I dont like the idea of not having seperate ratings for gammon games with and without the cube.... it seems like they are 2 very different games, with vewry different strategies.

Czuch Chuckers: The strategies for the cubeless games are a subset of the strategies for match play with cube.

Czuch Chuckers: I'd like to see separate rating scales too; it would be another challenge and it would mean that the ratings are "cleaner" in as much as some people will play only with the cube while some others will play only without and being in the same rating pool makes then incomparable.

Fencer will at some stage be introducing Ladders to BrainKing. It'll be possible to have separate Ladders for chequer play and cube play.

As frolind says, cubeless backgammon is just a subset of the rules of backgammon. There are many situations in backgammon where the cube is not in play. Having separate ratings for cubeful and cubeless backgammon would be like having separate ratings for chess and for chess endgames.

playing gammon without the cube is chronologically similar to playing chess without en passant or castling; both were introduced to liven up the game, whether for gambling purposes or not. So to further alanback's analogy, separate ratings to me would be like castling/en passantless chess vs. chess: sometimes a significant difference in game play, but in the end it's still chess. I'll be happy just to wait for ladders.

redsales: I'll be happy enough with the ladders too but I can't agree with likening the cube to minor additions to the moves in chess.

There might be similarities in the rationale behind their origins but after that the comparison breaks down. The cube requires additional skills. Gaining true expertise with the cube is more of a challenge that attaining the same level in chequer play, I would suggest. The en passant and castling rules hardly stretch the chess mind in a new direction.

frolind, alanback: Saying that cubeless backgammon is a subset of cubeful backgammon is the same as saying that hurdles is a subset of sprinting. It may be true but nobody thinks of them as being comparable. The are treated as separate events.

Don't double early in the game unless you have an overwhelming advantage.

A bad double:

http://brainking.com/en/ShowGame?g=1118690&i=4

Why not double early?

When you double, you surrender ownership of the doubling cube to your opponent. When you double, then only your opponent can double later. The ability to double is an important strategic advantage. You should not give up that advantage without a clear reason to do so. In money play, you should not double unless the odds are 2-1 in your favor. In match play, the doubling point varies depending upon the match score.

I am a bit late on this, but many thanks to Fencer for the addition of the game cube ! Now I will start also playing some backgammon here.
playBunny: I agree with you. Although doubling rarely happens more than two or three times in a game, knowing how to handle the game cube probably amounts to almost 50% of the backgammon skill. In many situations it is not too hard to find the best move out of a roll by simple comparison, although you don't even know if you have 25% or 75% of chances to win. I find assessing one's chances to win much harder.

Never mind, I was confused.

alanback: Aye, it's worked for me in this match.

playBunny: castling significantly changed the method of attacking the king in the middle vs. the flank. Also, the lack of a 2-square escape move for the king resulted in more of a disadvantage for black. That's more akin to the cube. en passant, you're right, it's not much at all.

redsales: Aye, castling opened up new and interesting areas of game space to be explored... but did it cause a difference in the kind of thinking that was required?

Have a look a Doubling Strategy in Backgammon and see if that bears any resemblance to the thinking involved in chequer play! ;-)

(I'm cheating slightly here. That kind of stuff is obligatory for professionals and world champions but you can get quite far with the cube without having to learn all that. It's very useful to understand the concepts involved though, even if you don't get as far as playing with the equations during a match)

Looks like the subset thing might have gone over your head. Oh well.

frolind: Lol. Don't despair. Here's an opportunity to explain to a poor dumbo like me how one thing being a subset of another means that they are not significantly different, how the extra that the superset contains doesn't matter, doesn't serve to distinguish the two sets.

playBunny: Start by looking at the right sets.

frolind: Carry on, lead me from generalities to specifics....

playBunny: Nah, I'll stop there. Just don't make the assumption that A is not a subset of B because C is not a subset of D.

frolind: Lol. I've said nothing of the sort. It's a good idea to stop; you'll be talking complete gibberish if you carry on.

playBunny: I agree that doubling requires a different way of thinking, but in your original post you mentioned additional skills. Yes, it takes additional skills to attack a king that has the ability to castle over one that can't in the rules. This imbalance is exasperated in Fischer and CRC, where no set starting position exists, but castling and the ability to prevent it plays a far more significant role than in conventional chess. I've personally found that in CRC and Gothic/Janus chess, due to the width of the board, castling can significantly alter the course of the game by necessitating a redirection of the attack. Of course the cube requires additional skills too, but you're still playing backgammon!

playBunny: Nope, you're way off.

redsales: Okay, so we agree that the doubling cube (especially when taken to the extreme) involves different thinking. At the more basic levels it means assigning a probability to a position, a skill which is quite dissimilar to the major one of chequer play, ranking the possible moves). At the higher levels it involves mathematics and memory (eg. remembering match equity tables).

We also agree that both the doubling cube and the castling rule introduce additional skills into their games.

