playBunny: if we don't mind the stones from the sky anymore, there is still the fire under the roof. Thank you, yours was a hint.

gogul: I'm glad that mine was a hint. Yours arouses curiosity. It's more of a riddle!

Isn't there a nonsense board or something for this kind of thing?

playBunny: 'My 3.0 GHz AMD'

Why not using online computing power capacity?

gogul: Why not using online computing power capacity?

What for?

playBunny: To renounce not only on atomic bombs, but atomic power as well..

A strong CPU is pointless in anyones home.

gogul: I haven't a clue what you're talking about.

playBunny: It's absolutely clear to me. We should not be eating the eggs of battery hens.

pgt:I think it's the answer to a riddle my father used to ask:

If a hen and a half lays an egg and a half in a day and a half, how far must a raindrop fall to split a shingle?

alanback: The answer is clearly 4 kgs.

grenv: I beg to differ. I have just used the online computing power capacity and the result it spat out was a gammon and a half.

Pedro Martínez: Now that's the one that made me laugh!

But, in fairness to the others, maybe they paved the way.

Pedro Martínez: I think we should leave gammon out of this in case the swine take offence.

pgt:That's no way to talk about a fellow BKer!

Almost 500 moves & still playing -> AntyTryktrak (Varazslo vs. DeaD man WalkiN)

aaru:This is why I don't play this game...

aaru: http://goldtoken.com/games/play?g=306620

Pedro Martínez: That game goes wierd at this point, unless it's just for me.

http://goldtoken.com/games/play?g=306620;v=1762

Clicking on the > arrow gives a page with bar and bearoff images that don't show. This happens just after a missing move in the game record at 882. After that there are more and more missing images. Do you see the game properly?

playBunny: Weird indeed. It was OK the last time I checked though, back in 2007.

playBunny: I think it has something to do with their recent changes to the look of the site. I wish I could remember where I read somehow that you might "fix" it. Maybe changing the size of the board/pieces in preferences? I might be just dreaming though. I swear I read something on one of their discussion boards about it though. I have a vivid imagination though.

rod03801: I doubt that it's that kind of isue. The problem with the images occurs after the missing move. Up until then everything's fine. That suggests that something on the server is getting confused. They have tooltips on the points to show how many pieces there are. A point with "b2" would have two black pieces. The tooltips for these of the dodgy images are things like "612", ie. no colour and way too many pieces. Also, the dodgy images are on points which don't have pieces, for instance the bearoff tray when the game is far from the bearoff stage.

playBunny: Ok. It was just a thought

Granted, not a good one. LOL

rod03801: Lol. It was a good thought. Granted, not a correct one, but good nonetheless.

Maybe I am getting old and senile but it looks like white only had to move one checker on her last move
Anti Backgammon (TheAlchemist vs. Vikings) when it was possible to move both

Vikings: they must not have swapped dice?

Bwild: I don't think that is it because she could have moved from 5 to 6 with her second move

Vikings: Looks like maybe 5-2 was the roll? Then it would make sense.

grenv: I've thought of that so I did a hard refresh a couple of different times and am still showing 5-1

Vikings: I think this game is shown from the other player's point of view, so 5-2 was the roll... 5-1 is the current roll about to be played... no?

when using it, you know when your opponent has a legal move or it would be your turn again, but when you look at the game the dice for that turn are not shown, even though they had to be already rolled?

Duh! I feel stupid, I was looking at my dice, she did indeed roll a 5-2

Watch it live here:
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/world-backgammon-championship-final

fakar10: Thanks for the link, that was interesting to view!

I've just noticed some absences from the upper tier of the ratings list.  I'm not sure when it happened, but I'm glad it finally did.  (It was long overdue.)

wetware: In my case, it's a matter of winding down my presence here and letting my membership lapse. I'll be back on the list briefly before too long :-)

alanback:   LOL...didn't realize you'd vanished, too, Alan!  But I know you're legit--that's a different matter.

(I've been winding down here as well.)

