For anyone who enjoys a face paced tourney.. Please.. I wish to offer it to those who will play continuously.. not just one turn a day ..

°°·.,,.·°¤`'¤¸`°´`°«*Scarlets Springtime Follies*»¸.¤°´`°'¤¸¤´¤°·.,,.·°°

http://brainking.com/en/Tournaments?trg=13290&trnst=0

at this point i was offered a double .. i declined .. any comments ?

I would decline too. Too many hit choices for black and a strong home board....

Hrqls: Two loose blots and a resonably open enemy table.. I'd have played on for the SIZZLE. But then I do like gammon.

... GnuBg thinks ...

GnuBg 3-ply says it's right on the border between double and too-good-to-double. 1296-trial rollout says it's a definite double and pass, not good enough for gammon.

playBunny & Pythagoras: thanks! i am trying to create a feeling for when to accept and when not :)

the chance to gammon made me doubt indeed :)

Hrqls: That's a definite drop, in my opinion, I halfway agree with playBunny that, in essence, your opponent may have been doing you a favor by offering. Had I been your opponent, though, I probably would have offered, for two reasons:

1.) I'm 20 points behind in pip count, which means you're going to have a decent chance to bear at least one off even if I get you stuck on the bar for a while. So chances for gammon aren't good, I would say.

2.) If I didn't know you, I would double because many players on this site will accept a double based on pip count alone, regardless of position, so that doubling and gammoning may not be mutually exclusive here. Against a bad cube player, there's a chance to win 4 here. Now, since I have played you, Hrqls, I know you are a careful and patient player, which would make me less likely to double in this spot for the same reason. But if I hadn't played you before, this would be my thought process.

pentejr: *nod* i do look at the pip count .. but only when the board setup makes me decide to accept the double with a little doubt

thanks for taking a second thought when playing me .. thats a good compliment .. although i would rather have you offer mindless doubles ;)

Hrqls: I know we've played, but I don't know if we've played with the cube. So maybe there's still time for mindless doubles. Sometimes I look back at some of the doubles I made, and I wonder why I made them.

pentejr: lol .. more the opposite for me ... i wonder why i didnt double sometimes .. and often wonder why i accepted :)

alanback proposed to use different rules in hyper gammon (fencer proposed to create a new type with those rules ... well fencer didnt say he would .. but if such rules would come into place then it would be easier to create a new game type for it :))

the new rules are

1) double count as normal rolls (only use each die once)

2) no formation of blocks (a player can not place more than 1 piece at a position)

i didnt want to clutter the feature request board with this discussion so i started it here :)

would this game be better ?
i can see the point of treating doubles as normal rolls .. i think that would be a good change ...
but removing the blocks makes the game too much a lucky race i think ?

Hrqls: I think the removing of blocks is silly. The whole point is that by creating a block you get a certain type of advantage, but limit your options next turn etc.

I think the addition of the cube negates the point about this game being too much luck. A good 5 point game is pretty skillful.

grenv: *nod* my thoughts as well .. (i left the stairs with single games :))

still a double six can easily make a game (or even a 5 point match)

Hrqls: I'd welcome a reduced-doubles variant but also think that no blocks is a detriment.

In the existing Hypergammon I'd welcome the Jacoby rule: Gammons don't count unless the cube has been turned.

For me Hyppergammon is fun but way too simple to enjoy it a lot! I want complications and Hyperthing is not giving them to me....
I vote for Fevga! Many people here in Greece say that Fevga is the King and Backgammon(Portes here) way beyond. I don't agree but i value Fevga as equal to Backgammon speaking about general greatness..... But speaking about strategical play Fevga is of course the King as it's the game that separates big brains from the others....

I'd love to see crazy narde here. It's quite a luk based game, although a lot of skill is needed too. Would bring difference to the bg varients that are on this site.

furbster:
First Narde(Russian) is similar(only one difference actually) to Fevga while i prefer our(Greek) Fevga because is a bit more simple and a bit more superior to strategy requirements.....

Second Crazy Narde just like Crazy Fevga(or Gioul as it is said here) has only one difference from it's non-crazy partner: The player that has a double of type X(X=1,2,3,4,5) plays all the doubles up to 6. So if one rolls a 44, he plays 44,55,66!

