Backgammon --- Frequently Asked Questions.IMPORTANT NOTE: There are no planned updates for this document. As a result, IP address, mail addresses, phone numbers are bound to change. To find current information, I recommend using a search engine, or visiting Stephen Turners site. Last modified: Mon Dec 18 10:51:27 1995 Mark Damish <damish@ll.mit.edu> CONTENTSSection 0: FORE FAQ
Definition ,
Editor ,
Purpose ,
Contributions ,
Availability,
Disclaimer ,
Editorial ,
Changes
Gratitude , and
News .
Section A: ESSENTIALS
Section B: ELECTRONIC BACKGAMMON: VS OTHER HUMANS
Section C: ELECTRONIC BACKGAMMON: VS MACHINE
Section D: RESOURCES
Section E: MISC.
Section 0: FORE FAQDefinition
FAQ /F-A-Q/ or /faq/ [USENET] n. 1. A Frequently Asked Question. 2. A
compendium of accumulated lore, posted periodically to high-volume
newsgroups in an attempt to forestall such questions. Some people
prefer the term 'FAQ list' or 'FAQL' /fa'kl/, reserving 'FAQ' for
sense 1.
-- from: The jargon file, Version 2.9.12, 10 May 1993
EditorMark Damish damish@ll.mit.eduPurposeThe purpose of this FAQ is to answer commonly asked questions which come up on the rec.games.backgammon news group and to compile a set of resources which might be useful to backgammon players in general.ContributingContributions will be thankfully accepted. Send E-Mail to the editor of this list for inclusion and credit in future FAQs.AvailabilityThe FAQ will be posted on or around the 13th (13: is such a nice opening roll) of each month to rec.games.backgammon, rec.answers and news.answers.
The FAQ is also available for anonymous ftp on: The ascii FAQ may also be obtained vie E-mail. Just send mail to:
mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu
with
send usenet/news.answers/games/backgammon-faq
in the body of the message.
DisclaimerThis posting is provided on an "as is" basis, NO WARRANTY whatsoever is expressed or implied, especially, NO WARRANTY that the information contained herein is correct or useful in any way, although both are intended.EditorialChangesChanges may be spotted by examining the `diff' file, which is posted at the same time as this FAQ. In the diff file, a `<' charactor preceding a line indicates that the line has been removed. Likewise, a `>' charactor indicates an addition. The diff file is edited and should not be used for updating from previous versions.GratitudeMajor and minor contributions and suggestions from the following:
Jeremy Bagai Matchqiz review.
Matthew Clegg The `What is Internet' section.
Paul Ferguson Mac PD BG info. FIBS Client info.
Erik Gravgaard This and that.
Molly Holzschlag GEnie/RSCARDS info
rjohnson Additional info for rules section A2.
Mika Johnsson Original Backgammon article compilation.
Rolf Kleef Nackgammon.
Asger Kring Danish Newsletter, Book supply info. more.
Andy Latto Jacoby, Holland, Beavers, Chouette, Useful advice.
Mel Leifer Many critical pieces of information.
Peter Nickless Acey-Deucy Submission.
Perry R. Ross LDB (Long Distance Backgammon) mail server info.
Mark Rozer Inspired me to play this game.
Gerry Tesauro Backgammon article pointers.
Michael Urban Boston area playing spots.
Kit Woolsey Software reviews. Contributor at large.
Michael J. Zehr Book Review, Holland rule, Combinitorics answer.
More.
Vincent Zweije FIBS description. Narde description. Proof reader
deluxe.
[I apologize if I missed anybody]
Thanks for ALL corrections sent!
PLUS Thanks to all who have submitted material to the rec.games.backgammon news group, whether or not it has been used here. Material from rec.games.backgammon is credited where used. May you roll above average when you need it most.
News
Information that may or may not be included in the current FAQ:
From: alberto da pra (dapra@iol.it)
Newsgroups: rec.games.backgammon
Subject: Olympiad of Backgammon
Date: 2 Dec 1995 21:18:50 GMT
The second edition of the Backgammon's Olympiad (the first was in the
year 1992) will be in Venice from 25th to 30th June 1996. Who is
intersted can ask info and the invitation.
Alberto da Pra, President WBF
Worldwide Backgammon Federation
----
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.games,rec.games.backgammon
Subject: TD-Gammon available for free download
Date: 9 Nov 1995 23:52:45 -0800
IBM has made TD-Gammon, their supposedly groundbreaking neural network-
based version of Backgammon, available for free download. It seems to
be part of an attempt to promote their IBM Family FunPack. You can get
it by surfing to http://www.austin.ibm.com/pspinfo/funtdgammon.html and
following the "Read the license information" link. You will have to fill
out a form with your name, address, etc. (But nothing forces you to enter
valid information. ;) )
----
The hypertext version of the FAQ is now available at:
http://www.statslab.cam.ac.uk/~sret1/backgammon/faq.html
Thanks Stephen for mirroring the faq in the UK, which should allow
for quicker access from Europe and the Middle East.
