I am finding myself having to repeat the same conversation over and over again to my different friends. What is the best way to convince someone who knows nothing about backgammon yet adamantly insists it is a game of luck that it is in fact a game of skill.

If they are a poker player it is easy because I compare BG to poker, but what about non poker players.

Ask to play for money (even a small amount) against them. If they think it's mostly luck, they should also know that it will even out and should not be afraid to put a small amount on the line... in the name of science.

Uber has the right idea, but the problem is that the sort of folk who think BG is all luck won't play you for any stake -- even a penny a point. They'd be too afraid they might be wrong and possibly get embarrassed. Just offer to play them for money and chuckle as they slink away.

I don't think going straight at backgammon is the way to look at it.

1) Can you make bad decisions? If so, then it's reasonable to say that you can also make good decisions. And then the skill part comes when you're in the process of figuring out how to make good decisions and avoid bad decisions. If that's not enough to make it a skill game, then what does it mean to have a game of skill? (They'll probably talk about things like "how much skill and how much luck" and all of that is them hand-waving and you can decide whether it's worth pursuing that distinction or not.)

2) Do they have any interest in playing games of chance at all? Very few games of chance involve exactly zero decisions, and so you can try to connect it to some game of chance that they know and draw an analogy from there.

And if they don't get it, what's the loss? Just change the subject and move on.

Tell them how an insurance company can make money by taking calculated risk. For a car example, they will look to your driving record, i.e. your accidents and traffic violations over a period of time, whereupon with the help of statistical data your premium can be set. Next, invite them for a long money game, and offer them 75 cents for every point they win versus 25 cents for every point you win.

And if they don't get it, decide whether they are a worthy conversationalist.

Most people who say things like that aren't really open to persuasion.

The obvious thing is just to ask him to play, even for free is fine. If he accepts, speak up the first time he starts thinking about his move: "Why are you thinking - it doesn't matter since it is all luck right?"

Also, be alert for hustlers who pretend this attitude. Getting a money play offer is precisely their goal. Getting one with a handicap, even more so.

The fact is BG is not a pure skill game. BG is about both luck and skill. And the luck part is big enough to allow a noob to beat a world champ even if it only 5% of the time.

The best way to convince oneself that there is skill involved is to make him/her play a much stronger opponent and get beaten many times. This his how a friend introduced to this game

Also I think that playing against a bot (set on max strength) with manual dice(*) for 50 or 60 matches is very good for being definitely convinced that: 1) There is skill. On the long run BG is purely skill based otherwise the bots wouldn't outplay any player like they do and 2) bots don't cheat (personaly this is how I got rid off the idea they manipulate dice, otherwise bot amazing results are frankly unbelievable).

I had a long conversation like this with a really good bridge player who thought Bridge was a game of skill but backgammon was pure luck. I tried suggesting that in bridge the luck is what you are dealt and in backgammon the luck is what you roll. I then went over a cube decision and my though process. I could not convince him and so was reminded of some thing that I was told :-

"the world consists of 10% neutrons, 20% protons and 70% morons!"

I moved on and if you cannot convince them so should you move on.

I find it hard to believe that a truly good bridge player could think that backgammon is pure luck. Odds and percentages are a big part of bridge; experienced players understand the difference between the right play and the result. This sort of thinking applies strongly to backgammon.

Is it possible he is trying to con you? Or maybe someone else who might hear?

It's possible the bridge player was just teasing you. In the early years of competitive backgammon (1964-1975) most of the top backgammon players were also top bridge players (Jacoby, Crawford, Eisenberg, Woolsey, Weichsel). They all understood that backgammon was a game with a huge skill component. It's hard to believe that a good bridge player today wouldn't understand that intuitively.

The bridge player Rick was a friend of my friend Paul. So I went back to the Paul and asked him about Rick the bridge player. It turns out his wife and the bridge player's wife are friends. Paul cannot stand the bridge player as he thinks him an obnoxious bore.

I went over it in detail with Rick about the luck component in bridge and backgammon quoting both Oswald Jacoby and Kit Woolsey (who is in the bridge hall of fame). In the end I had wasted about an hour of my time with a person who I think my friend was being generous as describing him as an obnoxious bore.

But make no mistake, he was not teasing or joking, he strongly believed that bridge was the game and that backgammon was a joke.

The question of why I stayed talking to him for an hour? My wife and I were part of a flash mob that was about to happen in a mall. Various groups had practised their parts without a together practise. They were part of another group and my wife recognised his wife. Another group had been delayed so we had to wait and therefore I could not leave, however I was at the point where I was about to walk off in disgust. So unfortunately it is possible to meet other games players who are good in there area but just do not get it.

One of my friends is a very good chess player (national level) who asked me to explain about the complexity of backgammon. He had played money backgammon (reasonably well) so I explained match equity, take points and gammon prices. At the end he said he could really see that tournament backgammon was complex.

Yeah, I know the type. Some players hold their own game as vastly and inherently superior to all others. I think it is a way of boosting their own ego: I am good at this, therefore it must be the most important thing. Along the same lines, I sometimes see go players that scorn chess.