***Official backgammon BBV/LC thread ***

Suggested by one of our regular contributors, this is the backgammon forum's official repository, for beats, brags, variance, and low-content posts. Feel free to post awful beats, bizarre positions, or weird happenings in the backgammon world which are not significant enough to warrant a thread of their own.

LOL, a day too late. At DMP vs. GNU, I play a rare nontrivial game that GNU doesn't find a mistake in. I lock it in a 1-point game. I bear off 14 men. It hits. I fan 4 times on a 4-point board, get boinked a few more times, blah blah, finally break contact. It has to roll 44+ and 22+ while I roll exactly 2-1. It happens.

I'll add a woes me bad beat story. I'm pretty sure there is a name for this but I can't remember what it is called. I once got down to one checker left and then got hit. My opponent's board was crunched and I figured I'd have no problem coming back around, but not only did I not get back around -- I was still on the bar when my opponent beared off her last checker.

At the time I was seriously steaming, but now I look back on it with the satisfaction of knowing that you have to have played a lot of backgammon for this kind of thing to happen. Plus, it was just a loss on Microsoft's backgammon site that comes with Windows, so it wasn't like it cost me money or anything.

Just had swingiest/most heartbreaking crawford game think I ever had in a money match at 4-2 up in a race to five. Before this spot, he has points on his bar and eight point, I have two blots on the 22 and 23. He rolls double five for the monster double hit, leaving the board like this:



So I'm dead to the world obviously until I pull out the super joker and double five him back. The world is suddenly looking rather rosy until he rolls the 6/1, hits and keeps me in the sky for the next four turns. I lose the game and the auto-doubled game (even though I start with 3/1 arghhhh) next and lose the match

Some days I swear this game just test the limits of incredulity.

I won a small "international" BG tournament two weeks ago. 31 players from Finland, Estonia and GB. It was the first time I had played in about two years, 65 EUR buyin, 700 EUR first prize of which I gave away 100 as a result of making a deal. Also got a very nice trophy. I wish the camera on my cell phone worked, if that were the case I could have done a nice trip report with some positions. Oh well, at least there is now a LC thread which is where this post belongs.

I wonder if anyone else in this forum took part perhaps?

Congratulations loveinvain. That was way better to read than a bad beat story.

thought about making a thread for this but seems more appropriate for LC thread... past few months I've gone from complete novice to half a novice. I've read backgammon for winners a few times and I understand pretty much everything in it, but I make tons of mistakes in tougher spots and also make execution mistakes of stuff I know - missing a hit possibility and blindly making the 3 point in my latest match with gnu for example. My snowie error rate lately has been 10-12, which is a recent improvement. I'm particularly bad at doubling, I'm late a ton.

So. When I get into learning something I like to have structure, and I want to put some time into getting really good. I could see something like 5 hours/week of focused study with book or of previously played matches and at least a couple matches a day (I'm at computer working all day and gnu is my main procrastination option so I usually get 3-4 7-point matches in).

It's pretty obvious to me I need a mix of theory and botplay, but I am not sure the best approach. My plan is to keep playing a bunch of gnu matches, get Modern Backgammon, and split my serious study time half/half between reading it and reviewing my own matches by going to each ?? move and trying to figure out the better option without looking (and of course reading threads here, but that's more a procrastination thing). Comments appreciated from anyone in similar place or who was and got better.

Latest BBV - pretty lame, only a 7-8%, but it tilted me. My phone backgammon app on "hard" still really sucks (sooo bad at doubling and accepting doubles) and Last night it was its roll, me up 6-5 in a game where I had the cube and would have redoubled ages ago if not for the score. It had already almost chased me down with some big rolls, I had a checker each on the 3 and 2, it had two on the 2 and 4 on the 1. Of course 5-5, 5-1. Somehow if it it was gnu I wouldn't care but I've been running up the score on this thing (~70-30 in 7-point matches) and I hate losing to it!

If you're looking for a fairly strong BG program on iphone, backgammon NJ is rather good

I bought the Backgammon game for the Kindle. It claims its a 1700 player on its highest setting, but I doubt that very much. It was a really lousy player -- especially at doubling decisions. It's better than nothing though.

