Pedro Martínez: Was the post removed? It was a proper link to a respectable slang dictionary (beaver is an animal, any other usage is slang). If that offended someone then they need to grow up and join the rest of us in real life.

grenv: Yes, it was removed by Mr. Beaver.

wetware: I am on my phone atm, so I cannot easily look it up. But I am fairly certain that I was 17-away and my opponent 16-away. And as mentioned, GnuBG told me the same when I set this up as a money game. So to me it seems as if the expert level simply has some big flaws when it comes to end game situations.

toedder: I can't reproduce the error on any of the versions that I have (Oct 2005, Nov 2009 and July 2011). Which version of GnuBg are you using and what MET is speciied?

The version is Version GNU Backgammon 0.90.0 Dec 9 2010

What is the MET and how do I find out about it?

toedder:  there are various MET (Match Equity Tables).  gnubg--and any other capable playing software--should let you specify which MET you want to use for cube decisions.  The MET are tables showing the theoretically expected match winning percentages from various match scores...assuming equal-strength opponents.

The MET are less important at scores such as your 17 away / 16 away.  But I'm currently trying to memorize those values out to about 7 away / 7 away for real-life tournament play.

Ah, okay! Thank you

It was set to g11, whatever that means. Mec25 yielded the same result, as did the different Jacobs METs. And again, it even told me that spot was a "No double, take" in money play, and METs shouldn't be taken into account there, right?

(A lot of this is new to me, I haven't gone past the "looking for huge mistakes I made" and the "let's see whether I really was as unlucky as it felt" stages of analysis yet)

toedder: g11 is a GnuBg-generated MET that has values created using rollouts for scores up to 11-away, 11-away. g11 is the default MET for that version. I think the latest GnuBg uses, the Rockwell-Kazaross MET.

Yes, METs are only for match play.

It's very curious that you have this error and I don't have it in versions either side of yours. That's assuming that I'm putting in the corretc position. Perhaps you could upload the match somewhere?

Alternatively, the problem may simply go away if you download and install the latest version.

playBunny: I was using the latest version from the Ubuntu repositories, so until your post I just assumed it was fairly recent. I just downloaded the latest snapshot and installed from source, and voilà! it changed and tells me that "Double, take" is indeed the correct action.

So it seems like some glitch that was introduced and fixed between your versions, or maybe some obscure error resulting from the package building process. It could always be a bug in one of the libraries used, etc.

Anyway, thank you all for your assistance, and for restoring my faith in GnuBG, and my certainty that it is smarter than I am ;)

I don't have the mat file on this computer atm, and do not remember what match it was, but the position ID was AwAAEAEAAAAAAA

When I said I downloaded and installed the latest version, I was wrong. I got a little confused by the naming conventions for their tarballs and apparently I downloaded an older one from 2008. I now installed the snapshot from today, and it still works as intended.

Position ID: AwAAEAEAAAAAAA
Match ID: MAGgAkAAKAAA

toedder: I suspect that a few of the add-on programs that come with various distros are behind the cutting edge, especially with a product like GnuBg that is officially still unreleased yet with a fairly frequently updated development version available to the public. Bugs pop in and pop out again and a distro can end up with a buggy snapshot. I'm glad to hear that changing the version - in both directions, lol - worked for you.

I have another question regarding GnuBG.

I want to play Hypergammon with GnuBG - so I ran makehyper to generate the database files. But now I have no clue where to put them. I tried putting them in my home directory, into the build directory of GnuBG, and into /usr/share/gnubg and /var/lib/gnubg - I could never selebt Hypergammon as the game type, only Backgammon and Nackgammon. The GnuBG documentation only tells me to generate the files, not where to put them. So has anybody of you done this before and has an idea that might get me on the right track?

Thanks :)

if i resign during a game of probackgammom while the score is 1-0 in a 5pt mathc and the doubling cube is at 2. essentially gving me a 3-0 deficit? or does it give me the whole 5-0 loss?

Nothingness: if you resign after bearing off at least one, it will be 3-0... otherwise it will be 5-0 (or 7-0 if you're pieces are still in opponents area).

So get one piece off first, then resign if you can't mathematically win.

Why can I not swop the dice in this game? Hyper Backgammon (vilikus72 vs. WellyWales)

WellyWales: Because you can't use both numbers... and in this case you need to use the highest number. If you swapped you would move 1 but not be able to move 2, which is an illegal move.

grenv: OK thanks for that, not sure I have come across it before

I rolled six doubles in a row and nine in the fifteen moves I had in this game. Backgammon (Walter Montego vs. *HitMan*)
It's hard to imagine ever losing if the dice guy keeps the rolls coming like that.