Section A: ESSENTIALSA1. What is backgammon?``Backgammon is an obstacle race between two armies of 15 men each, moving around a track divided into 24 dagger-like divisions known as points.'' ``It's just a game.'' ``Sport of mind.'' ``It's a game of skill and luck. When I win I can claim it's due to my good skill. When I lose I can claim it's due to my bad luck.'' ``Backgammon is one of the oldest games in existence, dating back some 5000 years and believed to have been developed by the ancient Egyptians. It is not a game of luck as many believe, but a strategic game of war; in many ways as difficult to master as chess or Go. A random element (luck) is certainly involved, but a champion player also uses the laws of probability, intuition, imagination and psychology to outwit his opponent''. ``There's an aesthetic to the game, a flow. People think the game consists primarily of math --- calculating odds and so forth. That's not true. It's essentially a game of patterns, a visual game, like chess. Certain patterns fit together harmoniously, make sense in a away that is nontrivial.'' Answering ``Why do you play backgammon'': ``We have become a spectator society, one that experiences excellence and creativity only by watching it on television or by reading about it in newspapers or magazines...Perhaps the best way of becoming something more than a spectator is to pursue activities that do not receive mass media coverage. We can invent our own art forms, or at least re-label existing forms as art. Backgammon, though it is very old and very common, is an excellent art form. Patterns of points and blots undergo poignant mutations. The player strains to work with them, to control them. One's identity is not entirely intrinsic, nor is it purely acquired. We can shape ourselves just as we can shape our surroundings. By playing backgammon, that is - by creating patterns of blots and points - I help to shape my identity, I set myself apart from the spectators. I become alive.'' A2. What are the basic rules of the game?Backgammon Equipment
The backgammon boardBackgammon is an obstacle race between two armies of 15 men each, moving around a track divided into 24 dagger-like divisions known as ``points''.The Backgammon layout is divided down the center by a partition, known as the ``bar'' (See Diagram 1), into an outer and inner (or home) board or table. The side nearest you is your outer and home tables; the side farther away is your opponents outer and home boards. The arrows indicate the direction of play. For purposes of convenience we have numbered the points in the diagram. Though the points are not numbered on the actual board, they are frequently referred to during play to describe a move or a position. Your (X's) 4-point or 8-point will always be on your side of the board; your opponent's (O's) will always be on his side of the board. A move from your 9-point to your 5-point is four spaces (the bar does not count as a space). A move from White's 12-point to your 12-point, though it crosses from his board to yours, is but one space, for these two points are really next to each other. Diagram 2 shows the board set up ready for play. Each side has five men on his 6-point, three men on his 8-point, five men on his opponent's 12-point, and two men, known as ``runners'', on his opponents' 1-point. The runners will have to travel the full length of the track, the other men have shorter distances to go. Note that play proceeds in opposite directions, so that the men can be set up in two ways. Turn the diagram upside down to see the layout if play were proceeding in the other direction.
+-------------------------------------------------->
|
| +-----------------------------< X moves this direction
| |
| |
| | 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24
| | +------------------------------------------+
| | | . . . . . . | | . . . . . . |
| | | . . . . . . | | . . . . . . |
| | | . . . . . . | | . . . . . . |
| | | . . . . . . | | . . . . . . |
| | | . . . . . . | | . . . . . . |
| | | | | | +----+
^ v | Outer Board |BAR| Home Board | | 64 |
| | | | | | +----+
| | | P O I N T S | | . . . . . . | Doubling
| | | . . . . . . | | . . . . . . | Cube
| | | . . . . . . | | . . . . . . |
| | | . . . . . . | | . . . . . . |
| | | . . . . . . | | . . . . . . |
| | +------------------------------------------+
| | 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
| |
| +---------------------------------------------->
|
+---------------------------------< Y moves this direction
Diagram 1 (Numbered from X's point of view)
13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24
+------------------------------------------+
| X . . . O . | | O . . . . X |
| X O | | O X |
| X O | | O |
| X | | O |
| X | | O | +----+
| |BAR| | | 64 |
| O | | X | +----+
| O | | X |
| O X | | X |
| O X | | X O |
| O . . . X . | | X . . . . O |
+------------------------------------------+
12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Diagram #2 (Numbered from X's point of view)
Object of the gameThe object of Backgammon is for each player to bring all his men into his home board, and then to bear them off the board. The first player to get all his men off the board is the winner.
Starting the gameEach player casts one die. The player with the higher number makes the first move, using the two numbers cast by his die and his opponent's. In the event that both players roll the same number, it is a standoff and each rolls another die to determine the first move. In the event of subsequent ties, this process is repeated until the dice turn up different numbers. (In some games, players double the unit stake automatically every time they cast the same number; others limit the automatic doubles to one. In tournament play, there is no such thing as an automatic double.)
Moving your menEach player's turn consists of the roll of two dice. He then moves one or more men in accordance with the numbers cast. Assume he rolls 4-2. He may move one man six spaces, or one man four spaces and another man two spaces. Bear in mind that, when moving a single man for the total shown by the two dice, you are actually making two moves with the one man---each move according to the number shown on one of the dice.
DoubletsIf the same number appears on both dice, for example, 2-2 or 3-3 (known as doublets), the caster is entitled to four moves instead of two. Thus, if he rolls 3-3, he can move up to four men, but each move must consist of three spaces.The players throw and play alternately throughout the game, except in the case where a player cannot make a legal move and therefore forfeits his turn.
Making pointsA player makes a point by positioning two or more of his men on it. He then ``owns'' that point, and his opponent can neither come to rest on that point nor touch down on it when taking the combined total of his dice with one man.
PrimeA player who has made six consecutive points has completed a prime. An opposing man trapped behind a prime cannot move past, for it cannot be moved more than six spaces at a time---the largest number on a die.
BlotsA single man on a point is called a blot. If you move a man onto an opponent's blot, or touch down on it in the process of moving the combined total of your cast, the blot is hit, removed from the board and placed on the bar.A man that has been hit must re-enter in the opposing home table. A player may not make any move until such time as he has brought the man on the bar back into play. Re-entry is made on a point equivalent to the number of one of the dice cast, providing that point is not owned by the opponent.
Closed boardA Player who has made all six points in his home board is said to have a closed board. If the opponent has any men on the bar, he will not be able to re-enter it since there is no vacant point in his adversary;s home board. Therefore, he forfeits his rolls, and continues to do so until such time as the player has to open up a point in his home board, thus providing a point of rentry. It should be noted, the he doesn't loses his turn, as he still retains the ability to double his opponent before any of his opponents rolls, assuming the cube is centered or on his side.
