AlliumCepa: oh so aggressive. And I never was.

You wrote "Aganju, what you call "entitlement" is in fact an honest and as you admitted impactful"
I still don't understand what this sentence is saying.

And I have no problem if you try and are successful, that is an incorrect assumption from you (projection maybe?). What I wanted to stop is solely the complaining about the owner's supposed 'duties' of improving the site - I think there are no such duties. If he is not willing to do it after being asked nicely, the topic should be over; he doesn't owe any of us anything.

You started immediately throwing mud at me about my supposedly drive-by comments. I pointed out that I was a part of discussion a long time ago, and my post wasn't drive-by-bullshit. Proven incorrect, you immediately moved on trashing me about something else, which I also pointed out is incorrect.

My guess is your next answer will be - as you are running out of believable accusations - simple swearing and childish name calling... Let's see.

AlliumCepa: thanks for friendly words, it shows me that I hit a nerve. If you scroll down a bit further, you will see that I discussed this topics years before already with others.
I cannot understand your sentence though, seriously. There must be some translation issue or a word is missing.

I often wonder where people get their entitlements from - is it the assumption that because Facebook and Twitter are free, everything has to be?
So fine, Autopass is not perfectly functioning. Ask for your money back!
Try to tell Facebook that you don't like the way their algorithm shows you stuff. Or how they sell your data. What do think will happen? Or tell Microsoft about a twenty-year old bug in Excel, and you are even paying for it!
I recommend you start your own gaming site (where of course there will be no bugs), and see how it feels after twenty years of work. Go ahead! I would even try it (if it is free, only, of course).

There are a lot of tournaments offered right now, but I prefer to play *with the doubling cube*.
If you do too, and you like a fast game, please join here!

moistfinger: Your idea is correct. I HAVE doubled from the bar before, not often, but not never either. It is a good play in some situations.
I wouldn't want this option to be taken away...

Note that if you CANNOT double (because the opponent has the cube, or it's post-crawford), it DOES Autopass.
So it is not an be-lazy-and-save-some-code-problem, in the contrary, it is doing it even more detailed and correct.

Walter Montego: I just looked at the game that was listed - I do not see them either. this is worse than I thought; I agree it is unplayable. I have never seen that in any of my games, which is strange - I played hundreds f Plakotos, with the same size setting. Could it be the *color* choice?

rod03801: my guess is that a specific image is missing. If you look at the board where there is a blank, right click it, and it will give you the name of the (missing) image. This would make it a twenty-second fix for Fencer.

Walter Montego: https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn%3AANd9GcQfKWI6d4lHmGJRNhMXSs0qhttDydpYiko3Jw&usqp=CAU

pgt: looks like a nasty bug... contact Fencer in a personal message and ask him nicely, he might just fix it.

And in the future, don't roll 4-4 when you have only 1 checker left - it's a waste anyway... ;-)

Anjil:
After hitting him with the 3 (which I understand you'd love to do), you would not be able to play the 5 anymore.
The official backgammon rule says "you have to play both dice if possible, and if you can play only either one, you have to play the higher one" - in this case, the 5.

The rules on this site also list this, towards the very end:
"If it is possible, both dice must be used. It means that some pieces can become "frozen" in certain positions because making a move with these pieces would create a situation where the second dice couldn't be used.
If only one die can be used, the one with the higher number must be chosen.'

Too bad, but according to the rule...

Carl: you said that, not me.
I said it looks like he is not any good, as I looked at some older games, and he played not exceptional. All newer games show that they were resigned by the opponent after two moves, which looks rather fishy.

But it is well known that there are cheaters around here. Some people get off on arbitrarily raising their ratings by having multiple accounts and pumping points between them. I feel sorry for them, I hope they see a psychologist some day about it.

Carl: looks like he is not any good, just uses a second account to pump up his rating.

Nothingness: the quality of random numbers here has been discussed before, and there may be issues with them, or not.

However, rolling 7 doubles in a row has a chance of about 1:280000, meaning it is completely normal (and to be expected) that it happens once per 280000 tries.
If you consider that a Backgammon game has about 30 moves per side, and assume about 5000 games are played per year on Brainking, it should happen every other year.
So as annoying as it might be to lose that way, it is not necessarily a sign for something off - it should happen every other year.
Let's hope it doesn't hit you (or me) this year.

happyjuggler0: right, thanks. I missed that little detail, just saw it's a 'match to 7 points', not '7 wins'. But as you pointed out, Gammons and Backgammons don't count here unless the doubling cube is used.

Why would I not get a Gammon (2 points) for this game??
Backgammon (Geomomo vs. Aganju)

AlliumCepa: I had no idea who you are, and your post sounded like the whining of a newbie - you wrote: "Whoever runs this site now, can you explain please?". So i assumed you have no idea, and tried to explain it to you:
Fencer still owns the site, and he doesn't owe you (or anyone else) an explanation, or a bug-fix.