I am curious. What is the fastest possible win in turns in Backgammon and what is anyone's best? Fifteen turns seems pretty fast and considering I've had Hyper Backgammon games last twice as long it really is crazy how a game can go. I am thinking in theory you could win in seven turns.

Walter Montego: Simple in theory.. how many moves minimum to get the pieces off.

2 farthest - 4 each
5 next farthest - 3 each
5 closest - 1 each
3 next closest - 2 each

total 8 + 15 + 5 + 6 = 34 moves

34/4 (assuming doubles) = 8.5, which is 9 turns.

Assuming 7 probably counted pips, however being 7 out cannot be borne off in 1.2 moves for example :)

grenv: 9 rolls

Yes, and it can be done with nine 6-6s, which wastes pips, or nine rolls which bear off exactly.

For example, if the opponent starts and makes obligingly awful moves (in particular, abandoning their midpoint), the player can roll 6-6, 6-6, 2-2, 6-6, 1-1, 6-5, 6-6, 6-6, 6-6 to finish having rolled exactly 167.

Avoiding errors on the part of the player would need an extra move and an opponent who obligingly misses any necessary blots caused by bearing off with doubles. It can be done as a blitz with 6-6, 5-5, 4-4, 6-6, 6-6, 1-1, 6-6, 5-5, 3-3, 1-1 if the opponent starts with 5-2 and splits the back men.

playBunny: Right, the back 2 need to land on the opponents midpoint. this is as likely as 2 move fools mate in chess, but still the answer to the theoretical question :)

grenv: And the theoretical question is what I asked. You both say nine is the least amount of turns even if we give the opponent any roll we want and have him move as we please? I think I will work on this myself, but nine seems very fast. I hadn't thought of it as grenv did, just figuring out each piece from where it starts. This makes sense as you can't use the roll just by the count as the number of pips needed may not divide evenly, 7 and 13 being good examples of this. Is my fifteen move game fairly exceptional, especially considering my opponent wasn't trying to help me?

Which point is what you are calling the midpoint? Is that the point in the outer table that starts with five pieces?

Is there a bug in site code, or do I miss something?
In Fevga game 5460931, I have collected all my pieces behind his block. The rules state:
"... If opponent has collected all his checkers onto the one point behind player's prime, the player must unblock a point in his prime to allow the opponent a chance to move..." (Fevga rules, next to last paragraph).
Still, my opponent made a move that did not unblock me - which should not have been allowed?
Am I wrong or is the code wrong?

it is reported here 2 years ago and still not fixed

http://brainking.com/en/ReadBug?bgi=1640

and the game position

Fevga (Gror vs. Resher)

Aganju: Actually you are missing something. In order for Gammonator to unblock a piece in his prime, you need to have no legal moves left also. You could still make a move if you roll an ace.You should have collected them into the next point. Then, your opponent should have unblocked.

qusar: This is indeed a situation where the one having the prime should unblock but it is a different position of pieces. You don't have to just be in a column, but you must NOT have a chance to move in order someone to unblock you

nikos: Actually you are missing something

Yes, he's missing the link to the exact move, having posted a link to the game itself, which just happened to be the correct move at the time of posting.

you need to have no legal moves left

Fevga game 5460931, move 60

playBunny: Well that changes everything. I was referring to the link previously posted. not this one. In that case,yes the opponent should have opened a slot

important win‽ yes or no. ⁅game stuff⁆




Match type: Normal game
Tournament type (?): one game for each two players
Membership level:
Minimum number of players: 4
Maximum number of players: 7
Maximum number of players per section: 9
Final match type for two player section: 3 wins match
Time control (?): 6 days, standard vacation
Player rating: 100 <= BKR <= 4000
Unrated players: yes

<a href="Tournaments?tri=707626#1
">http://brainking.com/de/Tournaments?tri=707626#1
</a>

Backgammon (kid_game_2001 gegen gogul)


all or nothing or all except 1.



bunny？

gogul: important win‽ yes or no.

I'm not sure what the question is but it's obviously important enough for you to have posted about it.

playBunny: moneygame.

In this game, I would have expected to get a 'backgammon' meaning three points, multiplied by the cube of 2, resulting in 6 points. However, I got four. Can someone explain me why?
He has not borne off anything, he has a piece still on the home bar, the doubling cube was used and accepted. So what is missing??

