Maybe you could move this discussion to one of Backgammon boards.

A higher rated player has a lot more chance of losing to a lower rated player in 1pt games. In a 1pt game a gammon or backgammon means nothing to the end result of the game, also a short game is much more at the whim of the luck of the dice. This is why you will rarely see the top players playing 1pt games at dailygammon or games grid, or playing them with a separate ID so as not to affect their ratings.
In multipoint games the odds even out a lot more, a higher rated player has a lot more chance of beating the lower rated player simply because of game skill and strategy.
With FIBS the lower rated player is rewarded for beating a higher rated player, but the higher rated player does not lose such a disportionate amount of points.
Here on the other hand we will see a similar thing happen as what happened at Goldtoken.
The top 20 players consisted of quite a few players (most) who would refuse a casual invite, most were non club members thus were not involved in random match ups in club challenges. Some only played 1 or 2 other players. It also allowed a player with only 35% (or was it 33%) wins to achieve the number 2 position simply because the games they won were against the number 1 player, who just happened to be a buddy. When the system was switched to FIBS and all games were recalculated some interesting things happened, players who had good win/loss ratios but had previously maintained a low rating simply because they played anyone, had a large rise in rating, whereas other players who had a high rating all of a sudden took a big drop. FIBS rewards players for winning, you will not simply get the large point gains by winning the occasional game against a high rated player...nor if you lose will you see your rating drop by 30-40 points at a time, only to find your next win is rewarded with 6.
Backgammon is a very different game to chess, it is extrememly popular, and is usually one of, if not the most popular game on any game site. Thus I personally feel it deserves to have the most effective rating system applied, this will become even more important if multipoint games are ever introduced to this site.

Backgammon is a game of both skill and luck. It's far more skill than people realize. And just like the varying skill levels in any game, Backgammon has its own varying skill levels. Can a beginner beat an experienced player? Yes. Is this totally dependent on the roll of the dice? No. Poorly placed pieces regardless of the roll of the dice can almost guarantee you a loss. But more importantly, an experienced player will win the majority of the games against less skilled opponents (statistically speaking).

I don't know if the debate here is the luck of the dice and how that places an unfavorable advantage to the lower rated players as far as the ratings setup here goes, or if the debate is simply over the issue of luck vs. skill.

Here are some sites to check out.

Salar's site
Backgammon
Newsgroup Archive
Skill vrs Luck
Backgammon
balances luck with skill
A Measure of Luck
Various articles

My own opinion is that two players of equal strength playing at their best will be at the mercy of the dice roll at least at some level. However, since there have been world champions who consistently win even against highly skilled players, luck must be statistically ruled out.

i have never invited higher players, they invite me at gt, and i do play them, but the fibs rating is there, and it makes it easy not to refuse anyone, and when there are open invites in any game, and the player is much lower than me, i don't take the invite, cause i feel it's just as unfair to them. i enjoy playing the gammons, but don't like losing 50 points, it's too hard to get them back, and yes there is skill involved, but the dice play a bigger part. i'm still going to play, i was just trying to give my opinion on the rating system. i've been playing backgammon since the early 60s, i really like the game, and the ratings and best players list, is what makes this site and gt the ones that make most of us play here, i said most not all.

Backgammon is part luck as far as the dice go. However what you do with the dice rolls is the skill part. The players with better records and ratings are the ones who know how to use the dice rolls to their best advantage. IS there luck involved? Of course. However there has to be some skill as well or how else would you explain why some have great records while some have bad records. Nonetheless, if your primary objective is to have fun then what does any of the ranking stuff matter.

Folks, here is my take on what has been said.

If, as soem of you say, a player rated 300 points below you has a 40% chance of winning, then the game is flawed! It is not the ratings system, it is the GAME that is flawed! Several of you have said that the lower rated backgammon players lose more than they should, which seems to me that luck plays too much of a role.

i agree, i never turn down a achallenge unless i'm playing too many games, and it cost me about 200 points in bg recently! :( Now the challenge is to get them back!

hear hear BlazinBrian, i agree with you :)

