will have all my peices except the last on on the #1 pip and then I will have to makje a mad dash with some very high rolls to have a chance :)

Hrqls: Yes I agree it's marginal. We're really clutching at straws here. Chances of Czuch winning this one are probably 5% or less.

Mike UK: it wouldnt matter that much would it ? he would have had to capture the piece when he comes from the bar .. then he cab block black out for a few moves .. or not .. he doesnt block out .. black still has to roll 5 to get back into the game .. which forces white to crunch a bit anyway ... it just makes a difference of 1 move crunching .. black doesnt get crunched too fast .. and will probably send white to the bar soon and block him out

Sorry, but I think you did make matters worse. By blocking him out, all you can do is crunch your home board. You are giving your opponent even more timing than he already has. When he gets back in, he should have no difficulty rolling his prime forward. Even if you're lucky enough to get a hit, he will just get straight back in again. If you had not blocked him out, your homeboard wouldn't have crunched quite so much.