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.