I guess Iplay for fun as much as ratings. I track my ratings and try to get them as high as I can. I usually try playing players that roughly within 300 points of my rating either above or below. I know i have been able to build up my rating by playing higher rated players and try to give lower rated players a chance to do the same. If I lose, I lose. That is my attitude in all games I play. I figure I am good enough to regain my rating points if I should lose to someone under me. I just enjoy playing. I feel higher rated players who refuse to play lower rated players are cowardly because they are afraid to lose rating points. Remember that it was higher rated players that accepted games against you when you started out that gave you an opportunity to gain your position. So why not give someone else the same chance.

i agree, i hate refusing invites, but i don't want to play low rated players cause i've lost way more than 30 points when i lose. i guess the best way to go in the gammons here, is just to play ppl with ratings similar to yours, and play the low rated players at the other sites, i never refuse an invite at gt or dg, no matter what their rating is.

Gary:

"... but does NOT mean that it is an advantage or a disadvantage to play a high or low rated player. It also means that the range of ratings from the top player to the lowest player will be much smaller than in 100% skill-based games."

Sorry I don't agree with this. The problem with playing lower rated players at backgammon with the USCF rating system is the reward/penalty favours the lower-rated player. You risk around 30 points to gain 2 when his chances of winning are say 40% - it just is not worth the risk. We were in this situation at Gold Token and in the end the top players refused to play the bottom players for this reason.

Tony: It is probably done by JavaScript which is not available for WebTV, I would say. I can make it as an option, later.

On Net-chess.com, exclusively for playing turn-based chess games, making a move is very simple. You click on a piece; click the square to move to; then click on move. All on the same screen, all within one action.
Could that be possible here?

I think there is a bug in the ratings. every single drawn match I've been involved in has resulted in no change to my rating, up or down. This doesn't make sense. Most recently I drew with a player 200 points lower than me, both established. No change. Fencer or others, what is the expected behaviour here?

Gary Barnes is correct mathematically, assuming that the ratings are established and accurate. Here there have not been enough games to guarantee that of course.

i was wondering about that, i timed out because the site was down, and my rating was never readjusted, and i don't remember what they were. i also think that gammon games should have the fibs rating.

Dream: when i had some of my games automatically time out due to the bug from changing your days off (details found on brainking.info), i asked Fencer if my ratings would be automatically changed back. He said a record was not kept, but if i remembered them he would manually adjust them. (So if you keep a record somewhere of your ratings - like i have made a screenshot of my AllBKR page - he will restore them for you).

I see. I admit I know veyr little about backgammon, when grenv stated that a weak player can beat a strong player based on the luck of the die I figured that could be a problem.

"I think the thing about backgammon is that the luck of the dice means that a weak player can beat a stronger player quite often."

Backgammon is not a game based on luck. It's a game based on both luck and skill. Pick up any backgammon game book and it's easy to see why there are consistent top rated players in the world and 2- and 3-time world champions. They understand the game on a deeper level.

As for my skill.....I obviously don't know much about the game and at my level, luck has more to do with it perhaps. But just like chess, there is an element of skill and knowledge and once one masters even the basics, your game will improve. If a backgammon players can understand the the elements of probability and odds, the "luck" factor is diminished.

grenv, you said "I think the thing about backgammon is that the luck of the dice means that a weak player can beat a stronger player quite often."

seems to me that the easy solution would be to not play games that are based on luck.

Grenv and others -

I am quite familiar with the ratings system that is used here at Brain King. I'm sure that a better rating system can be devised for A FEW of the games here, but for a SINGLE rating system, the one that we have works quite well for MOST games. Let me explain.

In games with a high degree of luck such as Backgammon, the stronger players will 'float' towards the top ratings in a much slower fashion then in 100% skill-based games like Chess. Also the difference between the rating of a top player and a beginner will be MUCH smaller, simply due to the luck factor. That is because the ratings difference effectively reflects an approximate % of time that a player can be expected to beat another player. For the U.S. Chess ratings system that is used here, if a player is rated 200 points above another, he can expect to win 75% of the time. 400 points difference is 90% and 800 points difference is 99%.

It is NOT an advantage to play a higher rated player OR a lower rated player UNLESS you KNOW that player to be over or under-rated. This can happen when one player plays just 2 or 3 other players ONLY over and over.