Aganju: The piece on the bar is a "race piece", which your opponent can bring in at any time. Presumably Fencer forgot to include those in the is-a-backgammon calculation.

playBunny: Wonder is it works in regular old backgammon... would be rare but possible.

grenv: Although backgammon from a man on the bar is a rare phenomenon, a million games(*) suggests that it's happened more than a few times and so I imagine that it would have been reported by now if it were in the regular variant. I suspect that the bug occurs in variants which have bar pieces where entry is optional. ... but you might be right. Who can know but the man with the code.

(*) Although the scoring of gammons and backgammons wouldn't be applicable in quite a proportion of that million.

grenv: In regular old backgammon it should count as a captured piece which is extremely rare, but in the Backgammon Race or the Crowded Gammon variant the same problem could occur. Anyone want to try out?

Oh, by the way, of course this had to be counted as Backgammon.

joshi tm: I realize it would be rare, hence asking... since it may not have been noticed but still not work. Hopefully the code is in one place and it's broken everywhere and will be fixed everywhere :)

Hyper Backgammon (pgt vs. blue sky)

Can anybody explain why the Event Message told me "You moved all your pieces out" yet the game was awarded to my opponent? The game (wrongly) shows that he won the match, but it was clearly ME who won the match.

pgt: you are right this is very strange. Send a message to Fencer, he will probably fix it.

pgt: The game you link to is game four of the match. You won that game, but your opponent won the match.

Aganju: I have done that a couple of days ago and it has not been acknowledged.

pedestrian: Here is the message text for the final game (the game in question) which says that I am the winner. but the text says "Blue Sky is the winner". The game has disappeared, but does not appear in my "completed games" list.

Read message(back to the list of messages)
Date and time: 16. May 2012, 11:14:57
Subject: You moved all your pieces out (blue sky, Hyper Backgammon)


Game ID: 5710553

Game type: Hyper Backgammon
The game is a part of a multi game match which is not finished.

pgt: Look at the game ID in that message: 5710553 is in fact the game ID of game 4 in that match. So the message that you quote is not the message for the final game, it's the message for game 4.

pedestrian: we don't really need these notifications until the end of the match IMO

pedestrian: Well I guess you are right, but it's very confusing, and I have not figured out a way of seeing the details of games within a match to confirm it to my satisfaction. But we're not playing for cattle ranches, so let's forget it,

But I agree with grenv - we don't need messages for each game of a multi-game match.

hi to all
does anyone else also have problems with the plakoto boards? sometimes when an opponent piece is trapped, the trapped one can't anymore be displayed, but only at some boards and at some trapped pieces.... when the one who traps moves on, then it appears again...

i have the problem on 6 of around 12 running plakoto games...

AND THE GAME BOARD SETTINGS ARE ALREADY SET AT

SMALL BOARD SIZE so that's not the problem

PLAKOTO_BOARD 5731651
the black piece goes from 20 to 9, at 9 a white one is..... but after the move my white one at position 9 disappears:
Plakoto (speachless vs. Luciano672)
Plakoto (speachless vs. Luciano672)

PLAKOTO-BOARD 5739043
pieces here disappears at position 12:
Plakoto (speachless vs. Dry Martini)
Plakoto (speachless vs. Dry Martini)

PLAKOTO-BOARD 5742361
here another game, at position 15 one disappears:
Plakoto (speachless vs. steve21)
Plakoto (speachless vs. steve21)

PLAKOTOBOARD 5740557
here another game, at position 5 one disappears:
Plakoto (rybczynski vs. speachless)
Plakoto (rybczynski vs. speachless)

PLAKOTO-BOARD 5741042
another, position 3 disappears:
Plakoto (speachless vs. indigo cat)
Plakoto (speachless vs. indigo cat)

PLAKOTO-BOARD 5739601
another game at position 5:
Plakoto (speachless vs. petrj)
Plakoto (speachless vs. petrj)

speachless: I have played over 200 games in 4+ years and this is the 1st time I ever heard of a problem. I have never changed anything in my settings as well so I may be on original settings by default.

Marshmud: I have the same problem as speachless. Just to clarify, let's take speachless' first example.

pedestrian: I see the same as you, Pedestrian.

One white piece on #9 on first link
One black piece on #9 on 2nd link

And if you count the pieces in that 2nd link, there are 14 white pieces, and 15 black pieces. Obviously one has "disappeared."