Compulsory moveA player is compelled to take his complete move if there is any way for him to do so. If he can take either of the numbers but not both, he must take the higher number if possible, the lower if not.[Another way of saying this...]
--kw
Bearing offOnce a player has brought all his men into his home board, he can commence bearing off. Men borne off the board are not re-entered into play. The player who bears off all his men first is the winner. A player may not bear off men while he has a man on the bar, or outside his home board. Thus if, in the process of bearing off, a player leaves a blot and it is hit by his opponent, he must first re-enter the man in his opponents home board, and bring it round the board into his own home board before he can continue the bearing off process.In bearing off, you remove men from the points corresponding to the numbers on the dice cast. However, you are not compelled to remove a man. You may, if you can, move a man inside your home board a number of spaces equivalent to the number of a die. If you roll a number higher than the highest point on which you have a man, you may apply that number to your highest occupied point. Thus, if you roll 6-3 and your 6-point has already been cleared but you have men on your 5-point, you may use your 6 to remove a man from your 5-point. In some cases it may be advantagous to play the smaller die first before applying the higher die to your highest point (See Compulsory Move). For example, suppose you have one checker on your 5 point, and two checkers on your 2 point. Your opponent has a checker on the ace (one point) and on the bar. You roll 6-3. You may play the 3 to the 2 point then the 6 to bear a checker off the 2 point leaving your opponent no shots (no blots for the opponent to hit). The alternative, using the 6-3 to bear checkers off both the 5 and 2 points, would leave your opponent 20 out of 36 ways to hit your remaining blot.
Gammon and BackgammonIf you bear off all 15 of your men before your opponent has borne off a single man, you win a gammon, or double game.If you bear off all 15 of your men before your opponent has borne off a single man, and he still has one or more men in your home board or on the bar, you win a backgammon, or a triple game.
Cocked diceIt is customary to cast your dice in your right-hand board. Both dice must come to rest completely flat in that board. If one die crosses the bar into the other table, or jumps off the board, or does not come to rest flat, or ends up resting on one of the men, the dice are ``cocked'' and the whole throw, using both dice, must be retaken.
A3. What is the doubling cube for?The introduction of the doubling cube into the game is largely responsible for the leap in popularity of modern backgammon.Each face of the doubling cube bears a number to record progressive doubles and redoubles, starting with 2 and going on to 4, 8, 16, 32 & 64. At the commencement of play, the doubling cube rests on the bar, between the two players, or at the side of the board. At any point during the game, a player who thinks he is sufficiently ahead may, when it is his turn to play and before he casts his dice, propose to double the stake by turning the cube to 2. His opponent may decline to accept the double, in which case he forfeits the game and loses 1 unit, or accept the double, in which case the game continues with the stake at 2 units. The player who accepts the double now ``owns'' the cube---which means that he has the option t redouble at any point during the rest of the game, but his opponent (the original doubler) may not. If, at a later stage he exercises this option, his opponent is now faced with a similar choice. He may either decline the redouble and so lose 2 units, or accept and play for 4, and he now ``owns'' the cube. A player may double when he is on the bar even if his opponent has a closed board and he cannot enter. Though he does not roll the dice, for he cannot make a move, he still has the right to double. Note that gammon doubles or backgammon triples the stake of the cube.
A4. What is the Crawford rule? (Why won't FIBS let me double?)From the FIBS help screens: If you are playing an n-point match and your opponent is ahead of you and he gets to n-1 points you are not allowed to use the doubling cube in the next game to come EXAMPLE: 5 point match score game # You opponent 1 0 3 2 0 4 3 1 4 (you were not allowed to double in this game) 4 3 4 (you were allowed to double again) ... ... ... The Crawford rule is universally used in backgammon match play. A5. What is the Jacoby rule?The Jacoby rule is used in money games. It states, that a gammon or backgammon may not be scored as such unless the cube has been passed and accepted. The purpose is to speed up play by eliminating long undoubled games.The Jacoby rule is never used in match play.
A6. What is the Holland rule?This rule applies to match games and states that in post-Crawford games the trailer can only double after both sides have played two rolls. It makes the free drop more valuable to the leader but generally just confuses the issue.Unlike the Crawford rule, the Holland rule has not proved popular, and is rarely used today.
