... or even anti-backgammon :)

alanback: "sponsoring anti-backgammon tournaments"... sounds like sponsoring terrorism to people who hate anti-backgammob :)

grenv: Then someone like Ed Trice will come along and patent a new version of Backgammon where memorizing equity tables (as per chess openings) will be impossible or impractical ... hence my dislike of cube games :)

playBunny: This case seems like a good "exercise" for cube newbies (cewbies?) or judgement evaluations ;)

Has anyone ever thought of suggesting to Fencer to introduce game GROUP ratings? For example, one rating system for Chess games, another for Backgammons, another for Lines games etc. I mean, we already differentiate between them when creating them, so this means they are essentially different entities and should not have a unified rating system - who can disagree with that? (Fencer - too much work involved?)

Remember, some game groups may still share the same rating system (until the frequent players there start complaining about it etc.!)

grenv: Then let me make it a lot more simple. I never played (nor will ever play) cubed bachgammon - I'm a Greek, after all :) For me, every game is life or death - win or loss. There are no backgammons and gammons to consider. Only whether I can stop the SOB who's started taking men off while I have an anchor at their home. Should I "raise" the anchor, leaving one man, or should I leave them both, assuming at the same time I am at either position 1, 2 or 3 (4 or further isn't worth it probably) and that a nasty block is awaiting the unlucky man to be hit by me?

Say one has 2 men together in opponent's home, where men have already started being born off. What is the best practice then?

- Take one man out and see if dice for the opponent is bad enough for a forced hit, allowing one to hit back given more nice dice?
- Leave the men together, hoping for some dice for the opponent to force an open man etc.

Does any of these two scenarios have any distinct advantage, even under conditions?

alanback: More appropriately, gives up half of the offered side of the doubling cube - if this is the first double, then the loss is 1 point, if the cube is offered from 2 to 4, it's 2 points etc.

grenv: Me too. Still... ignorance is NOT bliss in these cases! Let's just accept that basic fun for some people is to move the pieces around, without the cube adding too much complexity. Maybe such people NEED to lose a match or two this way to notice the small print... Or maybe too much time without a cube has softened them ;)

grenv: Then again, some people will not think like that - hence the need for compromise. It would be ideal if we all thought this way, but you know how it is - many people play here just for fun and ignore simple things like that...

grenv: All the people who lost matches this way were by no means fools per se, but I have to agree with Mr. T's paraphrasing:

"I pity the fool that ain't seen the warnin'!" :)

Making the warning more visible is probably the compromise that will separate the true fools from the simply careless.

playBunny: Stop showing off and chew your carrot :) (or the mods will step in ... ooooh!)

playBunny & Pedro Martinez: Let's just make sure the "stupid turkeys" reference is just a coincidence with Tayfun's country of origin ;) And who, of all people, points that out? A Greek!!! Anyway :)

playBunny: That they don't go out of business in the short term ;)

playBunny: Since randomness can also make the payouts too much too often, the slot machine operators need to make SURE ;)

playBunny: Take one guess where DailyGammon get their dice from ;)

WhiteTower: and I mean "introduced" in general for money games, not just here in Brainking for money games :)

rod03801: No, please, the cube was introduced as a feature for money games in Backgammon :) No need to make other games go that way...

playBunny: Until it happens to you, it's impossible, right? ;)

playBunny: If your opponent thinks like the hare in the well-known Aesop tale, the 1s covering your man could be removed with one or more 1-1 throws, and one or more 6-6 on the turtle's dice could make things pretty uncomfortable for the hare ;) So it's just theoretical - obviously, never happens between even half-competent players!

Pythagoras: Indeed, I always thought this rule could be made optional. I believe Plakoto is played that way to stop wasting time on a lost game - even though devil can make the dice so bad for the "winner" that the game can be still saved by the "loser" :)

Fencer: Indeed, 15 + 15 new images to be exact. Mind you, the 14 or 15 on top of 1 will happen once in a few billion years :) BTW I hope it will be detected in Plakoto that, if both sides have a single man covered in each other's starting points at home, the game is an automatic draw, as there is no way to finish the game.

