playBunny: Is there any reason to have this debate again?

playBunny: I would like to remind you AGAIN that copying and pasting what somebody else told you in a game or via PM onto a public board is in breach with the User Agreement.

BIG BAD WOLF: My position on it, apart from it being against the understood Backgammon rules, is that it occurs because of a bug and is therefore an illegal move in BrainKing terms - otherwise it wouldn't be a bug.

Inadvertantly making an illegal move is one thing, but I say that a person who makes such a move deliberately is a cheat. Furthermore, if challenged, they should either draw or resign the game.

The example shown by Marfitalu shows a game between myself and Tiikeri. She's a very good player, in the Top 10, and ahead of me in our matches together, yet she chose to make the illegal move so that she could stay out of trouble.

When I pointed it out to her she said "If the computer let me to do that, I think it's OK. I know that this move was illegal, but everybody else does that, so would I. Sometimes that isn't so fair :)"

In fact not everyone does that and a number of top players have stated that they will not take advantage of the bug, giving priority to good sportsmanship rather than a cheap win.

She and I had an exchange of messages about it over the next week and the outcome was that she preferred to stick with her illegal move. She wasn't sporting enough to suggest a draw, let alone resign as a gesture of goodwill.

It was more important to her that she win that game than that she try and mend the break in our playing relationship, ever though she claimed to enjoy playing me and wanted us to continue. What she wanted was for me to accept her cheating and pretend that it was okay. In the end I let my games with her timeout and I will not play her again unless forced to in a tournament.

I don't miss the points lost which I will forget and make up for in due course, but I do miss the opponent whose attitude I no longer respect. That will not be forgotten so readily.

Marfitalu: Just search back - that has been debated many times before here.

It is of course against the "official" backgammon rules that you should move with both dice if possible.

But it is a known problem on BrainKing that it is allowed - so some have said since it is allowed, it is OK to do on here. Other say that even if it is allowed, to be true to backgammon - you sould not do this.

Which is correct? Well like I said, read back and check out the debate... both sides are correct in a way. :-)

My personal feeling: Cheating? No, I would not call it cheating - unsportting - possible. But then again, you have to assume that the person was paying attention and knew there was another move to make. I've done the 1 move thing without even noticing until after it was pointed out to me. When I'm playing quickly, I spend about 10 seconds looking at each board as I move... so it is an easy thing to not notice.

WhiteTower: Sort of and more. One of the Crazy Narde rules is that when a man enters the home table it is stuck on the point on which it lands (so placing the men there must be done carefully) and, because of that, bearing off requires the exact number. As a result of this you can be trailing by 120 pips with your opponent down to just a few men and catch up and beat them. Because you get every dice number that the opponent can't use, that 120 pips goes down very quickly. Your opponent can get left standing despite having had what in normal bg would be an undeniably winning position. For the opponent a lot of hard work and luck can go down the toilet in the bearoff phase. Very Grrrr! ;-)

furbster: It's the windfall of dice, isn't it? :)

I love crazy narde, and hate narde lol tis quite strange!!

playBunny: That's Russian Backgammon, with slight modifications to the rules of Fevga (or was Fevga like Narde with slight modifications...?) Anyway, watch those URLs, buddy! :)

Walter: It can be played for free at VogClub where it's called Narde (Fuega). It's definitely a different way of thinking.

There's another version called Crazy Narde (Gul Bara) in which a double gives you not only the 4 dice values but also every double higher. Rolling a 1-1 can thus give you 84 pips to play with, lol. But in practice you can't use them all and what you don't use your opponent gets. Crazy indeed.

WhiteTower; Thanks. Link fixed.

WhiteTower: I'd certainly give the game a try. Thanks for the link. Going the same direction and without hits. It'd take an adjustment of thinking, that's for sure.

Pythagoras: Let's say it plays quite well for its size :) But yes, it wouldn't win any World Championships...

I should unfortunatelly add "with an awful playing strength AI opponnent"..........

A Greek student maintains the following page with a nice Java applet which you can use to play against his implementation of an average playing strength AI opponnent:

http://cgi.di.uoa.gr/~ea99509/tavli.html

No! This is the 5%

The main reason is that while at Backgammon there is the "home board", the "opponent's home board" and the rest board and 2 general different strategies, the one we are behind in race and the other ahead, in Fevga there are 4 different boards that we have to combine the strategies considering all these 4 boards each time, we also have many different strategies that also change on every stage on the game........

I would go as far as saying both plakoto and fevga are more strategic games than "regular" backgammon.I live in hope that both come to this site.

Pythagoras: Probably due to the diametrical start and the no-hitting feature.

The first time anyone will plat it would feel a little lost in the desert. But after he get the feeling he would put it on his favourite games.....

Pythagoras: The truth is in the playing, as everyone who plays it for the first time knows all too well :)

Here........

I can guarantee that you will not have a good impression when you read the rules and you will say that it's a bit complicated, but the truth is on the other side........

Walter Montego:

Here.

WhiteTower: Where can I see the rules of the Fevga version?

Pythagoras:

Fevga: Exactly.

Plakoto: Also quite strategic, although not at the level of Fevga.

Portes = the same Backgammon it is here on Brainking with the addition of having gammons and backgammons.

Plaloto = A nice game that i yet find a bit boring.....

Fevga = One of the most interesting games, that requires a very deep strategical play, which is much harder to play it correctly.......Very fun to play also. I suggested the addition of Fevga, and i believe that if this game spreads in the world (USA?) it would start replacing Backgammon, not to take its place but to stand along with it in the top.....