A7. What are those critters --- Beavers, raccoons?In money play, if player A doubles, and player B believes that he is a favorite holding the cube, he may turn the cube an extra notch as he takes, and keep the cube on his own side. For example, if A makes an initial double to 2, B may, instead of taking the double and holding a 2 cube, say ``beaver'', turn the cube an extra notch to 4, and continue the game holding a 4 cube.If A believes that B's beaver was in error, some play that he may then ``raccoon'', turning the cube yet another notch (to 8 in the example). Cube ownership remains with B. B may then if he wishes turn the cube yet another notch, saying ``aardvark'', or ``otter'' or whatever silly animal name he prefers (the correct animal is a matter of controversy), and so forth. Beavers and the rest of the animals may be played or not in money play, as the players wish. Beavers and other animals are never used in match play. -- Andy Latto
It should be noted that the original cube turner can drop a beaver. For example, suppose I miscount a bearoff and double, you accept and say you want to beaver. I realize something is wrong and recount. If I am horribly behind, I can drop the beaver, paying you the value on the cube before you beavered. -michael j zehr
A8. What is a Chouette?A Chouette is a social backgammon variant for more than 2 players. One player is ``the box'', and plays against all other players on a single board. One other player is the captain, and rolls the dice and makes the plays for the team that opposes the box. If the box wins, the captain goes to the back of the line, and the next player becomes captain. If the captain wins, the box goes to the back of the line, and the captain becomes the new box.Customs vary as to the rights of the captain's partners: In some Chouettes, they may consult freely as to the way rolls should be played. In others, consultation is prohibited. A compromise, where consultation is allowed only after the cube has been turned, is popular. Originally, Chouettes were played with a single cube. The only decisions that players other than the captain were allowed to make independently concerned takes: If the box doubled, each player on the team could take or drop independently. Today, multiple-cube Chouettes are more popular; each player on the team has his own cube, and all doubling, dropping, and taking decisions are made independently by all players. -- Andy Latto
A9. Basic Strategy for Beginners.Single checkers (blots) on a point are vulnerable to enemy attack and must start over if hit by n opponent's checker. Two or more checkers on a point are safe from attack and can also be used for blocking or trapping your opponent.Essentially backgammon is a race to see who takes off all of his checkers first. However, the shortest distance between two points is not always a straight line. Most beginners, rarely leave exposed checkers and hit as often as they can. As you will find out, this seemingly logical approach is not the best strategy. The following is a simplification of some of the factors that you should consider in forming a winning game plan:
From Macintosh Expert Backgammon Documentation
by Tom Johnson komodo@netcom.com
A10. Opening Rolls.From: kwoolsey@netcom.com (Kit Woolsey) Subject: Re: What are the best ways to play the opening rolls? Date: Sun, 19 Mar 1995 05:19:43 GMT [...] Now, on the what I believe is an accurate synopsis of the 15 possible opening rolls: 2-1: The slotting play 13/11, 6/5 and the splitting play 24/23, 13/11, the two most common plays, seem to be about equal. Nothing else is a serious contender. 3-1: 8/5, 6/5 is obviously the only play. 4-1: The splitting play 24/23, 13/9 has come out clearly superior to the slotting play 13/9, 6/5. Probably the reason is that with the builder on the 9 point there are so many good pointing numbers next turn anyway that you don't need the 5 point slotted. 5-1: The splitting play 24/23, 13/8 has come out a bit better than the slotting play 13/8, 6/5. A third less common alternative, 24/18, came out clearly worse. 6-1: The obvious 13/7, 8/7 is correct. Magriel's experiment of 13/7, 6/5 is awful. 3-2: The splitting play 24/21, 13/11 came out a bit better than building with 13/10, 13/11. 4-2: 8/4, 6/4 of course. 5-2: The normal play for years has been 13/11, 13/8. However the newer splitting play, 24/22, 13/8, (shunned because of the crushing 5-5 threat) has come out a bit better. The slotting play of 13/8, 6/4 (which used to be my choice) did not survive the rollouts -- it was clearly inferior. 6-2: The splitting play of 24/18, 13/11 comes out fairly clearly superior. Running with 24/16 is 2nd, but the run isn't far enough. Slotting with 13/5 (a common choice several years ago) was definitely in third place. 4-3: The building play of 13/10, 13/9 and the common splitting play of 24/20, 13/10 were just about tied. The alternative split of 24/21, 13/9 was only a little behind. 5-3: The simple 8/3, 6/3 is clearly best. The once common 13/10, 13/8 has been found vastly inferior. 6-3: The splitting 24/18, 13/10 comes out best, but the running play of 24/15 is not too far behind. 5-4: Splitting with 24/20, 13/8 and building with 13/9, 13/8 come out quite close (that builder on the 9 point is powerful), with the split generally a tiny bit better. 24/15 is weaker still. 6-4: Both running with 24/14 and splitting with 24/18, 13/9 are about equal. However the once laughed at 8/2, 6/2 has reared its head as a serious contender and comes out about equal with the other choices -- nice play to try if you get familiar with it, since your opponent probably won't be. 6-5: The simple 24/13 is clearly better than any other possibilities. Section B: ELECTRONIC BACKGAMMON: VS OTHER HUMANSB1. FIBS (First Internet Backgammon Server)FIBS IntroductionOn July 19, 1992 at 10:56:22 GMT, Marvin announced the birth of the FIBS. FIBS is an abbreviation for First Internet Backgammon Server. It is a server program written by Andreas Schneider marvin@fraggel65.mdstud.chalmers.se. Praise to him!After using a site in Aachen Germany, It moved to the present site ins Sweden on December 3, 1993. You can connect to FIBS using telnet; the server runs on machine fraggel65.mdstud.chalmers.se (raw address 129.16.235.165). Be sure to telnet to port 4321, because telnetting to the default port will give you a regular unix login prompt, which will be of no use to you since you probably have no account on that machine. For instance, on a unix machine which is connected directly to the internet, you issue one of the following commands:
telnet fraggel65.mdstud.chalmers.se 4321
telnet 129.16.235.165 4321
and then you are connected to FIBS. Now you have to log in to FIBS. If you already have an account on FIBS, you use the login name and password you selected. If you're a first time user, you must log in as guest. Then you are granted a limited kind of access, until you make yourself known by choosing a FIBS user name and a password. From that moment on, you can use FIBS to play against other players, human or otherwise, from all over the world. Here is an example connect and login sequence for new users:
%telnet fraggel65.mdstud.chalmers.se 4321
Trying 129.16.235.165 ...
Connected to fraggel65.mdstud.chalmers.se.
Escape character is '^]'.
WELCOME TO THE
_______ _ ______ _____
| _____| | | | __ \ / ____|
| |___ | | | |__| | | |____
| ___| | | | __ < \____ \
| | | | | |__| | ____| |
|_|irst |_|nternet |______/ackgammon |_____/erver
If something unexpected happens please send mail to:
marvin@fraggel65.mdstud.chalmers.se (Andreas Schneider)
Bug reports are welcome.
This server is on the net to meet people from all countries.
All sorts of racists and fascists are not allowed to login here!
Rude language will not be tolerated on this server. Be nice.
LOGIN AS guest IF YOU ARE NEW TO THIS SERVER!
One account per person only!
Friday, September 30 10:23:10 MET ( Fri Sep 30 09:23:10 1994 UTC )
login: guest
Welcome to FIBS. You just logged in as guest.
