Czuch Czuckers: In my humble opinion, that is a silly game. The odds are part of the game. I suggest using the cube for a more skillful game.

grenv: Yeah, so you like the cube because it takes some of the luck out of the game, yet you think luck is part of the game so any game that eliminates some luck is silly? I think it would make a nice variant, and the more I have thought about it, there would be some added strategies not present in a traditional backgammon game!

Czuch Czuckers: I also think that your proposal deserves to be tried. It is true that the doubling cube adds skill even to straight races, but it is not very difficult to learn the basic cubing strategy in races, so when both players know it there is again few room for errors and it is 99% luck all the same.
What you would really like to test in your variant is the type of positions where contact is almost broken, for instance both sides still hold their midpoint. Those positions would turn from quiet almost-race positions to extremely volatile.
The only thing I don't like about your proposal is that for playing over the board, it requires taking the exact pipcount into account while playing, which is tedious. Online, having the pipcount shown would be a must.

nabla: Do they make an over the board gammon game that will electronically count pips based on the weight of the pieces or some other means?


If not, I call it!!!

Czuch Czuckers: Actually there are good techniques for counting pips across the board using patterns and a little math. Do a search and you'll find a few.

Czuch Czuckers: By the way, if I use both my dices to break contact, it sounds fair that my opponent would still be allowed to roll one die.

Czuch Czuckers: And what about gammons ? Replace them by being 50 pips up ? This would sound very arbitrary.

nabla: And for backgammon +100.

nabla: Thanks for your support... I haven't thought through the gammon's scenarios yet!

Czuch Czuckers: I like your "Chuch backgammon" idea...and i also like that this discussion is on the Backgammonboard and not on BrainKing.com