BIG BAD WOLF: Yet if I do that, his only runner escapes on a 5 or 6 and I have no direct shot at it. My thought was that by hitting he needs a combo to come out, and I might be able to hit him again or make the 5 point on a later roll. Also, he has several ways of hitting me and making his own 4 point on his next roll; by putting him on the bar I take away most of those possibilities.

http://brainking.com/en/ShowGame?g=1811592&i=15

Playing white, I could have made the 5 point with my 3-1, but I chose to hit and make the 3 point. What would you have done?

Hrqls: If your opponent has a "free drop", you should double immediately. A free drop is present post-Crawford whenever the trailing player is an even number of points away from winning. For example, if the score is 1-away, 2-away, the leader loses nothing by dropping except the chance to win the current game. If the leader has less than a 50% chance of winning the current game, he should always drop. So, you should double before he has a chance to fall behind.

If you are an odd number of points from match, then the strategy can get more subtle. There's a certain amount of psychology involved. The leader now has something to lose (and you have something to gain) if he drops. In most cases he should take, but sometimes you can induce an opponent to drop by mistake if you wait. For example, you may have a position in which a good roll will give you a shot at gammon. You should double before rolling, since the opponent may drop and bring you one win closer to winning the match.

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?

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

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.

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.

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.

LionsLair: I hope I am here long enough to see you accomplish your goal!

Chicago Bulls: I would amend your comment to say that eventually neither of us will care to make any claims, since we will have left ego behind; otherwise, I can't contradict you!

I've decided to quit playing here and on Dailygammon to save time for other interests. Since I'm finishing my games and tournaments, I'll still be around for quite a while; but as I survey my standings here, it seems to me I have a pretty good claim to be the top player of gammon games (excluding antibackgammon) on the site. I'm presently in the top 5 in all 5 positive gammon games, and there is nobody who is ahead of me in two of them. Anyone else have a better claim?

Hrqls: Not by my arithmetic!

At this moment in time (approx. 0100 GMT on May 31), each player in the backgammon rankings from #2 to #5 has more experience than all the players above him/her combined.

nabla: I would expect the average ratings displayed on the boards to rise steadily, because a larger proportion of successful players than unsuccessful ones tend to stay active.

pentejr: Your opponent probably had more completed games than you. Until you accumulate a certain number of completed games, your ratings adjustment after each game is modified (increased) by a factor that declines as you gain experience. Since you have completed only 42 games of hypergammon, your ratings adjustment is greater than it would be if you had already achieved the level of experience at which the extra factor ceases to apply. Your opponent was probably closer to that level than you, and therefore had a smaller adjustment.

SafariGal: The word "always" is one of the most unambiguous words there is. Used correctly, it should never be open to misinterpretation!

Pythagoras: Ah, I see. "Always should" rather than "should always"!

grenv: I know you don't mean "always" win or lose. Are you referring to cube decisions?

Walter Montego: It's much easier to understand the logic of deferring losses than it is to understand the BKR effect of losses preceding wins or vice versa. Also, the BKR effect is more attenuated if both losses and wins are recognized than if losses are deferred. However, I'm with you all the way on the meaninglessness of it all.

grenv: The effect can be quasi-permanent if you make a policy of accelerating wins and delaying losses -- at any point in time, as long as you keep playing the same number of games or a larger number, your finished games will include a disproportionate number of wins and your unfinished games will include a disproportionate number of losses.

grenv: It might be that only the cube (and gammons and backgammons) are silly. Anti-Bg checker play can be challenging, though still maddening.

JMD & NIRVANA: I doubt you will ever PLAY 1,000 games, but if you play 3,000 against randomly selected opponents, I can guarantee you will lose at least 1,000.

And, I should add, if you only lose 1,000, you will be rated at or near the top.

BIG BAD WOLF: Give the fellow his due, he is putting his rating on the line with 79 active games of Backgammon Race. When he does achieve established BKR status he will have earned whatever ranking he has, and won't be hiding from challenges.

I just reached 1000 losses!

grenv: I suppose it's analogous to the resign feature, which also operates at the level of the game rather than the match.