What would anybody think if BG games are analysed by GNU and one can see that ones opponent didn't make any mistake and what if this happens again and again???
Did I play against a grandmaster of BG?
What is your experience?
Spirit

Spirit think that I'm grandmaster

aaru:
You're not the only suspected player. Don't be proud about your misbehavior.

spirit_66: What would anybody think if BG games are analysed by GNU and one can see that ones opponent didn't make any mistake and what if this happens again and again???

If it happens again and again then the player rises to the top of the ratings, round about where sergey82 is.

Not that I'm saying that sergey82 is a cheat, of course.

playBunny:
But isn't this a shame?? What's the purpose to do this? Is it a big lack of self-confidence? We don't play for money here. It's only to do a fair competition.

spirit_66: Loss game - it's your argument to the fact that the other person (me) cheating.

aaru: I can't help the dice machine likes me!

aaru:
Analysing a game with GNU and if it shows me that the opponent didn't make any fault, that makes me alerted and suspicious.

spirit_66: Analyzing your played games with GNU is indeed an efficient way to catch the cheaters, but since it is not that rare even for casual players to play one BG game close to perfection you need to be a little more quantitative :

>BG games are analysed by GNU

How many games ?

>and one can see that ones opponent didn't make any mistake

Didn't make any mistake greater than what threshold ? GNU doesn't color mistakes lower than a certain threshold.

> and what if this happens again and again???

How many times ?

E.g. I would certainly take an aggregate error rate below 1 (Snowie) or 2 (GNU) based on two or three consecutive seven-pointers as an evidence for bot cheating.

spirit_66: Do you mean game or match?

I play many games flawlessly or with a couple of minor mistakes but very rarely do I play a flawless or near perfect multi-point match. The reason is that some games consist solely of positions and moves that occur so often that they become standard. Such a game will be played perfectly. Most matches take a player into unfamiliar territory and that requires thinking and judgment. Such games generate mistakes.

When checking out someone that you suspect of cheating it's best to look at enough matches that you are feel both convinced and that you could convince others if required to do so.

spirit_66: Some games don't include any difficult decisions to make and so could easily show up no fault.  But I agree if it happens on more complex games, then it's either suspicious or you're dealing with a very good player.  I would expect most games against nabla to show no fault on his part, but only occasionally for lesser players like myself.

Can you post a link to a game or two you're suspicious of so we can take a closer look. 

I don't think you should be suspicious of aaru - I really don't believe he's the cheating sort (based on my experience, I enjoy playing him) and anyway, he has far too many games on the go, to have time for it!

playBunny: I'd be more interested in if the player's moves were identical to an easily utilized program... since even computers make minor mistakes, the odds of the player making exactly the same mistakes over an extended time is... ?

grenv: I'd be more interested in if the player's moves were identical to an easily utilized program...

Erm, more interested than in what? We're already talking about play that matches a bot's.

since even computers make minor mistakes, the odds of the player making exactly the same mistakes over an extended time is... ?

Well the odds of the same position coming up again is pretty low so that's not the best thing to look for and such a search would involve looking at the moves made. However, the odds of playing a zero error rate in match after match is nil and at or below a "World Class" error rate is very low, whereas the ease of detection is high. All you need are the error totals for the matches. When nabla and I investigated we found a zero error rate and no other possible conclusion than that a bot was being used for the moves.

playBunny:

Well, interesting to read all the notes.

I'm talking about both, games and matches. I agree that it's always uncertain to judge on a small amount of events. Would be beneficial to have many games/matches for the analysis.

I also agree that I'm not free of prejudices when I'm alerted of a possible fraud.

I guess one can say that there are cheater on BrainKing and I also guess that we can't get rid of them.

So I'm asking myself if it's worthwhile to go on playing here and being somebodies fool or better to stop any activity on BrainKing? I still don't know but there's a big frustration.

Thanks
Spirit

PS: If I sentenced aru wrong than I'll apologise but he didn't give me any good explanation to make me change my mind.