I just discovered backgammon again, and I feel so stupid for not realizing earlier that it has some serious strategy. I hadn't played since I was a kid, but still.

Anyway, I downloaded GnuBG and I'm trying it with the tutor mode. Although I frequently want to chuck my computer into a wall because everything I do is wrong, I've bought and read Magriel and I hope to soon get fewer warnings of how horrible I am. I have two questions (well, I have lots but will restrain myself to two for now):

1. I started by playing 7-game matches, but when I decided to try the money game option instead it keeps flagging moves that the match tutor says to do. Should I be learning money games, and then figure out how to switch strategies when in matches, or vice versa?

2. Does anyone have any recommended settings for GnuBG? I've been keeping the game and tutor at Grandmaster, figuring I may as well learn from the best, but the delays from the tutor bug me and when I switched the tutor to "Supremo" I've found it often gives me a hint that the analysis I run then flags as incorrect. It's making it confusing for me to learn from it.

Thanks for any help you can provide!

Can't figure out how to edit, but I just started browsing though this forum and found the answer to 1 is yes, switch to money games. I did try to Google this, but the results didn't provide answers (although it took me to this forum!).

Googling GnuBG settings is a useless endeavor, it just takes me to the general instructions instead of suggestions for the best learning options.

Hi vernal, welcome to the game!

There shouldn't be a big difference between the Grandmaster and Supremo settings. Most people use Supremo for analysis. If the plays are very close, maybe the setting will matter, but starting out, I would mainly concentrate on the errors that are greater than 0.1 in magnitude anyways. I doubt you're going to see many of those plays reversed from Grandmaster to Supremo.

Vernal, if you're not familiar with this page, you should definitely check it out:

http://www.bkgm.com/gnu/AllAboutGNU.html

There's a lot of good information there.

I use GNU (or eXtreme Gammon) to analyze games I play online. Some game sites, like Backgammon Pasha on Facebook, allow you to download match files (.mat). After you play, open the file with GNU, select Analyse, then Analyse match or session. Study and understand the incorrect moves you make. It's a great learning tool. I do think GNU's grading system (from awful to supernatural) is overly harsh. Don't let that get you down.

You should definitely start off playing money games when you're learning backgammon. Money games are the foundation of backgammon, just as cash game play illustrates the fundamentals of poker. Match play adds another level of complexity, because checker and cube play can vary dramatically with the match score.

Feel free to post puzzling positions on this forum. We can sometimes explain things more clearly than GNU or XG.

Bill makes a good point - the one thing the bots don't do is explain their rationale as to why any move is better than another (beyond equity tables). Forums like this one are great places to discuss such rationales.