So now I wonder about the degree of these additional skills. The discussion started with the idea that doubling introduces sufficient difference to warrant a separate identity.

Let's look within the backgammon arena. Hypergammon has exactly the same rules as Backgammon but has fewer men. This adds "additional skills" but I'd be hard pressed to argue that they are sufficient to claim that the thinking is different from that used in Backgammon. The tactics and strategies may be different but the thinking is still a question of ranking possible moves. Deciding that order is the same as in Backgammon but with more emphasis on probabilities and less on creating structure (ha ha, structure?). I'd say that any claim regarding additional skills can only be made in terms of emphasis rather than newness. Yet, while I can't put forward any additional cognitive functions, the game is obviously very different to Backgammon.

Considering Nackgammon we find that the additional skills argument is even more tenuous. It's almost pure Backgammon but with two men moved. Again it's a very different game, not drastically so as in Hypergammon, but still enough to give it a separate identity.

Now let's consider Chess. The castling rule adds additional skills in a quantitative way however I can't see that additional ways of thinking are required to tackle a castled king. As in Hypergammon there are new tactics involved, but no new brain function.

Chess has its nackgammons, too, with Fischer Random, Gothic, CRC. These may change strategic and tactical thinking but make little, if any, demand on new cognition. Yet these are branded as distinct variations. The different setups change the course of the game, taking the player through different areas of the game space, and that provides them with a distinctive feel.

The castling rule doesn't affect the whole game in the may that having only three does men in Hypergammon, or a different setup. Maybe that's why it's not a separate game from non-castling chess.

So where am I going with this? Well, the "additional skills" examples are almost all the same cognition but different game space. They still, however, make for separate games.

The doubling cube requires skills additional by an "order of magnitude", different cognition; doubling is pervasive, the option to double has to be considered by a player for every move while there's access to the cube; it means that a set of matches is no longer a collection of discrete games but an ordered sequence (cube decisions in later games are based on the match score). I haven't even mentioned the effect that gammons and backgammons have on the game, though they are a change that goes hand in hand with the introduction of the cube.

All of these things mean that Backgammon with the cube is a substantially different game to that without. Merely changing the position of two men has been enough to make a new variation. I suggest that doubling more than qualifies Backgammon for similar treatment.

The final point; we can elect not to have the cube in a game. In what other game is there the option to remove a complete chunk of rules and game play? Take Cylinder Chess, for example. The only difference from standard Chess is the wrap-around of the board. Can you imagine making that an option of standard Chess which players may switch on when they create a game invitation? They would both be called Chess and all games would contribute to the same BKR. You could look at a players played/won/drew/lost stats and BKR and have no idea what contribution was made by the two variations. Some players would never play the Cyclinder sub-variety, others may specialise. What would the Chess community's reaction be to that?


Given the above arguments I believe that Backgammon with the cube sharing the same identity as Backgammon sans cube has no basis in terms of the game itself. It's a pragmatic decision which keeps the number of Backgammon variations down for simplicity. There are 26 variations of Chess, only 6 of Backgammon. If we were to have doubling cube variations of those 6 then Backgammon would be in danger of catching up with Chess, especially as each new Backgammon would introduce 2 variations. [Lol, sorry Fencer, I couldn't resist that one! ]

Fencer: would it be possible to display the match info to the right of the board (right of the doubling cube) ?

would it be possible to show how many pieces there are already beared off ? (i know i can count ... but i am lazy :))

Hrqls: I second the motion regarding displaying match info adjacent to the board.

alanback: It's item 1) on the Requested Features list. BBW was the proposer at that time. Support for this one is getting strong. I'm forever scrolling down to see what the state of the match is (and what type of match it is) so I'll add my vote, too.

What is the feeling when playing in a D/Cube match, of having the ability of conceeding a match without resigning the whole game. By this I mean the opposition would have the ability of declining and playing on or accepting and collecting the points on the cube at the time.

skipinnz: I think that option exists -- but it appears to me that the concession is based on the board position at the time. In other words, if the game ended with your checkers in the positions they currently occupy, what would be the result? If you haven't borne off, you are resigning a gammon, and if you have checkers in the opponent's home or on the board, you are resigning a backgammon. Readers, please correct me if this isn't consistent with your experience.

skipinnz: I think that option exists -- but it appears to me that the concession is based on the board position at the time. In other words, if the game ended with your checkers in the positions they currently occupy, what would be the result? If you haven't borne off, you are resigning a gammon, and if you have checkers in the opponent's home or on the board, you are resigning a backgammon. Readers, please correct me if this isn't consistent with your experience.

alanback: In the match that it occured the cube was on 2 and the match was for 5 pts, even if I conceeded a gammon this still should have meant there was a further match to play at least.

skipinnz: I beg to differ -- the cube was on 2, and you had checkers in my home and on the bar. So, when you resigned you were charged with a backgammon, which is worth 3 points multiplied by the cube value. The report of the match shows the final score as 6-0.