I would love to see Fevga/Narde and Crazy Fevga/Narde here....! And since the difference between them is so small if madPhilip implement the one here it is easy to implement the other too

Also a Crazy Backgammon is not a bad idea..... Actually it is but it will be fun!

Pythagoras: Where woul'd you place plakoto with regards to strategy?(i would love to see fevga here)

Hrqls: I think these rules would pretty much remove what little skill I see in the game, other than the cube. I would be interested to hear the rationale behind these proposed changes, and I would hope that if Fencer implements them at all, it would be in the form of another variant, rather than changing the existing game.

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__GAME|Stra|Luck| Fun |Comp|Speed|

Fevga......|  20 |  11 |  19 |  20  |  16 |

Plakoto....|  16 |  16 |  14 |  17  |  14 |

HyperBG.|  08 |  20 |  16 |  03  |  20 |

CrazyFevg|  18 |  15 |  19 |  20  |  17 |

BGammon|  19 |  14 |  20 |  16  |  19 |

Stra = Strategy = Strategy depth and strategical mind required.
Luck = Luck involvement in the game
Fun = How much fun is to play it.
Comp = Complexity = NOT of the rules, but of the strategy required. The branching factor.
Speed = The speed of the game. How quickly it evolves not with absolute criteriaof speedness, but with some other that i can explain if you want.


All numbers in each category(column) have been derived in comparison with a 20 that has been given(defined) to a specific game) and are my feelings for each game.....

I've put fun=16 for HyperBG, as after a while it gets boring.....(personal opinion again of course)

wow! a double allows all doubles up to double 6 ? that increases the luck factor a lot! (i think?)

Pythagoras: What about Grasshopper?

Grasshoper is very interesting game too and there is no luck at all inside it! It's a little complicated at the beginning but as you play it you will appreciate it more.... I used to play this game in the past but now i have almost forget it....:-(
It would be nice to add 4-5 more Backgammon variants. Actually i hope for 8-9 but from 0 i can choose 4-5

Pythagoras: All right, since I plan to add 20-30 chess variants, I could add 10 backgammon variants as well.

Oh gooooood! I hope it will be way before the start of the 29th Olympic games....

Hrqls, not always in crazy narde, a blot cannot be hit so the more ground space they cover the better. I could have all 15 bits in a line and you wouldnt be able to use some of your doubles. The doubles you cant use i would get! Plus when the pieces get to the bear off section in this varients they are stuck and you have to get the exact number to bear them off.

furbster: ah! thats a bit better :)

Tis a bit crazy lol, but always fun!

The game as described by Pythagoras.

alanback: I predict that someone here would have a computer program that would play perfectly every time, would shoot to the top of the ratings and stay there.

I'd think there are a few wee problems with that prediction. The first is that there probably is no such program. Domino-backgammon is rather an obscure variant and so someone would have to be a real enthusiast to write such a program. The individual moves could be done using the GnuBg engine, of course, but there would still a fair bit of programming to handle the mechanics of the game and the interface, etc. That's within the capabilities of a decent programmer. However, playing perfectly would mean choosing the correct sequence of dominos for both the player and the opponent. Given that the branching factor is so high, finding the solution would be best served by having dedicated neural net, which is highly specialised programming. Then that program would have to be in the possesion of someone playing here. And finally that person would have to be comfortable with using a computer to make their moves.

playBunny: Domino Backgammon program

Nightstorm: LOL. Well I never! So the prediction gets more likely. Now we just need someone who would buy and use the program in order it to become "champion". Perhaps R**too would be interested.

playBunny: I count 21 combinations of dominos, not 36 if you're just going to use 1-1 through 6-6 and not the blanks or higher dominos. 1-1 1-2 1-3 1-4 1-5 1-6 2-2 2-3 2-4 2-5 2-6 3-3 3-4 3-5 3-6 4-4 4-5 4-6 5-5 5-6 6-6. Or does your version have two of each domino that isn't a double? That'd add 15 more to it to make 36. With the blanks there's 28, still not 36. And how would you move a blank? Perhaps 1-1 to 8-8? That makes 36.

About the set of dominos that the players draw from. Is there one set that the players draw from, or does each player get his own set to draw from?