Please register before using this server:
Type 'name username' where username is the name you want to use.
The username may not contain blanks ' ' or colons ':'.
The system will then ask you for your password twice.
Please make sure that you don't forget your password. All
passwords are encrypted before they are saved. If you forget
your password there is no way to find out what it was.
Please type 'bye' if you don't want to register now.
ONE USERNAME PER PERSON ONLY!!!
> name Newbie
Please give your password:
Please retype your password:
You are registered.
Type 'help beginner' to get started.
>
Once logged in, you are wise to read the help screens of FIBS. Read about how not to hear other people's shoutings, how the rating system works, how to watch other people play, how to talk to other people, how to invite people to play, and of couse, how to play. Everything you need is in the help screens. One thing: if you wish to read the help screens without logging into FIBS, they have been made available to WWW by Mike Quinn at http://www.cybercom.net/~damish/backgammon/mike_quinn/fibs.htm. Mark Damish made a version available for ftp or online reading from http://www.cybercom.net/~damish/backgammon/fibshelp.html When you are a little accustomed to FIBS, you can enter tournaments, which are organised occasionally by volunteers. Read newsgroup rec.games.backgammon, check out FIBS' login message, or listen for rumours spreading. Also, if you like FIBS, it will pay you to take the trouble to install/use a more friendly interface than a simple telnet client program. Several of these are available, see section Are there any GUI's for FIBS?. FIBS description last updated on October 4th, 1994 by Vincent Zweije (zweije@wi.leidenuniv.nl) FIBS HelpFIBS Command Help Summary. (One liners)
[Last updated June 1995. Are there any missing commands?]
For more detailed information on FIBS commands, type ``help'' at the while on FIBS or check out Michael Quinn's Guide to FIBS at: http://www.abekrd.co.uk/FIBS FIBS RatingsFIBS Rating Formula [From the FIBS man pages.]
From:gmortens@newstand.syr.edu (Gerald E Mortensen) Subject: fibs ratings formula plots Date: 23 Dec 1994 22:28:16 GMTi made these plots from the fibs ratings formula. experience >500. if you can't read these try setting your font to fixed or courier.
P(win) vs. ratings difference
0.8 ++-----+-------+------+-------+------+------+-------+-----++
+ + + + + + + + C +
| : C |
0.7 ++ : C B ++
| : C B |
| : B |
| : C B |
0.6 ++ : C B A A ++
| : B A A |
| : B A A |
0.5 ++ A A A ++
| A A B : |
| A A B : |
0.4 ++ A A B C : 1 pt match A ++
| B C : 5 pt match B |
| B : 9 pt match C |
| B C : |
0.3 ++ B C : ++
| C : |
+ C + + + + + + + +
0.2 ++-----+-------+------+-------+------+------+-------+-----++
-400 -300 -200 -100 0 100 200 300 400
ratings change for a win vs. ratings difference
10 ++-----+-------+------+-------+------+------+-------+-----++
+ + + + + + + + +
9 ++ C : ++
| C C : |
8 ++ C : 1 pt match A ++
| : 5 pt match B |
| C : 9 pt match C |
7 ++ C : ++
| B C : |
6 ++ B B C ++
| B B : C |
5 ++ B : C ++
| B B C |
4 ++ : B C ++
| : B B C |
| : B B C |
3 ++ : B B ++
| A A A A A : |
2 ++ A A A A A A A A ++
+ + + + + + + A A +
1 ++-----+-------+------+-------+------+------+-------+-----++
-400 -300 -200 -100 0 100 200 300 400
ratings diff (your rating - opponent's)
ratings change is the same for both players if both
have experience > than 500 (or have equal experience < 500).
jay (wilfo)
FIBS - Rating Changes 2/16/95
change in rating when favorite wins
rate points in match
diff 1 2 3 5 7 9 11
------------------------------------------------------------
0 2.00 2.83 3.46 4.47 5.29 6.00 6.63
40 1.95 2.74 3.33 4.24 4.97 5.59 6.13
80 1.91 2.64 3.19 4.01 4.65 5.18 5.63
120 1.86 2.55 3.05 3.79 4.34 4.77 5.14
160 1.82 2.46 2.92 3.56 4.03 4.38 4.67
200 1.77 2.37 2.78 3.35 3.73 4.01 4.22
240 1.73 2.28 2.65 3.13 3.44 3.65 3.79
280 1.68 2.19 2.52 2.93 3.16 3.31 3.39
320 1.64 2.11 2.39 2.73 2.90 2.99 3.02
360 1.59 2.02 2.27 2.54 2.65 2.69 2.68
400 1.55 1.94 2.15 2.35 2.42 2.41 2.37
440 1.50 1.86 2.03 2.18 2.20 2.15 2.08
480 1.46 1.78 1.92 2.01 1.99 1.92 1.83
change in rating when underdog wins
rate points in match
diff 1 2 3 5 7 9 11
------------------------------------------------------------
0 2.00 2.83 3.46 4.47 5.29 6.00 6.63
40 2.05 2.92 3.60 4.70 5.61 6.41 7.14
80 2.09 3.01 3.74 4.93 5.93 6.82 7.64
120 2.14 3.10 3.88 5.16 6.25 7.23 8.13
160 2.18 3.19 4.01 5.38 6.56 7.62 8.60
200 2.23 3.28 4.15 5.60 6.86 7.99 9.05
240 2.27 3.37 4.28 5.81 7.14 8.35 9.48
280 2.32 3.46 4.41 6.02 7.42 8.69 9.88
320 2.36 3.55 4.53 6.22 7.68 9.01 10.2
360 2.41 3.63 4.66 6.41 7.93 9.31 10.6
400 2.45 3.72 4.78 6.59 8.17 9.59 10.9
440 2.50 3.80 4.89 6.76 8.39 9.85 11.2
480 2.54 3.88 5.01 6.93 8.59 10.1 11.4
ratio - points lost to points won by favorite
rate points in match
diff 1 2 3 5 7 9 11
------------------------------------------------------------
0 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00
40 1.05 1.07 1.08 1.11 1.13 1.15 1.17
80 1.10 1.14 1.17 1.23 1.28 1.32 1.36
120 1.15 1.22 1.27 1.36 1.44 1.51 1.58
160 1.20 1.30 1.38 1.51 1.63 1.74 1.84
200 1.26 1.38 1.49 1.67 1.84 2.00 2.15
240 1.32 1.48 1.61 1.85 2.08 2.29 2.50
280 1.38 1.58 1.75 2.06 2.35 2.63 2.91
320 1.45 1.68 1.89 2.28 2.65 3.02 3.39
360 1.51 1.80 2.05 2.53 2.99 3.47 3.95
400 1.58 1.92 2.22 2.80 3.38 3.98 4.61
440 1.66 2.05 2.40 3.10 3.82 4.57 5.37
480 1.74 2.18 2.60 3.44 4.31 5.25 6.25
Batting Average for favorite to maintain rating
points in match
diff 1 2 3 5 7 9 11
--------------------------------------
0 .500 .500 .500 .500 .500 .500 .500
40 .512 .516 .520 .526 .530 .534 .538
80 .523 .533 .540 .551 .561 .569 .576
120 .534 .549 .560 .577 .590 .602 .613
160 .546 .565 .579 .602 .619 .635 .648
200 .557 .581 .598 .626 .648 .666 .682
240 .569 .596 .617 .650 .675 .696 .714
280 .580 .612 .636 .673 .701 .725 .744
320 .591 .627 .654 .695 .726 .751 .772
360 .602 .642 .672 .716 .750 .776 .798
