spirit_66: "Analysing a game with GNU and if it shows me that the opponent didn't make any fault, that makes me alerted and suspicious."
Maybe, but that does not give you the power to name the second person CHEATER!!!!

aaru:
I can!!! But if you're not, well then I apologize. How will I know that you're innocent???

spirit_66: Apologize - OK.
But remeber - you need to prove guilt, not innocence.

aaru:

I know the rule "in case of doubt not guilty".

spirit_66: Are you sure? Next time pls think about this rule before you say something offensive.

aaru:

Ok!!

What should I do now? Shoot myself to give you satisfaction?

spirit_66: OK, now is everything ok.
;)

aaru:

OK!

spirit_66: Your frustration because of cheaters, I don't buy it. Your offences toward me aimed on luck.

gogul:

Ooohhh! Now comes the man from Switzerland with the big potatoes!!!

You can believe me that I'm only frustrated about .. let's say .. opponents with sound games.

Hard for me not to believe that there's something going wrong when I can watch them at the already opened game and it takes a long time till they make their moves. What do you think they are doing? My proof is if the GNU analyse at the end of the match show me no fault. The top of all is if they have very luck dices too.

But I never complained about any unfair play of you!!!

aaru: At some point, although absolute proof may still be out of reach, it is more reasonable to conclude that cheating has taken place.  On another site, I analyzed several players' matches.  In one case, I found at least 3 lengthy (21-point) matches where the player had 0 moves marked very bad, 0 moves marked bad, and just 1 marked doubtful--at gnubg's default settings.

If I wanted to play against gnubg, I could do that without coming here to BK.

spirit_66: Its allright. The word you thrown at me made me laugh anyway, I think the laugh was on both sides. And about the cheats going on, I don't have the time for it. But what you observe might reinforce your oppinion on a suspected cheater but isn't enough for a proof IMO. In fact, players who like to concentrate on a move ge often run off in reallife playing, make forward boy backgammon is a fast game. Online playing allowes such a player to take his time, of course GNU comes after the game is finished. It happens that grandmasters exploit the idea to play with Gnu or fritz, it doesn't belong to bk IMO.

wetware: If I wanted to play against gnubg, I could do that without coming here to BK.

I've heard a number of people say something like this and, of course, I know what it literally means, but what is your point?

playBunny: In such cases, I hate the pretense and the unnecessary effort, pB.  Why should I have to go to the trouble of logging in, managing vacation days, and my remaining time, if my opponent is actually gnubg...which I could play at any time without those added steps?  And to think I may even have exchanged pleasantries with opponents who did little more than relay moves that were chosen by their program--well, I can't say it makes me furious, but I'm clearly not pleased by such actions.

I must say, however, that I haven't seen very much of that here.  I was mistaken when my earlier message said "...coming here to BK".  I ought to have corrected that.  Sure, there are problems here, but I've seen worse elsewhere--and that's what was on my mind when I wrote.

wetware:

I can't see this problem as easy as you can. It drives me nuts thinking about that such a rotter is fooling me.

I pay at BK for playing BG against human beings. Playing against bots I can do this on my PC with GNU, Jellyfish whatever for free.

I'm still thinking more and more if BK is a good place for playing BG. The long possible delays between the moves are provoking any kind of fraud or foul play.

I've to face so often that somebody delay immediately the game if the one is on the loosing street. For me this is also a kind of foul play.

At the moment I think it's better to play BG with the short time limit of not more then 3 minutes.

Well, still frustrated about the way it goes here.

wetware: spirit_66 has said it too: Playing against bots I can do this on my PC with GNU, Jellyfish whatever for free.

The reason I asked you what you meant is that I think that argument rather misses the point. The point is that someone is masquerading bot as a person not that they are providing a bot to play against.

With regard to that latter point, whenever a site provides a bot to play against it is well attended! You may well have GnuBg at home but you cannot play turn-based against it with anything like the ease that you can at a site designed for the purpose. gb001, one of Dailygammon's GnuBg-based bots is very popular and not just with those who don't have GnuBg themselves. ;-)

spirit_66: I'm still thinking more and more if BK is a good place for playing BG

BrainKing is great for a whole range of games but it's not the Home of Backgammon. If you're not already at DailyGammon you ought to check it out. See my profile for more details.

Heh heh, one of the attractions that I list is Pit yourself against a world class robot!

playBunny:

Well, I'm also registered at DailyGammon but I stopped playing there. There's also the long delay between the moves which can be used for foul play.