Fevga = a must for Brainking!

So, Fencer, are there any news on the possible introduction of the "Greek three-game series" that some people know as Tavli? For the record, Greeks refer to the whole genre as Tavli, and have three separate names for the variants, which they play in the following order up to 3-, 5- or, most frequently, 7-point matches:

- Portes (=Doors, no-doubling Backgammon)
- Plakoto (=Slab-covered)
- Fevga (=Go Away, similar to Russian Backgammon)

that too.. :-)

rod03801: WhiteTower can't see the graph because he's a Pawn.

WhiteTower: It's a graph showing George's plummet in the backgammon ratings. From 2556 to 1869 and dropping in just a few days. 'E's been an' gorn an' legged it.

Only paying members can see the graphs.

This one should work for you

It is best to make your imbedded links the shortened version. BBW can explain it better, but there is a reason that using the full address causes some people to go to the main page instead.

/game/BKRGraph?u=9175&tp=23

playBunny: Ummm your link redirects to my Main page :(

Dramatic!

I'm concerned. I hope he's doing better than his games. :-(

WhiteTower: It doesn't sound like a whine to me. Slow players in fast tournaments are being inconsiderate. I'm compiling a list of such players. If I ever get to be director of speed tournaments, I will be excluding them.

So there is this tournament, declared specifically for fast players. What happens is that one player now holds up the whole tournament for days using the automatic vacation feature without telling (me at least) anything about the absence. Now, I know that according to the rules this user is fully entitled to this, but isn't there some kind of etiquette regarding these cases?...

Sorry if it sounds a bit like a whine...

Walter Montego: Lol. I think the Dice Guy might do well to take out a franchise on these dice. If he's wily he might even repackage them and flog them at other sites. ;-) Although I think there are players at every site who believe that these dice must already be available - to their opponents.

re: Rating formula ... Here, here!

Walter Montego: Well put.

[points microphone to Fencer]

Any comments, Mr Rachunek?

:)

WhiteTower: The rating system that we use here might work OK for games without any luck in them like Chess or Checkers, but it doesn't seem like a good system for single game matches of Backgammon. I remember a few weeks back a discussion about the ratings for the various games. I would like a ratings system to match each game's characteristics instead using the blanket approach and giving us one that's main effect is to discourage people from playing games that have luck in them with someone that is rated far below them. This isn't a problem in Chess since someone ranked far below has almost no chance of winning the game. In Backgammon even I might beat the world's champion of Backgammon just because I get lucky. I'd never stand a chance against any Chess master, let alone the world's champion. I think the rating should reflect this reality.

grenv: Not very nice... I will be more careful.

WhiteTower: it's because your opponent's rating is so far behind yours. unrated players actually have a hidden rating. If it's their first game I believe it's 1300.

Your expected BKR change: win: 2168 (0), draw: 2160 (-8), loss: 2152 (-16)

Ummm, so I have to win in order to avoid losing points... anyone else thinks this doesn't make sense?... Or doesn't it have to do with the unrated status?

playBunny: Does the dice guy know about these special dice? You might put him out of business. :)

WhiteTower: Ahah. It was that invisble word that has become clear. "Has the exact calculation of dice in backgammon games here been ever discussed?" So now I know that you don't want to know about GnuBg's dice generation choices, for instance. ;-)

Here? All I know is that I've reached #2 in the ratings because I bought the special $150 BrainKing "Roll-'em-as-you-want-'em" Dice! Lolol.

[For those, ie. not you WT ;-), who don't understand my sense of humour - This is a joke. It's funny and false, it's not serious or true. There are no "special $150 dice" as far as I know and nor would I use them and blah , blah ... Jeez, the lengths you have to take to avoid some people misunderstanding... As if they're only $150!!]

playBunny: OK, lemme make it more specific: at DailyGammon, they have a long FAQ entry devoted to how the dice is calculated, INCLUDING the Perl script that does the hard work. Here, nuffink! I mean, it's not like a trade secret or summin', is it?

WhiteTower: Care to be more specific?

Vikings: Care to be more specific?

Lol

WhiteTower: yep

Has the exact calculation of dice in backgammon games been ever discussed? Methods and randomization used etc.?

playBunny: ty

FNA: One on the bar is the same as one in your opponent's home table - its a loss by backgammon.

(By "behind the board" I assume you mean in your opponent's home table)

question for the players out there. If you do not get a chip off the board its gammon, if you have a chip behind the board and none off its backgammon? what if you have one on the bar and none off?

Fencer:
OK Fencer just posted here because backgammon is the only game I play here, except for one experiment with dark battleboats. I do like your site!

ajtgirl: Such things happen but the backup system should be faulty anyway :-) However, since this board is for backgammon discussion only, it might be better to continue on General Chat.

Hi, I am new here, a refugee from the crashed site, It'sYourTurn.com. I have been playing there for over 2 years and they constantly have down time. This last one has caused the site to be unavailable for 8 consecutive days. They only have a staff of 3 people and obviously had a faulty backup system. They claim to have 2,000,000 plus members, paying an average of $15.00 annually, which comes to about $30,000,000...can anyone explain to me how a popular web site such as IYT can be run so shoddily? Also, has this site (BK) ever experience similar problems? My loyalty, perhaps misplaced, is still with IYT because they have a great game called Jamble, which I am addicted to, but your backgammon game here is damn good and you have numerous convenience features here that IYT does not have. Any thoughts?
Ajtgirl NY, USA