I've been playing on Backgammon Galaxy for a few months and it's renewed my interest in the game. I like the fact that to increase your rating you have to both win AND play better (and it doesn't hurt your rating if you lose but you play better).

Usually I play 3 to 9 point matches but sometimes I'm pressed for time and would like to play a 1 point match. But I don't because it seems the cube is removed from play. Anyway, I have a few questions that maybe could be answered here.

Assuming I play a one point match obviously it doesn't matter if one gets a gammon or not in terms of winning the "match". But if you get a gammon (or lose one), does it increase or decrease your rating more than simply winning or losing?

Is there any reason they don't offer playing a single game where the cube is available and winning gammons is better than simply winning in terms of rating (assuming you play better than your opponent)?

Lastly, is there a better place (than here) to ask questions such as the above?

I don't think winning or losing a gammon in a 1-point match would affect your rating. But I don't work for Galaxy so I can't be 100% sure.

Galaxy runs some discussion forums on Facebook. There's a Strategy forum for discussing positions and a News forum for announcements of various sorts. I think the 'News' forum might be the right place for these sorts of questions.

Galaxy has renew my interest as well
I used to love to play against my brother as teenager
Stopped playing for 40 years before I started again
I thought I was good but I only manage even 1500 rating
So I download XG to play against and learn. Also playing against many different players has help me get to 1600 in a month
I find on galaxy gammon doesn’t seem to manner it’s the errors made
I never used to cube when I played against my brother so I find the 3-5 game match challenging learning when to cube at the right moment
The game is setup with the checkers in position that a blitz and back court game seems to be most equitable way to play. We used to block each other and that cost me a lot of rating points cause the XG genius figures that is not the most optimal way to play.
Cube is never in play in single match and it didn’t matter if I gammon or get gammon for ratings It’s the errors made
I wish rating was more straightforward in galaxy I could work my butt off and make lots of moves and backgammon a player and I still don’t get points cause I made few more errors than the other player who essentially was limited in moves and was on bar most of match

Thanks Bill. I'm thinking if one play is slightly riskier (in terms of winning the game) but much more likely to get a gammon (as if it were a money game) it should improve ones rating more. But this wouldn't be the case at match point and it seems a one point match starts at match point .

I stopped playing seriously in the early eighties although over the years sort of kept up by reading this forum, studying some of Bill's books, using some of the better free software and so on. One thing that seems different these days is you rarely get in backgames or prime versus prime battles. I think modern players are too good at disrupting timing.

I play under this username. I'm hovering around an 1800 rating but hope to get it up to the 2000 range without resorting to any of the rating improving tricks I've read about.

Another thing that bothers me is that when my internet cuts out and I have to resign. Even if I made one move or was winning the match with one more bear off . I lose 20-30 Points in the rating Doesn’t make sense to me why that would be a penalty in Galaxy

I play backgammon since around 2010. I used to play chess since 1990, but my chessclub stopped and I discovered backgammon.
It takes a lot of time to improve in backgammon. Whereas rating in chess is rather standardized (ELO rating), it seems to be much less so in backgammon.

It is better to discuss your level of play in terms of error rate, apart from being more consistent, it also helps me focus on my prestation instead of my result. In 2011 my error rate was 11, it decreased very slowly to 8 at the end of 2018.
Since then I started to categorize my big errors (above 0,160, the red category in GNU) and the last months my "last 100" average is around 6.

I think the fun thing is, that the best way to improve is the best way to enjoy the game: Get inspired by watching better players play, read books and blogs, and try out new ideas/concepts yourself. Learn to love your mistakes as a source of inspiration. Even after 10 years of playing I still love the game for it's never ending newness.