400 .613 .657 .689 .737 .772 .799 .822
440 .624 .672 .706 .756 .793 .820 .843
480 .635 .686 .723 .775 .812 .840 .862
FIBS ratings tables submitted by William C. Bitting FIBS ratings reports are posted regularly to Rec.games.backgammon. Back issues are available from: http://www.columbia.edu/~radev/backgammon/fibsratings/ http://www.cs.ualberta.ca/~banks/fibs/test.html Computer Programs On FibsCurrently there several computer programs on FIBS:tesauro (the original neural net bg program TD-Gammon) mloner (neural net) idiot (neural net (JellyFish)) jellyfish (nn) loner (The 1-pt version of mloner) EXBGthree fatboy (nn) fattest (nn) jemina (Algrithmic, entering cocoon, to emerge as a nn) music Big_Brother (only logs matches) Some programs play with humans entering the data, while others are full fledged bots. FIBS Misc.FIBS (and FIBS/W) Instruction book.Hunter Jones has put together a very nice reference to FIBS and FIBS/W. It is nicely typeset and printed on heavy paper stock. The contents make a nice reference to FIBS and the FIBS/W interface. Commands are pre-sorted by catagory, and it makes looking for an answer extremely easy. It is 8 pages on 6 sheets of paper, and is especially worthwile for the new player. It is not just a rehash of the man pages. Price is $4 for U.S. addresses, $6 US for foreign addresses. All payments must be in US funds (check, money order or cash). If you wish expedited shipment, enclose suitable payment. (For example, $10 additional for US FedEx overnight.) Be sure to enclose your address (FedEx and the like cannot deliver to PO Boxes.) Contact Hunter Jones at: hunter@ix.netcom.com
6617 Struttmann Lane From: thrash@mercury.interpath.net Newsgroups: rec.games.backgammon Subject: online FIBS help for OS/2 users Date: 7 Mar 1995 03:45:57 GMT For FIBS players who use OS/2: I recently created an online help file (.INF) for all the FIBS commands. It's basically the same help you get from the FIBS server but with hyper-text links to related commands. If you're new to FIBS, I'm sure it will help - although I can't guarantee it will increase your FIBS rating ;) Email me if your interested, I can send it via uuencode mail. -J- B2. What is the Internet and how do I get onto it?[This is copied verbatim, with permission, from OK.FAQ. References to 'OK' are referring to the bridge server.][Permission from mclegg@cs.ucsd.edu (Matthew Clegg) for use here.] In addition to having access to a Unix system, you must also be connected to the Internet. The Internet is a worldwide computer network which was founded for the sake of promoting research and education. Recently, the Internet has been broadening its mission and it's likely that soon the Internet will be open for commercial as well as educational uses. Already it is possible for the general public to obtain access to the Internet for a modest fee in many metropolitan areas of the US. A few representative Internet providers include: Area Served Voice No. Email Organization ----------- -------- ----- ------------ West Coast 408-554-UNIX info@netcom.com Netcom Online Comm. Svcs Boston 617-739-0202 office@world.std.com The World New York City 212-877-4854 alexis@panix.com PANIX Public Access Unix Many OKbridgers play from home using a PC or Mac and a modem. Frequently, these people have obtained access to the Internet by purchasing an account from a "public access Unix system connected to the Internet," which is the jargon describing the service provided by the above companies. Having obtained such an account, it is usually a simple matter to obtain OKbridge and begin playing (see below). If you will be searching for a means to use OKbridge, it is important to remember the wording, "public access Unix system (directly) connected to the Internet." There are a number of BBS operators who have Email connections to the Internet, but this is not sufficient. Also, there are several network services which provide access to the Internet but which are not Unix based (Delphi is a notable example). For more information about the Internet, which is an amazing and wonderful resource, see the books:
Krol, Ed, The Whole Internet: User's Guide & Catalog,
Kehoe, Brendan P., Zen and the Art of the Internet: A Beginner's Guide,
LaQuey, Tracy, with Jeanne C. Ryer, The Internet Companion: These books are filled with useful information about Unix and the Internet, including how to send electronic mail, how to download free software, and how to access some of the many information services which are available on the Internet. The World Wide Web (WWW or 'Web' for short) is a system by which text, pictures, audio files and movies can be transmitted across the internet. Old resources you may have heard of -- telnet, news, gopher, ftp -- can all now be regarded as part of the Web. Many of the 'pages' on the Web are written in a language called HTML. This language allows basic formatting of the text, and images to be included within the text, but also it allows 'links' to other documents which may be local or on the other side of the world. For example, I could say 'I have information about cows' and the word 'cows' would be highlighted somehow (underlined or in a different colour). If you select that word -- typically by clicking your mouse on it or pressing Enter if you have no mouse -- you will be taken to a page about cows which could be another page of mine or of someone in Australia. It does not take much imagination to see how I can then hop all over the world, following these links and reading all manner of information. In order to access the Web, you need a so called 'client program' or 'browser'. The two most popular are called Mosaic (for graphical terminals) and 'lynx' for text based terminals. If you have got one of these programs, you can start browsing the Web immediately. If not, do what you can to get one! [The Netscape browser is also now worth a mention. It was only in beta test at the time I originally wrote this, and a bit buggy, but now it's my preferred browser. You can get it via anonymous ftp from ftp.mcom.com in the directory /netscape : it's free for academic and non-profit use. S.T. 30/1/95] Stephen R. E. Turner
