nabla: who is he?????

alanback: He does ! Never trust the BK rating :-)

nabla:  If he's using a bot, why doesn't he play better?

Unfortunately I found out that ********** was using a bot to play his moves in Backgammon and Nackgammon games. As Fencer understandably won't to act on it until it has been confirmed by other users, and as ********** has mainly played private games, I appeal to his recent opponents that are acquainted with the usage of GNU backgammon (the best free program and the one that ********** uses). Here are the steps to reproduce :

1) Choose a recent finished private match that you played with ********** .

2) Click "download MAT code" at the top right of the game screen and save the file to your disk.

3) Start GNU backgammon.

4) Go to Settings / Analysis and choose the "Expert" level for both checker play and cube decisions.

5) Click the Import button, choose the .mat format and your saved .mat file.

6) Go to Analyse / Analyse match. GNU will analyse all played moves.

7) Go to Analyze / Game statistics - and not match statistics, because there is a bug in the BK import format that swaps players every two games. Browse the games. In each of them, I bet that you will see one player with a human error rate (you) and one with an error rate of virtually nil ( ********** ).

Before jumping to the logical conclusion, you should know that the world's best players have an "Equivalent Snowie error rate" around -2 on a good day. You can check that for yourself by downloading world-class matches from here : http://www.hardyhuebener.de/engl/matches.html

On a last note, "expert" is a lowish standard in GNU backgammon, and I have seen ********** play a move that was also played by the expert level, but discarded as a big blunder by the "world class" level (which analyses 2-ply instead of 0-ply).

Thanks by advance for your input !

********** Edited out users name. **********

thank you

mangue: The rules are that if you can play both dice, then you must do so. If you play the 5 first, then you are blocked and cannot play the 3 any more (while if you play the 3 first, you can bear off with the 5).

Backgammon (Mal 4 Inara vs. mangue)
move 17
I cannot swap dies, please explain why

jryden: I ain't going to disable my autopass - the rare occassions where I do get an opponent that has autopass enabled, I don't want to lose.

And I'll continue to delay moving in an autopass situation when my opponent hasn't enabled autopass - I marked all days in December as vacation days for no other reason to not have to move in a hand full of games where all I can do is pass, but where my opponent insists on me pointlessly hitting a button.

coan.net: Well said!! In support of this suggestion I am going to disable my autopass option until a better version is implemented. Anyone who doesn't like it should do the same, otherwise Fencer can say 'look how many people are using the autopass, they must like it'

Along with an autoplay idea, i would like to see the ability for the server to determine the single legal play for a given checker. This will eliminate the need for the Swap dice option in all but the cases where a single checker can use either die.

coan.net: then you all of a sudden turn around 1/2 the game for the computer to play for you....

That doesnt say much for the games popularity

nabla: Yea, autoplay would be another nice request - even though personally I'm not sure if I would use it, but I can see many doing so.

For checkers for example, a person only has 1 move - 1 jump, then yea - might as well make the move for you. For Ludo - well many turns in a game are only 1 option (maybe around 30% maybe? - just a guess) - Add that to auto-pass, then you all of a sudden turn around 1/2 the game for the computer to play for you.

So personally, I would have to debate with myself to use autoplay, but again - would be a great addition to the autopass to this game site - and can see many people using both.

coan.net: Everything you said !

Plus making forced moves automatically, even when they are not "passes". That for all games without exception. This last request should probably give rise to a separate personal setting, since I guess that some Ludo players could be happy with autopass but not with autoplay.

I just think the current version of autopass needs to be scraped, and put in its place is a proper autopass - that will work in all games where a "pass" can be made.

I would think a simple auto message of "Your opponent had no move, so the game came back to you.". Any messages should just be shown when the opponent does have there next possible move. And then an auto message to the person who passed would be "You had no move(s) on the ## last move(s), so the system autopassed for you".

Plus each person can decide if they want the system to autopass for them. So for example, if I choose to auto pass but my opponenet does not - if it comes to me and I have to pass, then I should be able to autopass. If it goes to my opponenet and they choose not to autopass, then they can take the time to hit the "pass" button. I don't see why the current system will let 1 person dictate how the other person players their autopass.