Of course you will gain more by beating a higher rated player and less for beating a lower rated player, but that is because it is harder to beat them. I'll give an example. Let's say in Backgammon with the doubling cube, you would normally beat another player 90% of the time. That means that you would gain 3.2 points for winning and lose 28.8 points for losing (if both players have established ratings). But because the doubling cube is NOT used, you are only able to beat them 75% of the time, due to the luck factor. That means that you would gain 8 points for winning but lose 24 points for losing. What that means is that your rating will eventually settle at about 200 points higher than the other player without the cube, whereas it would be 400 higher WITH the cube.

So the fact that there is luck involved just means that there will be more upsets in the tournaments, but does NOT mean that it is an advantage or a disadvantage to play a high or low rated player. It also means that the range of ratings from the top player to the lowest player will be much smaller than in 100% skill-based games.


Gary

I think the thing about backgammon is that the luck of the dice means that a weak player can beat a stronger player quite often. This means that playing only players with high ratings would be an advantage. In chess this isn't the case.

I wonder whether any rating systme can be effective for backgammon unless the doubling cube is used? Perhaps the die hard backgammon players can answer that?

How does FIBS work?

I see little wrong ewith the current format-- whne playing someone rated far below you, of course you are not going to gain much for a win-- if you did gain a lot, then it would not be very hard to gain a high rating.

I do think there are a few glitches with the current rating system, but I do not think it needs to be completely overhauled.

If a player plays soemone who is 400 points lower in rating, he should beat that player 9 out of ten times. So, the amount he gains should be 1/20 of the amount he loses. So, he should gain 3 opints for beating that player but lose 30 points if he loses.

that is close to what happens now at brain King, although I have noticed some oddities.

Well if we get Chinese chess, I'll be hoping for the simplified pieces. I think it would make it easier for most to learn as well.

Fencer is there any chance you would consider changing the rating system for the gammons over to FIBS? This is the most recognised rating system for these games, and is a much fairer system, it also gives a better indication of player strength than the current. I know it is really frustrating for players to lose such high points for a loss and gain such low ones for a win.

It would be really nice to get an automated message when a new tourny round starts, also to have that round on the actual game when you go to play it, I keep finding these games appearing on my list and having to refer back to the original tourny page to see what round it is.

I have been asking this for weeks BBW. The worst thing is if you can't get in and timeout, its fine that you can ask for a game to be reistated (must say its too time consuming I have given up even asking) but you don't get your rating points put back on..which is especially cruel with the BKR, as you lose so many points for a loss if you have a high rating, but gain so few for a win.

there are european simplifications for the original glyphs ...

described in the book 'Xianxi'
( by Budde/Kasperczuk ) for instance

their work is an introduction to the game, but almost
half of the text covers the development from shaturanga
to chess in its branches in 1500 years of history ... ~*~

PS
for those a bit familiar with japanese,
the original pieces are like kanji-signs
while the simplified ones look like hiragana.

I'm not sure what "western pieces" look like, but if using western pieces means both sides would be the same I would be all for that. I'm with Dmitri in that I too find it confusing when the pieces for each player look so different to each other.

I like chinese chess and I would like to see it here. But, the problme is that thesame piece looks different for each player, which I find confusing.

It really isn't difficult to get used to distinguishing the pieces, three of which in any case have no chess equivalent. Having acclimatised with Xiang Qi it is then easier to learn the pieces for all the shogi variants as well. After all chess symbols themselves have no real meaning, they are just mnemonic pictures.

This game could be interesting. But would it be not better to use the western pieces?

Is there any plans on stopping the clock for games? For the past two days, each time I have had a lot of free time to play games, I kept getting the "server is at it's max" message. Now I have a few days where I have little time to play games, and 188 games that need played! UGH! (Usually I would have them all played in the past 2 days, but with server problems....)

So a message to the other players I'm playing - sorry for the delay in our games - probable be a couple of days until I can sit down and play all my games (unless there are more server problems, and it might be longer... :-( )

Just to confirm what BIG BAD WOLF says, I too have the new message notification bug on some of my favourite boards. On some boards, the red number will say 1 even when there are 20 new messages there. On a couple of the boards I am never alerted when new messages are posted (the BrainKing.com board in particular) therefore need to check that board regularly. The GC board tends to be unaccurate in its count of new messages under my ID too. Yet I know there are some people who never experience problems with new message notification number on their favourite boards.

Blaze