e-mail: sret1@cam.ac.uk
Good places to find local internet providers are listed at the following web sites: http://www.internic.net http://thelist.com B3. Are there any GUI's (Graphical User Interfaces) for FIBS?TinyfugueTinyfugue is a telnet client program which breaks the screen into separate 'panes' for input and output. A specialized version exists where a non scrolling backgammon board is displayed in a third pane. The specialized version is available for anonymous ftp from figment.csee.usf.edu in the directory /pub/misc/FIBS_client.The FIBS command "help tinyfugue" will provide some hints on using this program. Patches made by:
David Eggert eggertd@aisb.ed.ac.uk
Andreas Schneider marvin@fraggel.mdstud65.chalmers.se figment.csee.usf.edu /pub/misc/FIBS_client From: jlehett@mailhost.gate.net Newsgroups: rec.games.backgammon Subject: OS/2 Native FIBS-Tinyfugue Client Available now! Date: 11 Dec 1994 01:49:27 GMT I just uploaded my port of the fibs-tinyfigue client to the incoming directories of the hobbes and ftp-os2/cdrom OS/2 sites. It only works via TCP/IP connections (SLIP/TIA are fine!) and requires the emxrt.zip support, so be sure to get that too. The included text file tells about the port so have a look all OS/2 fibsters! Send along any bugs, etc, and I'll see what I can do. ---- John J. Lehett Land-J Technologies JLEHETT@GATE.NET [ It has been reported (95-06) That this e-mail address is no longer in use] xfibsxfibs - graphical interface to FIBS (First Internet Backgammon Server) DESCRIPTION XFibs is a Motif-based interface to FIBS. FIBS allows you to play backgammon against other people (and an increasing number of computer programs). Unfortu- nately, FIBS is text-based and moves must be typed in numeric notation. XFibs graphical interface provides a mouse-driven board, which minimises text input. Below is an explanation of the various feautures of XFibs, and what you may do to further customize it according to your own desires. At the very end you'll also find the backgammon rules. HOW TO PLAY XFibs draws two windows, one to display a backgammon board which is fully resizable and scalable; and another for the text information. FIBS is a vibrant and lively place, often with lots of banter going on as well as matches starting and finish- ing. With XFibs you'll only really use the text window occasionally because you can forget all about how the board is numbered, in XFibs you move your pieces with the mouse. The right button brings forward a popup-menu with several choices like "roll dice", "double" etc., selecting "roll dice" when it's your turn will cause two dice to appear. The left button allows you to click on a piece and drag it to where you want to put it. You can then release the left button to drop the piece. If the move is valid, XFibs will draw the piece at the new location. (You can now pick-up a piece and move both dice in one action: i.e. 24-13 with 6-5, pick up from 24, drop on 13. The left-hand die is the default first die of a move, the the right-hand die. If the left-hand die can't move, XFibs will try the reverse combination. So If you have a roll in both combinations are legal, but only one hits an opponent, you may need to drag-and-drop to guarantee a hit or a miss). Alternatively, you can double-click on the middle button over a piece to have XFibs move it (again the left-hand die is the default first die of a move). If you decide that you didn't want to move a piece, you can take it back (either by drag-and-drop or by popup). Once you are happy with a move, it has to be sent to FIBS. This is done by clicking your right mouse button again. This popup menu changes according to what is going on. Now it says "accept move", "undo move" etc. Between games in a match it says "join" "leave". Try it out! If you get a text description of the board in the output window, you have to issue a 'set boardstyle 3' to FIBS. You may then save your setup my typing 'save' or include this command after a 'on_login' command in your startup file. (see below) All in all, just fool around with it, it isn't that hard to figure out... (At least I hope it isn't) [...] AUTHOR Torstein Hansen Available from: ftp://itekiris.kjemi.unit.no/pub and/or ftp://www.abekrd.co.uk/pub/fibs/ The source is available from: ftp://ftp.x.org/contrib/games/xfibs08.tar.gz MacFIBSMacFIBS greatly enhances the virtual backgammon experience; it's backgammon played "The Macintosh Way".MacFIBS provides a multi-window, graphical front end to FIBS , vastly superior to the "dumb terminal" telnet scrolling text format that FIBS uses underneath. It also makes excellent use of sound to reinforce the backgammon playing experience. Rather than viewing backgammon positions as a series of X's and O's in a crude character-based text window, MacFIBS offers a full color backgammon board. Instead of typing cryptic commands like 'm 24 22 15 14', you drag colored checkers around the board, exactly like playing a real game. The user can select from two board sizes and choose which color and direction to play. Real-time pip count information is also displayed. Other windows include: a Player window to invite, get info, or watch other players, an elegant Chat window for conversing with other players, and a Terminal window for full access to FIBS and telnet. The user can color code and keep private notes about other players (the color coding is also used in the Chat window). MacFIBS is freeware and is my contribution to the 'net. The program requires a color Macintosh and MacTCP, and is available via ftp at the Info-Mac Archives (sumex-aim.stanford.edu) as well as numerous mirror sites around the world. MacFIBS 2.0* is a self-extracting archive file: ftp://ftp.best.com/pub/fergy --fergy [MacFIBS is also available on AOL, as well as Info-Mac mirror sites.