Walter Montego: Obviously 1-2 is different from 2-1 (though effectivey the same) so there is your 36.
Each player has their own set.

grenv: But dominos only come with one 1-2. With dice you can roll it two different ways. If this variant has both 1-2 combinations calling it Domino Backgammon is not a good name for it. It should just have the dominos possible or give it a different name. Have you played this version before?

Nightstorm: And then the prediction loses pace again... I downloaded that program and played a match. I didn't even have to look at the computer's dominos in order to thrash it. Nor did I particularly plan my own domino usage much. Someone using it to make their moves may go to the top of the rankings, like so many players do with their first few matches, but they'll have a hard job staying there.

Walter: Good questions. I think some jolly discussion could be had about how the dice distribution should work. :-)

Backgammon Galore assumes a literal domino set and assigns the 21 dominos in a fixed pattern. Each player plays only their own dominos. When the dominos are exhausted the players swap sets to ensure fairness.

Pythagoras envisages 36 dominos to correspond with the 36 dice rolls and each player picks one from what's left in the set. Whether that's one set per player or a single set between them isn't perfectly clear, though I think he's saying one set each.

This program that I've just played gives each player twelve completely random dominoes. Eg, the computer's selection for the current game includes two 4-4s and four 6-3s, while my set has two 6-3s of its own.

With the 36 domino set per player, one round of dominos would be sufficient for quite a few matches and I imagine that games between good and experienced players would become quite predictable. The program's small random set of dominos makes for more variety of games.

Yes i haven't seen this Domino variant i was refering from the other known Domino Backgammon, but from somewhere else....I don't like the Domino as described at bkgm.com as it has some rules of "not move your back men until move 4, etc".
There can be of course many different variations and the proposed by me variant is just one that i remembered. I haven't really played this variant for the last 5-6 years so i don't remember if there was a better one Domino-variant....

As for the computer programs part, i see that many of you don't have a real idea of what computers can do and highly overestimate the abilities of them....

In the Chess game, human programmers needed around 70 years from the time they started their real and serious occupation with computer Chess, after Adriaan de Groot's and Claude Shannon's publications on computer Chess algorithms. Only recently (probably the win of Deeper Blue against Kasparov is the most known) computers started to show signs of equality or even superiority over humans at Chess. Before 3-4 years i could beat occasionaly and very seldom of course a top Chess program with some anti-comp play. Now i can't!
All this knowledge of course all this years, that came from Chess programming is used to produce for example Gothic Chess programs or Atni-Chess programs or Reversi, Checkers programs etc. Today no one can beat a Reversi 8x8 program indeed. They are invincible! They might solve the game in the next 7-8 years or sooner.

Checker programs have for a long time prevailed over humans in the game. After Marion Tinsleys' death computers have completely dominated at Checkers. The freeware and top Cake Manchester for example if inserted in a tournament with humans will dominate easily!

Gothic Chess type programs or to say CRC type programs, have yet a long way to travel before they can be like their Chess relatives....In this site i have beaten such a program at Embassy Chess with a humiliating way. I gave my Bishop and while the program thought it will clearly win i knew that its loss was obvious! That shows that at CRC type games humans can still beat computers. I have yet to lose from November from a computer at CRC type games. ChessV, Smirf, Vortex, Zillions are all losing. So CRC is still at humans hands!

Anti-Chess: Here computers again prevail but this is logical since this game has some long forced variations that computers with proof-number-search can find in a second while us have to be tortured to find....

Three Checks Chess, Atomic Chess, etc: I don't know another computer player for this game except Zillions and ChessV and are both very weak at it, so human is still above them....

Backgammon: Probably one of the first tries for a Backgammon program was made by Hans Berliner at 1979 with a program called BKG(and a version number i don't remember). Due to the brilliant mind of Berliner one would not expect anything else except BKG to be a good program even in 1979. And BKG in an exhibition match against the world champion of that time L.Villa, won the human with a 7-1 and a won a symbolic 4000$ prize.....Although BKG played well the mistakes that made were more than the mistake of Villa and it was obvious that it was far away from an expert level. It was until G.Tesauro created a neural net Backgammon program. A method that all todays top Backgammon programs (GNUBG,Jellyfish,Snowie,BGBlitz) use.... He first tried an approach in which the net used some Backgammon knowledge and the program was trained on games of expert players and with this way the program derived its weights....That was called NeuroGammon and was good eanough to win the computer Olympiad, but not good enough to become an expert. It was G.Tesauro's TD-Gammon that changed all. TD-Gammon used a neural network that was trained using temporal-difference learning. That means the program (networks) without having almost any knowledge at all played against itself some thousands of games became very strong. The networks using as starting weights the Neurogammon's and playing again thousants of games became the most strong bot ever at Backgammon until that time. Final TD-Gammon 2.0(or 2.1 i don't remember) used 1500000 games of training against itself and reached level of expert!
Todays programs are on the strength of top human players or even stronger....