If you contributed something voluntarily in the past, it was your free decision, and although I appreciate it, _I think_ it doesn't entitle you to whining, or earned you the right to complain.

"Whoever runs this site now, can you explain please?" is not _trying to help_, it is requesting something you think you are entitled to. You can ask that to amazon.com if the gadget you bought doesn't work.

But if you want, feel free to continue to request answers. Fencer is still the right person to complain to. I recommend you use the bug reporting site, or the tournament site, not the backgammon site, as your issues sees unrelated to backgammon. And you can contact Fencer with a personal message, and he typically answers those.

AlliumCepa: Alliumcepa, if you read the posts, nobody specifically runs the site. The server is kept running, Fencer monitors the server, and still owns it. Note that it's free, it comes without any guarantees, and it's use-as-you-find-it. If you don't like it, you get your money back (meaning nothing) and you are free to play somewhere else.
Please don't feel entitled to anything else just because you paid nothing to use it and found it on the internet.

Clandestine 1: here is one that ended about 7 hours *before* it started: ultrabrain. That is speed!

Francine2_49: whom do you mean? is his name Jerk??

speachless: in standard Backgammon, the rule says if you can move both dice (instead of only one) you MUST do so. Of course, in a situation like this, this would be always be to your advantage (or wouldn't matter).

Assuming that the base BG rules are not changed for Cloning - except as described - this would still be part of the rules, so you MUST hit, sorry. That would be my interpretation of the rules.

speachless: well I wouldn't care if they are simply _not displayed_, but the pip count should know about them - that is a significant decision point in making it a run game.
Now I can only hope hat my opponent is up for the same surprise in some moves...

Compare
Cloning Backgammon (TC vs. Aganju) and
Cloning Backgammon (TC vs. Aganju) - I suddenly have 15 pieces more!?

playBunny: Thanks!
I tried to trick BK by typing the double-move into the URL, but it did not execute the move, so it is explicitly checking the intermediate positions for legality.
As that situation would be quite rare, maybe even most real-live players have never encountered it and wouldn't know the rule exactly.
I guess it was inconvenient, but it will not make me lose the game. I just found it interesting.

In this game , I (black) rolled a 5-5, and I'd like to move 12-7, 12-7 (plus something else), but the system doesn't allow this (you are not allowed to block all 6 spots in your home). However, i am not really blocking them as at the end of my move, the ace is free again.

The question is: Do the rules mean that - 'not even temporarily", or is it a bug? Who knows Fevga well enough in the real world?

stargood: i had that sometimes over the years. It is just an image display issue, and has no effect on the game itself (aside from that you cannot see how many pieces are stacked up).

If you go to another computer/smartphone, the problem is typically gone; you might be able to resolve it by flushing your buffers (use CTRL + F5 on a PC), or purging the cache (depending on your browser).
It could also be that the image server currently has an issue with this file.

P.S. I can also see your pinned pieces.

speachless: I don't see a reason why bar-5-7 would not be a perfectly legal move for white.

Carpe Diem: i think it should be interpreted 'if you cannot move any more with any dice roll, he needs to open up'. But I have never played Fevga over a real board, so maybe someone who has should answer this.

playBunny: You are right of course. It does not make it easier to win, if you cannot predict the 'bad' rolls. However, if the randomness is not good, it slowly makes a different game out of Backgammon - for example, if there are less doubles, or incorrectly often two doubles in a row, you can adjust your strategy to take advantage of it. It is still a fair game, but it is not 'standard' Backgammon anymore.

However, I found a high chance of reproducing your opponent's roll by clicking in specific sequences. So when the game comes up, and he had a 5-5, and I want one too, I do that sequence of clicks, and have a higher-than-1/36 chance to get it too (it does not work all the time, but maybe 1:3; still, pretty useful feature); whereas if he has 1-2, I will not do that typically.

It seems the majority of people create Backgammon tournaments with the setting '1 win match', be it in round-robin or 1-1 play. That may be the best way for most games, but for BG I think the better choice would be at least '5 points with doubling cube' or even higher.
The reason is that BG has a significant factor of luck, and even as the world champion, you could lose a match against Joe Schmoe if the dice roll unlucky - but not so easily a match for 5. Whatever, anyone who seriously plays BG, knows what I talk about.
For me, this discourages me from joining any of those tournaments, especially when they are 1-on-1, as it is mostly luck deciding who wins the tourney.

Here my question: Am I alone with that opinion, and all others are happy with how they are offered?
if yes, then fine. I can always make tourneys the way I prefer them if I want. No hard feelings.
If no, then I wanted the tournament creators to know that; so they can create them as '5 point with doubling' (or more) and get more players. Maybe they are just not aware of it?

