I'm an intermediate player who used to have a 1600-1700 ranked rating years ago when I played online. Interested in getting back into the game after a long break, and am looking for a site well suited to players looking to move up in rankings and improve their game against good (and hopefully friendly!) opponents.

I also enjoy playing for low-stakes money but not a requirement.

Try Backgammon Galaxy.

Backgammon Galaxy is the place.

tyvm!

I agree with Robertie and Gurdi, get your self over to Galaxy asap.

Agree with Galaxy — it gives performance results imediately and you can quickly review game/match move by move.

I've been playing backgammon for decades, and as far as online gaming goes, Backgammon Galaxy is second to none.

Hmmm, I went over there, the guy I challenged rolled first with 2-1, I rolled 4-4 and he doubled.

I, naturally accepted, and he then proceed to roll 5-5, 5-5, 6-6 and 4-4.

No thanks, if the dice are genuine there then I suspect the site is susceptible to script kiddies.

Shame, it looks nice.

Chuckles, post the match #. I'd like to review the game to verify your statement. Thanks.

The odds of rolling four doubles in a row is 1295-1. Typically there are about 200 matches going on at any one time on Galaxy, so a sequence of four doubles in a row would probably occur in some match every few minutes.

I've played on Galaxy for about 18 months and the dice seem perfectly normal to me -- i.e. every now and then something very unusual happens, just like when I play live. That's part of the fun and fascination of backgammon.

Yep agreed.

Just a bit strange behaviour though, double after an initial roll of 2-1? It was the first roll of a seven point match and made no sense, you hardly have a material advantage in that position......unless you know you're going to roll a raft of doubles immediately afterwards.

Hence my script kiddie comment.

Sorry - the moment I observed what I did I just clicked on that red cross in the top right hand corner of the screen.

And I take exception to you questioning my observations.

I assume you have some connection to the website in question?

Shame on you.

I would say the nature of your observations are such that questioning them would be standard, and expected.

You claim the site is rigged, it is perfectly natural for someone to want to verify that if they play on the site, and the only way to do that is to review the match.

Lol question the rigtard and you're a shill, obv.

Shame on you for making a claim without providing evidence for that claim.

You made a statement. If you fail to back up that statement with evidence that it is factual, I see no reason why I or anyone else should believe it. It is also possible and I believe likely, that you are simply trying to discredit the server.

User chuckles1066, on Galaxy, with a rating of 1473, has played a single 5-point match, which proves, at the least, your memory is apparently faulty.

You have not played much backgammon to see how odd dice can be. The site is fine with zero issues with dice. You caught some bad luck but 5 doubles in a row is not unheard off at all.

Hmmm
No one else noticed but.... With this sequence of rolls is he claiming that the dice where rigged in his favour?

Read again.

Thank you for this thread for pointing me in the direction of Backgammon Galaxy. It's really great!

One gripe - I think they over thought the awarding of rating points only when there is a PR discrepancy. Here are my arguments.

1) PR should be taken over a large sample, not for short matches. It doesn't mean as much over a short sample, so don't use a small sample PR for anything.

2) PR is an estimate. There are many sessions where the difference is probably not even statistically significant and yet ratings points can be awarded even if the winner has a meaningless slight advantage. Better, but not best, would be to have the size of the PR discrepancy be proportionate to the ratings points exchanged.

3) Maybe most importantly, there are some types of games where there is an assymmetry of complexity. Executing an early blitz is always harder than rolling when on the bar. Hard to win the PR battle in that situation. Worse is if the blitz fails late when you are collapsed and your opponent has an easy time winning the game.

Let the ratings formula play out on its own without the PR add. Note that if you pitted two bots against each other with different skill levels and had them play millions of games against each other, their ratings would converge to their true ratings only if you allowed for the ratings formula to play out on its own. With the PR rule, one would approach a perfect rating while the other would approach zero.