I prefer FIBS and GammonSite.

spirit_66: Ah, so turn-based backgammon just doesn't suit you. That's fair enough.

spirit_66: Turn-based gaming allows to moan over a long period of time. It's something for patient observation.

gogul:

----> <it's something for patient observation.>

Maybe with the help of a nice tool like GNU?

spirit_66: Somehow yes. But I personaly don't fight back the cheaters with their own weapons. I rather listen to the writing. Subtile though, even meaningless for the subject as it belongs to the social component. I leave the game checking to those who understand something about ;)

Backgammon, 2200+, 7p & dc - 7 points match with doubling cube for 2200+, robin round

Karl

can be played on a reduced board ... two home sections face each other (six points on each) and each player has 6 checkers placed like follow: 3 checkers on point 1, 2 checkers on point 2 and 1 checker on point 3 ... all backgammon rules are valid ... it's very compacted game, highly technical.
I can be played on one of the half of the board ...

Does anyone know a way to cheat in crowded backgammon? I've just been accused of cheating, and if I'm going to be blamed for it, I want to have the pleasure of committing the crime as well.

pedestrian: The usual way to cheat is to bring along your own dice that are fixed, you could also bribe Fencer with lots os cash so the dice always fall in your favour, but as your a pawn I guess thats out, so I reckon you'll have to rely on good old fashioned luck. LOL

skipinnz: Thanks for the advice. Actually, luck is what I used in this game where I was 'caught' as a 'cheater', so I guess it's not effective if you want to do it secretly. Apparently, he believed I was using a program. I don't understand how a program would help you be lucky...

pedestrian:
A program can give you the best moves!!!

spirit_66: Are there even programs out there that deal with the variant Crowded Backgammon? (don't need to post details if there are programs out there... just wouldn't think too many programs would be made for some of the rarer variants.)

coan.net:
I don't know!

spirit_66:   I suppose someone could create something for the "Zillions of Games" engine that would play Crowded.  From what I've seen, Zillions had backgammon, nack-, hyper-, and "deadgammon" (no idea what that is) capability.

i be very upset
Cloning Backgammon (Snoopy vs. ljubisa popovic)

i think its around move 50 my trouble started

Snoopy: ljubisa is a very patient player

As a backgammon player I fixed it: Since some months ago up today, in the first rolling of the players, always come same numbers. Like 5-1 vs 5-1, 4-3 vs. 4-3, 6-1 vs. 6-1, etc.

This is true fore most backgammon types (not for all).

I'm sure, most of backgammon players fixed this situation:

This is not a normal situation for randomized rolling computer dices.

Hope to hear for this matter..

TC: I, too, have noticed that the first two rolls are the same much more often than I would expect.  And I don't think it's just me remembering these occasions that is distorting my perception.  Any other players noticed this?

Resher: I even reported it in the BugTracker. Fencer's reponse: “It is a coincidence.” *shrugs*

Pedro Martínez: Definitely not a coincidence - if it's anything, it's a lot of coincidences!
I noticed it too.

pedestrian: Can you publish statistics that prove that it isn't coincidence... or perhaps Fencer can?

I can only speak for myself, but no, I've got no statistics.

I wouldn't have suspected there could be such a problem, so I haven't especially been looking out for it. Even so, the tendency in my games has been obvious at times (several games in a row).

Now I learn that at least three other people have observed the exact same phenomenon. Sounds to me like it might be worth an investigation.

Pedro Martínez:  I can't provide statistics, but my impression is that the bias is well worth investigating.  I think it happens often enough that some of the opening rolls should be played sub-optimally here.

wetware: I've noticed this extremely too much this past 3 weeks.
the dice rolls that force me to leave men open, seem to coincide with my opponents rolling exactly what is needed to put me on the bar.
normally, I would take this with a grain of salt...but it happens so frequently lately,its become something I've been paying attention to.

The difficulty of writing code to deliberately skew the dice rolls is staggering. I cannot imagine it being done deliberately. This leaves open the possibility that there is some unanticipated factor that skews the randomness of the rolls. This also I consider unlikely, although I don't know precisely what random or pseudo-random number generator is used here. The fact is that out of hundreds of players, there will always be a few who are currently experiencing what appear in isolation as purposefully distorted results. This is just the result of the normal operation of the laws of chance. However, because only those few notice and report the apparent discrepancy, the anecdotal evidence always supports conspiracy theories. And backgammon players are always paranoid!

alanback: I just checked a small, random sample of games: the 13 games (or matches) of regular Backgammon played by alanback in 2009. Out of these 13, 6 games start with identical rolls by black and white.

I know, it's hardly conclusive. But still interesting.

pedestrian: I just did the same exercise on currently open games and 7 out of 15 had identical rolls for the first move

pgt: Just to be clear... is the suspected behaviour that the first move for each player is the same? So if I roll a 3-1 so does my opponent?

If so I checked my last 7 games and didn't find it at all...

Expected would be 1 in 9?

grenv: No, expected would be 1 in 18. The first player doesn't roll a double, which means that out of all the 36 possible rolls of the second player, only 2 match the roll of the first player.

pgt: Of my current open backgammon games, 6 out of 10 had identical rolls for both players.