Walter Montego: oh, and Fencer has mostly stopped caring about issues and bugs (and wishes) on this site. He might fix it if he feels in the mood, but chances are small. A lot of people have already discussed that and attacked him for it, but well, that is his decision, and this site is not a priority for him.

Walter Montego: both games have in common that there can be pieces on the bar that you don't have to insert immediately, but can whenever you want. Those are the ones that have the bug.

Walter Montego: it is a known bug. If the pieces on the bar are 'extra' pieces and not pieces you hit earlier, the system does not consider them for backgammon (not even for gammon).
The same happens in Cloning BG, when you hit someone and get an extra piece on your bar - it does not count against backgammon or gammon.

furbster: I had one of those a while ago, we agreed on a draw. The system does not recognize that neither party can make moves anymore.
Of course, nobody can force them to make a draw, and old age will decide the game one day.

I didn't manage to make the 10-prime, but anyone had a 9-prime before?
Crowded Backgammon (Rainbow Days vs. Aganju)

Hrqls: I am here 18 months only, and I have already won 32 backgammon tournaments (and 159 in total). One of them was a 21-point round-robin.

It really depends a lot on which tournaments, and who is in there. There are about a dozen players you should avoid, without them this tournament would have been done in two to three months; but a single one of them is enough to drag it to 5 years.

speachless: Yes it's a draw. I had one a while ago. The system does not recognize it, so if your opponent doesn't agree, it goes one forever...

Resher: I guess that would work, but I think it is a bug, and a funny one.

I am in a Grashoppers game where bth players cannot make moves anymore (5774462), but the rules have no plan for it, and neither has the server. So we are stuck in an infinite game!

playBunny: I think you misunderstood me. Of course, seeding every time as well as seeding only with the minutes is not a good idea; this was my try to reverse-engineer the experienced behavior here on BK. As I wrote below, if I play a move in five games within one minute, all my opponents have the same roll afterwards. That seems to point to
a) the roll for the opponent is made the moment I send my move, and
b) the minute is used for seeding every time,
so that would explain why they all have the same roll. That's only a guess, of course, but one that explains what's happening.
Because all my opponents answer at different times, typically this is not very obvious, but if you note it down, you can check the games and verify that they all roll equal.

A good (pseudo-)random number generator consists of multiplying a stored number with a large prime, and dividing by another large prime, the division result is stored for the next round, and the division rest is normalized to be used as the 'random' number. The quality and equal distribution of the resulting sequence depends on the choice of the two primes, and as part of my work, we analyzed all primes up to 1 billion for their resulting random number quality. I have kept the best result (I hope), and will look it up later and post it here.

I know that Fencer is rather good at what he does, and I know that a lot of people whined already about the random numbers here on BK, so I just gave up complaining myself. I just answered to someone else's comment about five times 5-5 in a row, and that it is unfortunately quite common to see that in opponents rolls if you play fast.
...

Here is the C++ code from ~2001 with the best possible random numbers for numbers below 1 billion. It will return a
double between 0 and 1, and needs to be normalized to the target interval (backgammon: 1-6).

double Rnd::Double (void)
/* Linearer Kongruenzgenerator nach Afflerbach
x[i+1] = x[i] * 27132 + 1 (mod 62748517), z[i] = x[i] / 62748517
Periodenlaenge 62748517, Beyer-Quotienten 0.969, 0.922, 0.819
Bestmoegliche Verteilung fuer Modul m <1e9 */
{
static unsigned long xi = 0;
int i;
unsigned long z = 0;

if (xi == 0) xi = (unsigned long) time(NULL);

for (i=30; i>0; i--) {
z <<= 1;
if (xi & (1L << (i-1))) z += 27132L;
while (z> 62748516L) z -= 62748517L;
}
xi = z + 1L;
return ((double) xi / 62748517.0);
}

playBunny: Actually, yes. Part of my masters degree was about 'Pseudo random numbers', how to make them and how to analyze the quality. It's been a while, though.

Aganju: I think the issue is that the routine uses the current time as seed or so. If you make many moves within a minute, all your opponents get the same roll. I have started to wait a full minute before re-rolling in dice poker, and it helps a lot to get a different result.

Walter Montego:
I often see that here. The discussion has been had a thousand times, and Fencer claims the dice-rolling-routine is good, but I cannot believe that.
I had nine of my opponents roll 6-6 in a row...
In Dice Poker, everybody can count this for himself: if you select two dice for re-roll, 90% of the time the same numbers come up again. Just countit or a while.

rod03801: I see the same, one piece each time (incorrectly).
For both board sizes.
Using Safari on iPad

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

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??

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?