Domino Backgammon. As Playbunny has said the branching factor is very big and the number of 36 dominoes or even 21 is big enough that no program could play it perfectly for the next AT LEAST 18-19 years! Consider this: 21 dominoes with for each domino to have around 3-5 possible plays. That means a branching factor of around 84 for the first move! Second move would have ~20·4=80 That means to be able a program to solve it should calculate (84·80·....·4)^2 which is a very big number.....!
Not even dedicated neural net with super computers could do it in less than 15 years and that may even be a huge underestimation.....

Pythagoras: I saw that you did this. I can't beat the SMIRF any more and yet I can hold my own against you. I'm confused. THough recently I had chance to win a game of Janus Chess against SMIRF. Perhaps my play has gotten better recently, but I can't say.

What I want to know is, what is this anti-computer play you talk of? IS it something that I could easily adopt and use? Does it work against human players? How come the computer programmers don't keep such plans in mind while designing their programs? Does this work against the Backgammon programs? Somehow I think not. These neuronets you speak of for Backgammon, why aren't they used for Chess type games? And what about Dark Chess?

Walter Montego: I saw that you did this. I can't beat the SMIRF any more and yet I can hold my own against you. I'm confused.

You should not! What i do perfect is to play with anti-computer style! That obviously doesn't work well against humans....:-)


What I want to know is, what is this anti-computer play you talk of?

Well it is just one rule that you have to find the way to make it work over the board! Play moves that would result in a favourable position for you that goes beyond their horizon!
Easy to say yeah? Difficult to make of course....
What does this mean? Well my main strategy is to play Pawn moves at the opening and create a kind of position that limits the movement of the computer, WHILE i place at clever places and always in the side of the opponents King the more heavy pieces. At the same time there should be a closed center all the time! Most of the time i try to weak my other side(the side i don't place the heavy pieces)
and the computer tries to take advantage of it weakening it's King position and losing many tempo's for gaining material. That means if the development goes normally, (the computer can't attack my King since i preserve a good Pawn structure as i've said and a closed center) i would have a hidden attack. Hidden from the computer's search. Horizon effect! The rule i gave. Then i advance the Pawns on the opponents King side and the result is always the same.....

The games with Smirf was my too first Embassy Chess games so i didn't managed to understand the way to do it. My brain hasn't worked the patterns for this game for obtaining an anti-comp strategy. But even this way, i've managed to create with white something similar to what i have said. And i would win easily if i would be a little more patient and didn't played a bad move(move 20). If i've waited 2 more moves then result would be much easier.

In my black game i didn't followed the afementioned procedure of anti-comp but of course followed the basic rule. I had prepared from move 3 only a Queen sacrifice for an Archbishop that Smirf didn't accepted! I was impressed by Smirf at that point!
If Smirf accepted it would be positionally lost although i would have given my Queen for the Archbishop. But game have more surpises for Smirf.
After some clever manoeuvres by me, we resulted in an endgame where i had an Archbishop against a Rook. Every human knows that this is better for the Archbishop side....But it was not easy. I have found a way to make it easy giving my Bishop with 35...Ke6!! So how can one play such move?
You play againt a computer. You give it material for free at a first glance. But you know that after Ad2+ Axb3 you would get 2 passed Pawns. Computer can't see this as it is many plies beyond its horizon! Our rule. So play it.....2 horses are too far away from the passed Pawns so....No computer can see that Bishop sacrifice.....!