Also -- just to get the terminology straight -- A "match" is a series of "games" rather than vice versa -- hence 5-point match, Crawford game, etc.

alanback:I see so if I had waited to resign when I had no pieces on the bar it would have only conceeded a gammon. Silly me i was trying to speed the game up on get onto the next match, in future I'll play on until the inevitable happens. :-(

skipinnz: Right, except that you would also have to have exited all your checkers from my home board in order to avoid a backgammon.

On some servers, it is possible to specify what kind of resignation you are offering. On Dailygammon, for example, one can offer to resign a single game, a gammon, or a backgammon. If the resignation is for the highest possible number of points based on board position, it is automatically accepted. If not, then the opponent may accept or reject. There is a lively continuing debate over the ethics of resigning less than the maximum possible result. For example, if you can still be gammoned, should you offer to resign a single game? Most people consider that to be rude and unethical.

See the latest posting at http://www.dailygammon.com/bg/forum2/main/read/8697#3

playBunny: Are you by any chance the same as rawgame on dailygammon?

frolind: LOL - how very unfair to playBunny!

frolind: Well spotted frolind. Perhaps you'll share with everyone here what I'm like. You arecapable of actually explaining things rather than using vagueness, generalisation and innuendo, aren't you?

No, I thought not.

playBunny: Take a break. Clowns are only funny for a short time.

frolind: For some reason you've got my name in that message but you were talking toyourself. Duh?

playBunny: Good one, well done.

You two are both much smarter than you are making yourselves appear ;-)

playBunny: LOL... you are so good! You convinced me. I wasn't for seperate ratings, but I have to agree with you. It really IS just different enough to warrant it's own ratings... I would even say it isn't fair to have people not using the cube, in the same rating list affecting where the people who are using it, are ranked.

rod03801: If this site adopts separate ratings for cubeful and cubeless matches, it will be the only site to do so. "Real" backgammon players will consider the whole idea silly.

alanback: Um.. I'm not a "real" backgammon player? Kinda rude! LOL.. jeez..

and to correct you, I can think of one site that does. IYT.

Wow - 10 cube choices (11 if you count 1 as a single game)

6 types of gammon games

60 new (66 total) rating charts - that is a lot. Ladders will be cool once those are introduced (even though I don't think we need all 11 choices for each game - maybe 1, 3, 5, 9, 14, 21) or something would be enough for the ladder if they are seperate.

rod03801: IYT doesn't have ratings, does it?

alanback: Problem is the current rating system renders it a little unfair having both types of games included. if a 'real' backgammon rating system is used then it weights the single games accordingly and it is a lot fairer all round.

alanback: I guess I'm not a "real" backgammon player then?

or: Don't "real" backgammon players think that playing cubeless is silly? Having separate ratings is then meaningless because the cube should be mandatory.

or: IYT has cubeless and cubeful. Same with Gold Token.

and: I'd like there to be separate ratings simply so that I can enjoy twice the challenge - to aim for #1 in chequer play and #1 in cubeful play. ;-)

grenv: Of course, the remedy for that is to fix the rating system. And for clarification, by "real" backgammon players I mean serious tournament players, offline as well as online.

Playing cubeless is not silly, because it happens all the time in the course of tournament play. It's good practice for checker play.

BIG BAD WOLF: Where do the 10 cube choices come from? Do you mean match length? Ratings shouldn't be separate in that case. Ladders should, of course, because their games need to have the same parameters.

alanback: Indeed, by that definition I'm definitely not a "real" backgammon player. Hands up all the "real" players! Speak out - your hypothetical future is being discussed.

Do these cubeless games actually occur as part of the tournament and are they counted and rated?

Well, I appologize for calling it correcting you, Alanback. It really isn't ratings. I was thinking of it incorrectly. IYT does consider cube and cubeless different enough that cube win/loss percentages are seperate from cubeless win/loss percentages.

And I agree, seperate for cube and cubeless is enough (not necessary to be seperate for each possible point match) That would only be 6 new tables.

playBunny: The Crawford game is always cubeless; also, any game that is played when both players are 1 point away from winning the match is cubeless.

This debate reminds me of when nackgammon was introduced on Dailygammon (there's that name again!). DG doesn't have separate ratings for Nack and Back. I was concerned with this and actually played nackgammon under a different name for quite awhile. Ultimately, I realized that my ratings in nack and back were essentially identical, and stopped using the nack name.

Now, that won't necessarily happen with cubeful and cubeless. Nack and back really are the same game, except for the starting position; the strategies are identical. Cubeful backgammon does require an entirely different skill set. However, that doesn't mean that separate ratings should be maintained; it just means that a complete backgammon player has to be able to use the cube properly. There aren't separate ratings among golfers for driving and putting, or among tennis players for serving and volleying; so why should there be different ratings for cube play and checker play? The cube seems strange to people here now because it is unfamiliar; but in a few months' time, we will all be wondering what the big fuss was about.