playBunny:   Fully deserving of a Super Snail achievement award.

Czuch: Holy crap! You're not kidding. It's why I didn't join it when it was announced.

Just noticed this one.....

The first doubling cube tournament

Started in 2005, and still not out of the first round???????

Baked alaska and cardinal.... 5 years for a 7 point doubling cube match???? Really???? Come on guys, that is just plain wrong

Jaak: I recently read that rule somewhere as well, and noticed we did not have that here. I just assumed maybe there are more than one version of "Fevga"

I had been curious, because GoldToken just added a game VERY similar to Fevga, but it's called "Moultezim". With that game the tiny difference between it and what we have here is that you can not fill more than 4 pips in your opponent's starting area. (Fevga is 5 pieces in your own starting area) PLUS it had the rule you mention, for Fevga.

Look the position Fevga (Jaak vs. AlterMann) , please!
All black checkers are blocked, but they are not collected onto the one point behind player's prime. Thus BrainKing Fevga rules http://brainking.com/en/GameRules?tp=111 don´t require to unblock a point in the prime to allow the opponent a chance to move. I used this possibility and moved
41. 18-23, 18-23, 17-22, 19-24
Backgammon Galore has the same rules http://www.bkgm.com/variants/Fevga.html but there is a reference of George Savdar http://www.bkgm.com/rgb/rgb.cgi?view+1202 that there are many different variations in Greece.
The main variation has a rule:
If you have a 6-prime and the opponent can't move at any dice (for example has all his checkers behind this prime (not the only case), you MUST free one point in your turn in order the opponent to have non-zero probability to move.
So, according to this rule I did an illegale move. Where is the truth?

Carl, AlliumCepa: That's wierd. I copied the links directly from the tournaments page. I've changed them from absolute urls to relative ones. It should be fine now. Thanks, guys. :-)

playBunny: The links take me to the log in page.

A monthly series of fast-paced Hypergammon tourneys.


I like it fast, 5-point Hyper, 1st Jan 2010

I like it fast, 5-point Hyper, 1st Feb 2010

Some kinda fun #2
One big section, 5 points match with dc, fischer clock: 2/0.18/5
Everyone is welcome!

See you across the board,
Karol

Resher: If both numbers were generated at the same time, wouldn't you expect 100%..? To what do we attribute what is being seen.

21 : 13/11 6/5
31 : 8/5 6/5
41 : 13/9 8/7
51 : 13/8 6/5
61 : 13/7 8/7
32 : 13/11 8/5
42 : 8/4 6/4
52 : 13/8 6/4
62 : 13/5
43 : 13/10 13/9
53 : 13/5
63 : 8/5 8/2
54 : 13/4
64 : 24/14
65 : 24/13

My propositions. I didn't check with a bot and I could be wrong about some.This of course would be with 100% of same rolls. Some of them are too bold to be played against only 50% of same rolls.

TC: I noticed the bias too. Since it is quite hard for us, but very easy for Fencer to generate large statistics, I think it should be investigated asap. It is a potential exploit. For instance it makes 13/5 with an opening 62 much better than the usual 24/18 13/11 (until now I refrained from using that exploit).

My guess was that it had to do with the player at move winning or losing the opening roll in a multi-game match. But I didn't check that.

On a remotely related note, very long ago I submitted bug #1487 about a bias in the random placement in Logic, based on a statistic of 50x5 peg generations. I didn't even get an answer. I think that Fencer sometimes commits the fallacy of generalizing "some of my users are idiots" to "all my users are idiots".

playBunny: The reported order of the numbers within a roll isn't relevant is it?  Doesn't this just depend on whether a player swapped the numbers before using them?

I also checked my most recent two 21-pointers and found 6 out of 17 same initial rolls for both matches, so 35% compared with an expected percentage of less than 6% if they were independent.  I think this is statistically significant and wonder whether there is some circumstance where the first two dice rolls are determined at the same time (and so would always be the same), rather than when each player clicks on the game at different times?

grenv: Ok, but if you take out the doubles, there are only 30 possible rolls

But why do you take out the doubles? The second player can roll a double, so the second player has 36 different rolls. 2 of them can match the rolls of the first player.

grenv: Just checked my plakoto games from 2009. It's 10 cases of identical first rolls out of 27.

Another observation is that there are very few instances of both dice being different, e.g. 56, 43. I think the expected frequency of this would be 4 out of 9, but in the above sample it's only 5 out of 27. In playBunny's first sample, it is 0 out of 12. And in playBunny's second sample (the "reasonable" one), I count only 3 rolls out of 38 where both dice are apart.

Well... if I'm paranoid, at least I'm not the only one.

playBunny: oops, second roll can be doubles... gotta get some sleep.

Checking another two 21-pointers yielded a more reasonable number of equivalent rolls.

Game 1   35, 44
Game 2   52, 52
Game 3   54, 55
Game 4   53, 55
Game 5   64, 53
Game 6   32, 53
Game 7   51, 54
Game 8   23, 62
Game 9   42, 43
Game 10   41, 43
Game 11   31, 32
Game 12   61, 11
Game 13   46, 52
Game 14   62, 62
Game 15   63, 65
Game 16   13, 31
Game 17   65, 66
Game 18   65, 63
Game 19   35, 63

Game 1   34, 35
Game 2   54, 65
Game 3   45, 64
Game 4   51, 52
Game 5   14, 51
Game 6   14, 42
Game 7   61, 41
Game 8   16, 26
Game 9   23, 23
Game 10   13, 41
Game 11   35, 63
Game 12   52, 54
Game 13   42, 43
Game 14   25, 62
Game 15   65, 66
Game 16   63, 65
Game 17   65, 61
Game 18   32, 43
Game 19   34, 63

So the coincidences can be readily not found too.

pedestrian: I also did a very quick check using alanback's 21-pointer against furbster. It was the first and only match that I looked at.

Of the 12 games in the match, 5 started with the same roll for each player, although the order of the numbers was different in 3.

Game 1   61, 46
Game 2   23, 42
Game 3   12, 31
Game 4   14, 51
Game 5   13, 31
Game 6   45, 54
Game 7   15, 51
Game 8   41, 42
Game 9   41, 41
Game 10   13, 41
Game 11   65, 63
Game 12   31, 31

If it's coincidence then it certainly seems to be one that can be found without much effort.

ps. Abigail's right about the odds. It doesn't matter what the first roll is, the chances of the second matching it are dependant on the 36 possibilities for that second roll.

AbigailII: Ok, but if you take out the doubles, there are only 30 possible rolls I guess... right? so 1 in 15 then?

that makes sense... first die 2 in 6, second 1 in 5... 3x5 = 15

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

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: 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?

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

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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?

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..

Snoopy: ljubisa is a very patient player

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

i think its around move 50 my trouble started

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.

coan.net:
I don't know!

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.)

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

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: 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

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.

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 ...

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

Karl

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 ;)