You're right, one should really not have the option of a draw in backgammon. However, we all know backgammon is only along for the ride on this site

someone just offered me a draw in a game where the cube was at 2. I was curious what would happen so I took the draw. Each of us was awarded 0.5 point, the cube had no effect.

pentejr: To elaborate, there *is* such a thing as incredibly good luck. As my dear great aunt Bessie used to say, "The Lord looks out for fools."

pentejr: I didn't mean to suggest anything underhanded had happened. A better explanation is that sh*t happens :-)

http://brainking.com/en/ArchivedGame?g=1531077&i=37

I'm going to say this one more time and then shut up. There is a basic flaw in the ratings system as applied to backgammon games. It simply should not be possible for a player to rise to the top of the ratings in fewer than 100 games. Yet the top 3 rated hypergammon players and 2 of the top 3 backgammon players have fewer than 100 games behind them. Any system that allows this is broken and needs to be fixed.

grenv: I thought as much

grenv: If this were a game of backgammon, I would probably agree with you. But I think in Crowded it takes a bit longer to bear off fully after opening the 6 point, so I thought the chance of a gammon was negligible. It is always necessary to consider the risk that I could be forced to leave a shot during the bearoff, a risk I prefer to avoid!

Hrqls: Of course not -- resistance is futile ;-)

Seriously, it was a dead drop, I only cashed because I didn't see a serious gammon possibility.

Eriisa: Live ball bounces much better than a dead ball.

furbster: There are 2 games, squash is played with a dead ball about the size of a table tennis ball and a racquet with a small head; racketball is played with a larger, lively ball and a racquet that resembles a short-handled tennis racquet.

Seriously, the traditional method seems primarily designed to ensure that the top two seeds meet in the finals. Thus, if the higher rated player always wins, the top seed will have the easiest game in each round, the second seed will have the second easiest, and so on.

Another way to put it is that the system is designed to permit the round of N players to consist of the top N seeds, which does seem obviously correct to me. However, if you assume that the higher seed always wins, then as long as the top N/2 play only the bottom N/2 in each round, it doesn't matter how the opponents are chosen.

There's an interesting article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-elimination_tournament which suggests that I may have led a sheltered life. Another article at http://www.tcnj.edu/~curley2/Tournaments/Tournament.htm

The latter points out that it's not necessary to seed all players according to skill; it suggests seeding about the top quarter of participants by skill and the rest randomly.

playBunny: Why, when the merit of the system is so obvious?

Czuch Chuckers: I would go so far as to say that this is the only method of seeding a single elimination tournament (other than random seeding) that I have seen in the 40 years I have been following such things, until this discussion.

playBunny: Thanks for your gracious response ... so it's the top of each half against each other in the first round? That's not the way it should be done, of course -- first round pairings should be top vs bottom, second vs next to bottom and so on -- and the brackets should be arranged so that, if the higher ranked player wins each match, the same pattern will be followed in each round. For example, with 8 players, the pairings should be

First Round
1vs8
4vs5
2vs7
3vs6

Second Round
winner of 1vs8 vs winner of 4vs5
winner of 2vs7 vs winner of 3vs6

playBunny: I thought you would do that, but I hoped for better

pentejr: I'm still waiting for someone to point me to anything on this site that tells me that there is any seeding system at all.

playBunny: See that you do, I'm not accustomed to waiting!

playBunny: But you didn't answer my question, which is where to find these rules. Moreover, do you have any comment on whether the ranking is based on ratings as of signup date, or tournament start date?

Where does it tell us that there is seeding in these tournaments, and if it exists, how is it determined? I would guess that Czuch is telling us it is based on rating at the time a player signs up, rather than at the time the tournament starts?

pentejr: I'm flattered. I wasn't aware there was seeding in these tourneys.

I have moved to the top of the Hypergammon standings . . . I am amazed to find myself #1 in Hyper and Race, #2 in Back and Nack, # 10 in Crowded -- and I know I'm not that good!

Or to play an opening 6-5 any way but 24-13!

I thought that the only thing worse that hypergammon would be hypergammon with the cube. But I just started playing some cube matches, and I love it!

playBunny: I thought I had heard that computer analysis had ressurected the 2-point opener. I see you did your analysis on 0-ply, I would be interested in seeing a 3-ply result. Or does that not make sense in a rollout?

Pythagoras: It's true draws are theoretically possible, but only if both players agree. Theoretically, again, that should happen so rarely that it is not necessary to consider the possibility of a draw in discussing backgammon.