So my anti-comp system is to play Pawn moves at the start blocking the position and keeping a closed center, bring heavy pieces in the side of the opponents King and wait, wait, keep your King safe, give the computer the chance to prevail in the other side of the board and then start the attack with Pawn pushes. As long as the center is closed with no fear to open and you have 3-4 pieces attacking at the King by means of be in the same side with him, the success is guaranteed.....
Closed center is easy for me to achieve at Gothic Chess but i find it more difficult to achieve at Embassy Chess maybe because i didn't managed yet to understand he game....Closed center means that whatever Pawn move the opponent makes (D,E,F,G Pawns the others are not any disturbing for us)
the center can't open.....


Does it work against human players?

Of course not! It might work against weak players but against strong it doesn't....Actually it worked against Caissus and Mely and Matarilevich when i played as Chessmaster1000 Gothic Chess and i was surprised by that.....!


How come the computer programmers don't keep such plans in mind while designing their programs?

It's not that easy to make a workaround to prevent anti-comp play, as it may seem..... Reinhard(author of Smirf) after i offered him 2 new Embassy Chess matches after i won 2-0 Smirf, told that he must modify Smirf before he can play against me again. And that this would take much time before it happens if it happens at all. This is sad for 2 reasons. Of course because i think Smirf has the potential to become a very good program, even more than it is now, and second because i just wanted to play 2 more games while now i have to wait so long.....Greg Strong(author of ChessV) after i defeated his ChessV 2-0, was very interesting on how i'm doing this and i've given him my way of thinking. He said that he would try to create a new ocncept of thinking at ChessV to think more like me....I haven't had any news from then....Ed Trice(author of Gothic Vortex) often mentioned that he has added many improvements to its King safety from Vortex games against me.
BUT still i have the impression that i will be able to beat all these programs for the next 2-3 years....

Does this work against the Backgammon programs?

No! In a game where luck comes to play too, this can't work! And also remember: While at Chess-type games humans are better in the positional area while comps at the tactical area, at Backgammon the exact opposite happens! So you can't outplay them at positional decisions.....Only on some technical decisions....


These neuronets you speak of for Backgammon, why aren't they used for Chess type games?

They have been used in some projects but they have completely failed to give a strong Chess engine!


And what about Dark Chess?

What about it? Neural nets can't be used there also as there are many difficulties on that. Even if someone succeed the result would not be good.....
Dark Chess has to be programmed by the usual computer Chess type algorithms. Alpha-beta/transpositions/iterative deepening, etc... Well that's how i plan to do it....But only after i program a Chess program first. So i'm afraid that you have to wait a bit more....:-)

wow you are chessmaster? i really didnt know that ello lol!

And why this seems so incredible to you? LOL!

Forsome reason i thought you would be chessmaster 2000 or something like that lol!

Pythagoras: Thank you for your reply. I'll keep in mind what you have said and see if Reinhard is up for another game with the SMIRF and me. Perhaps I'll check over my 30 odd games against the SMIRF and see what went right or wrong in them against it and see how it applies when comparing your anti-computer play. Perhaps I did some of that just using my usual plan of always trying to make the best move no matter what the goal is, long term or short term. Thinking horizon, eh? Yes, us humans can see the big picture and miss all the details. It's an idea. That SMIRF sure is strong in the tactical department. Alway leaving bait or blazin' in with something that looks bad and then you've lost the game.

What you say seems to hold for Backgammon, and that explains a big difference in the nature of the two types of games. Alas, I've stopped playing Backgammon until a couple of features are added, but I'll keep it in mind if and when the time comes. playBunny has lots of Backgammon ideas and knows some of these programs quite well. I think he argues with them too! :) Backgammon isn't as cut and dried as Chess is.

Walter Montego: playBunny has lots of Backgammon ideas

What do you mean he has Backgammon ideas? What kind of ideas do you mean....?

Anyone know where I can get some good basic 5 in line game strategy on the web?

Czuch Chuckers: Are you sure this is the correct board for this question?

Czuch Chuckers: V.Allis Solution to 5 in Line
Or here for more....

Fencer: Sorry, but this board is way more active and I thought I would get a quicker result in here. I have posted on a line board and had zero responses before :(

Pythagoras: Thank you! If I knew the real game name was Renju, that would have helped me....

Czuch Chuckers: Actually the real game is Pegity and it's played on a 15 × 15 board. I used to have one.