And again, all games that have pass - Gammon & Ludo are the big 2 that come to mind.

= = = = =

Then for gammon games with cube, what I would like to see is when a person gets there first roll/double - then pass option if they are blocked, a little button to say "Roll & Autopass until next possible move" - so that will automaticly choose the roll & then pass until they are able to move again. (so then after they move, they will again have to roll & choose the option again if they are back into a pass position after making a move on the board.)

Autopass would be a great feature for this site - but I just don't consider what is here right now to be autopass... just a very weak version of it.

coan.net: This needs to be explained a bit more thoroughly please?

AlliumCepa: Well it is one of the "reasons" why Fencer did not want to do autopass in the first place - he is afraid that the users would be unable to have a conversation if the game is autopassing. So he put in this thing that is called an autopass, but I believe it will not work if there is chat going on. I don't think it is documented anywhere.

AlliumCepa: Was there any in-game chat going on during those moves? That will also stop auto-pass from working

AlliumCepa: Had both players turned on autopass before the game started? Otherwise, it won't work.

nabla: Thanks guys... thats the type of stuff that helps me more than the dry statistical book stuff!

grenv: It is complicated enough for me not to have dived into one method yet. The pips to add are not linear in function of the number of checker on either the 1 or the 2 points, gaps have to be accounted as well.

If you are interested, give a look to http://gammonline.com/members/Dec00/articles/pipples.htm . A bit too advanced stuff for me I must say.

nabla: good point on the low points, you need to basically add pip counts for checkers on the 1 or 2 point to be accurate. Alternatively you can look at the number of average moves left and calculate the odds variation, but that gets complicated.

Puckish: A very simple rule works fine in most situations. If on roll you are 10% (of your pip count) ahead minus 2 pips, you have a borderline double. If you are 10% ahead plus 2 pips, your opponent has a borderline take/pass.

That is of course in "money play". The take point can be different in function of the match score (and the presumed strength difference between the opponents) ; and when one of the opponents has too many checkers on low points.

wetware: Yeah, too much, I was hoping to stimulate some conversation and some off the cuff opinions, since off the cuff is my style anyway

Puckish: There's a wealth of info (maybe more than you need?) here:  http://www.bkgm.com/articles/page4.html#cubehandlinginraces

AlliumCepa: Okay, another stupid question...

I have had double 3s a lot it seems lately on my opening roll, there are so many choices, I just get confused, assume all my 3 moves are open?

When you are ahead in a run situation, you will win more times than not. So, should you always double when you need to, and conversely how often should you accept a double when slightly behind in a run?

Puckish:  Can't right now, I have a vacation coming up.  But thanks for the personal invitation!

Come on Alan, I know you are looking, pull the trigger and this tournament gets started!

One more needed to make 32!!!

wetware: Okay, I am in....

I sent out 125 invitatons to mine, so i know even if someone doesnt read the boards or check the tournament page, they have an invite, maybe some people were gone for awhile, but i would like to have more of the very best players play

Puckish: yes....and xxxxxxxx too :)

Andersp: Acuna Mattata and wetware
were shamed into playing, thanks!

I am sure playbunny could give us a 10 page dissertation as to why he wont play?

Just need 2 more now to start this bugger!

Puckish: LOL...heard about BKR? 

2200 plus 5 point cube

Okay, not 1 person in the top 25 ratings signed up for this one?????

Whats up with that anyway???

I need 4 more people to get it started!

Okay, I set up the last time wrong somehow, try this one here...

2200 plus 5 point cube

Czuch: I'm pretty sure it does.

Does auto pass work in cube games during the crowford rounds?

Snoopy: ...and over 500 moves no less!

Anti Backgammon, I got it.

and still going strong
Anti Backgammon (Snoopy vs. sandra...)

wetware: Put the match score in (parentheses) or [brackets] and/or in a different color. IT could also be in a different size font.

Thad: That could also prove a bit tricky.  You'd need something extra to tell the difference between a completed match (shown as 1-0) and a match that currently stands at a score of 1-0.  A cute solution might involve current match scores being shown on "mouse-over" of each dash or of each table cell.  (But at this point, I'm hesitant to suggest adding much more HTML code to our pages!

Thad:  It's not useless - it tells you the match is not finished ;-)