Fencer: (I want to add more of them later)

Does this include Greek Backgammon, as per a certain perennial request? ;)

alanback: He sure is - who knows ONE perfect programmer who doesn't introduce a new bug fixing a old one? ;)

alanback: I mean, he obviously worked in the shadows while we were all jeering at him, and now his surprise has come out slightly faulty :) SURELY his pride will not allow this issue to remain alive for much longer ;)

UzzyLady: I believe Fencer will fix this relatively trivial bug [pointing and shaking index finger at Fencer!] as soon as he is made aware of it :)

Wouldn't the rish of accidentally violating the rule be minimized by placing the highest of the two dice first in order? That way, it would take a dice swap to violate the rule, and that would be deliberate.

alanback: I suspect that people who take the effort to argue about this issue do it because that relaxation would evaporate the moment a deviation from the established rules occurs - those rules are what make the game relaxing as well, if I am not mistaken.

playBunny: Yet Fencer regards the "manual" dice throw as important enough to deny auto-rolling - go figure!!!

playBunny: One way to resolve this would be to check if the offended player's next dice throw would have a direct impact, i.e. hit the offending player's men - if not, maybe there was no harm done anyway...

furbster: It's the windfall of dice, isn't it? :)

playBunny: That's Russian Backgammon, with slight modifications to the rules of Fevga (or was Fevga like Narde with slight modifications...?) Anyway, watch those URLs, buddy! :)

Pythagoras: Let's say it plays quite well for its size :) But yes, it wouldn't win any World Championships...

A Greek student maintains the following page with a nice Java applet which you can use to play against his implementation of an average playing strength AI opponnent:

http://cgi.di.uoa.gr/~ea99509/tavli.html

Pythagoras: Probably due to the diametrical start and the no-hitting feature.

Pythagoras: The truth is in the playing, as everyone who plays it for the first time knows all too well :)

Walter Montego:

Here.

Pythagoras:

Fevga: Exactly.

Plakoto: Also quite strategic, although not at the level of Fevga.

So, Fencer, are there any news on the possible introduction of the "Greek three-game series" that some people know as Tavli? For the record, Greeks refer to the whole genre as Tavli, and have three separate names for the variants, which they play in the following order up to 3-, 5- or, most frequently, 7-point matches:

- Portes (=Doors, no-doubling Backgammon)
- Plakoto (=Slab-covered)
- Fevga (=Go Away, similar to Russian Backgammon)

playBunny: Ummm your link redirects to my Main page :(

So there is this tournament, declared specifically for fast players. What happens is that one player now holds up the whole tournament for days using the automatic vacation feature without telling (me at least) anything about the absence. Now, I know that according to the rules this user is fully entitled to this, but isn't there some kind of etiquette regarding these cases?...

Sorry if it sounds a bit like a whine...

Walter Montego: Well put.

[points microphone to Fencer]

Any comments, Mr Rachunek?

:)

grenv: Not very nice... I will be more careful.

Your expected BKR change: win: 2168 (0), draw: 2160 (-8), loss: 2152 (-16)

Ummm, so I have to win in order to avoid losing points... anyone else thinks this doesn't make sense?... Or doesn't it have to do with the unrated status?

playBunny: OK, lemme make it more specific: at DailyGammon, they have a long FAQ entry devoted to how the dice is calculated, INCLUDING the Perl script that does the hard work. Here, nuffink! I mean, it's not like a trade secret or summin', is it?

Has the exact calculation of dice in backgammon games been ever discussed? Methods and randomization used etc.?

We still haven't seen anything by Fencer on the issue - if he doesn't care, all we write here is pointless anyway :) If he does, keep going...

alanback: Exactly - as long as we even consider more improvements, and can't even agree how to start off, it's dead in the water... I partly agree with what you say, but an inconclusive ratings system is worse than a win/loss record...

grenv: Whatever the answer is, the morale stays the same: ratings aren't good enough however you calculate them. Win/loss/draw ratios are the real thing in the end...

Please, guys, what you are debating is useless - rolling 5-5 all the time is a typical trivial case, especially as it leads to a hugely non-standard result (infinitely long game) - therefore let's concentrate on finite games...