Had a nice little let off of some checker blindness last night in the pub. Rolled what I thought was a really awkward four one which actually enabled me to hit and close a point (yes I know its beyond bad but was late and had been playing a long time). Instead of letting me blunder my opponent lets out a loud sigh, moans about his luck, and acts like its a really bad beat which quickly corrects my thinking and I make the right play.

Good lesson on staying quiet and composed over the board (and not playing too long when tired ).

Yeah I have an app on my android that claims to be very good but is terribad. Never drops and does some crazy doubles itself (massive race lead but men stuck behind a six prime and board about to crunch etc), and plays a weak running game at all times. Still fun to pound away on for a bit when bored on the train etc though.

Ugh! Just when you think the bots are ready to be friendly and play nice...



I don't know why...but it always just stings a little more when the bot is the one getting to roll all the dice...

On the 53 theme.. had this come up today, where I'd just escaped my back man with 63. Then the bot, on 3-ply, played 13/5 (no hit) with 13/8 6/3 and 13/8 4/1 as very close 2nd and 3rd place. Obviously the rollouts disagreed, but this (or any of those) may be the worst move I've ever seen it play on 3-ply.

I don't think this was that bad a play. He doesn't want you stuck on the bar, because then your 6 prime never budges, and he can't escape. He wants you to start bringing in checkers so he can make use of his anchor while he still has a board. If he hits you and you get stuck on the bar, he has to start breaking down his board since he can't escape. So I think this was a good play on his part. It's one of those weird plays that looks completely backward, but the reasoning makes sense.

Except his timing is all wrong. I basically never have to allow a shot before he's crunched unless the next few dice are terribly unlucky. If he crunches while I'm on the bar, sure, that's a little bit of a downside, but he's going to be crunched to some degree anyway. If I randomly pick up a 3rd checker and escape, that's worth some gammons. But if I have to break my prime with a man back, that's worth a lot of winning chances for him.

I pretty much **** myself when it didn't hit. Then I looked at the position for a minute and still couldn't figure it out. Then I did a rollout and it said not hitting was a ~.1 mistake.

Surely if you don't hit here black simply moves around as slowly as possible, gives you as long to crunch as the dice allow, and then your ace point game is largely useless.

If you hit red still crunches fairly often, but you get huge extra equity the times black rolls any one bar the six one insta escape red suddenly has very good chances of the prime breaking and some pretty solid outs.

If you hit, there's a huge swing when Black's next roll is 1-5. Other than that, everything pretty much washes out, but that single roll is enough to swing the play.

Could anyone who knows about BG rakes take a look at these ones?: https://www.paddypowerplayer.com/gam...mon/rake.shtml

Been donking around the micros with a bonus and they are easy to beat with pretty much any rake due to such poor standard but was curious if this sort of structure is ever beatable in games for stakes that actually matter.

Those rakes are certainly beatable assuming you have a significant edge over your typical opponent. Once you start playing people on your own level, the rake will grind you up pretty quickly.

I don't understand why sites don't just do some kind of % session rake instead of game by game. Any site that did would surely attract loads of players pretty qucikly, would still make a decent profit, and would have the liquidity to attract lots of casual players looking to jump into games just like in poker.

Just rake per session rather than per game like Betfair does on sports markets. Whole situation with online backgammon seems totally and utterly insane in my opinion. Why has no one started a site with fair rakes?

What I also don't like about online backgammon (besides the ridiculous rake) is the fact that the anonymity factor kind of allows players to regularly quit games that offer only a slim hope (or because they feel their opponent isn't playing as fast they are). Yes, the sites generally have a system that calculates your due based on EV, but it is still a disrespect for the other players imo, and it breaks the rythm of the game.

I certainly agree. The big poker sites have been careful to keep the rakes very modest. The backgammon sites (so far) just don't get that.

That's OK with me. I don't care about their respect. I want their money! If they leave, the money's mine.

Rhythm of the game? No biggie. I'll get the groove back on the next game.

(I've played at Gammon Empire.)

I just had the absolute worst (unluckiest) game I've ever played. Out of 31 moves, my opponent rolled 12 doubles, and hit 16 checkers. If I moved a checker somewhere, he hit it. Meanwhile, he was marching his checkers in formation around the board, lol! So frustrating. I'm hoping that doesn't happen again any time soon.

Needless to say, I was gammoned pretty hard. I think my pip count at the end was +147 hahaha.

Ridiculous position I ended up in earlier against my phone. Playing black, bearing off bottom left.