TkFibsFrom: keithv@chiwaukum.CS.Berkeley.EDU (Keith Vetter) Subject: TkFibs - an X interface to FIBS available Date: 4 Apr 1994 19:31:41 GMT Organization: University of California, Berkeley Announcing TkFibs, an X based, graphical user interface to Fibs. TkFibs is a tcl/tk client that provides a better interface to Fibs. It displays two windows: one a graphical depiction of the board, the other session window with Fibs ala the bottom two windows in tinyfugue. I've been using the program for over 5 months now so it should be very solid. I've run it on DecStations, SparcStations, HP 735 and Alphas. The biggest caveat is that it requires TCL/TK to run. TCL/TK is a very nice scripting / user interface package for X. It is available from ftp.cs.berkeley.edu in /ucb/tcl. TkFibs is located at ftp://shuksan.cs.berkeley.edu/pub/tkfibs Send comments, suggestions, bugs, etc to: tkfibs@shuksan.cs.berkeley.edu Enjoy keith vetter FIBS/WFIBS/W is a Microsoft Windows(TM) based client for FIBS. FIBS/W provides a graphical game board and mouse-driven interface to the FIBS server. Most operations required to play a game can be executed using mouse, keyboard, menus or toolbar buttons.Powerful configuration options for many common Internet host systems, and communications service providers, and a built-in communications scripting language allow FIBS/W to automatically dial and connect to FIBS via the Internet with a single mouse click. To use FIBS/W you must be able to satisfy one of two conditions:
FIBS/W is provided as Shareware. The registration fee is US$40. This version of FIBS/W includes a Nag Screen (a mildly annoying dialog which is displayed every time the program is run) but is otherwise fully functional. FIBS/W is available via anonymous FTP at: resudox.net in the directory /pub/pc/windows/games/fibsw. FIBS/W is available via the web at http://www.magic.com/~rdavies/fibsw.html A WWW page for FIBS/W is available at ftp://resudox.net/pub/pc/windows/games/fibsw/html/fibsw.html Best regards, Robin Davies.
xibcFrom: d9jesper@dtek.chalmers.se (Jesper Blommaskog) "xibc" is an X11 client to the First Internet Backgammon Server (FIBS). It is using the freeware packages Tcl, Tk and Expect. Normally, you have to fetch and compile those to be able to run xibc, but not anymore (provided you have a SunSparc!). ftp.cd.chalmers.se:pub/xibc/xibc-X.XX.tar.Z ftp.cd.chalmers.se:pub/xibc/xibc-X.XX.README ftp://ftp.cd.chalmers.se/pub/xibc/ # If you need an executable (Sun-SparcOS 4.1.x only): ftp.cd.chalmers.se:pub/xibc/binREADME ftp.cd.chalmers.se:pub/xibc/BX.enc # If you need an executable and don't have a Sparc, then you need # to compile Tcl, Tk and Expect on your own. Here's the ftp addresses: sprite.berkeley.edu:/tcl/tcl7.3.tar.Z sprite.berkeley.edu:/tcl/tk3.6.tar.Z sprite.berkeley.edu:/tcl/tk3.6p1.patch ftp.cme.nist.gov:/pub/expect/alpha.tar.Z (all but the patch are present at cme.nist.gov) Features of xibc include: * Log out from FIBS but keep the interface on the screen (maybe iconified). Permits you to start xibc in your X startup files and keep it up all time. * X resource Tk*xibcLogfile that names a file where to log match results. Example from my own file ~/.Xdefaults: Tk*xibcLogfile: ~/spel/backgammon/xibc.log * Resource Tk*xibcDelay that sets the programmed delayes in the interface (the time interval between the different moves in a sequence). Time is in milliseconds. May also be changed during a session from a menu (but may not be saved). Example: Tk*xibcDelay: 500 * The command line has some emacs/tcsh-style "cooked" line features: C-n next line in history C-p previous line in history C-a first on line C-e last on line C-u delete whole line C-d delete the character after the insertion marker and also C-s toggle "autoscroll" mode of the text window C-l toggle logging of game to a log file C-c log out from server and quit the interface * There is a menu option called "Emergency". It may also be invoked with "M-e". It reloads the whole board position from the server. Nice when the interface screws up (it does sometimes). * A menu option "Empty textwindow" will delete all rows in the text window in access of 500. May someday become an X resource. Don't try to push the interface to hard, that is, don't try to break it. You will most definitely succeed (not hard at all, I guess). Since I'm sort of an artist, I don't like breaking my own things so I haven't really tried to find the bugs. Special features (also called known bugs): * Try the "look" command. * Play a game against "You". * Do several things at "the same time". * Answer questions like "Accept double" or "join/leave" from the command line, not by using the interface. If you try them out, remember there's always the "Emergency" command around. -Jesper Blommaskog, author of "xibc" ----- [Just a reminder to client writers. Some of us live behind 'firewalls', or can only obtain phone access. Please remember us!] B4. What is LDB? (Long Distance Backgammon. BG by Email)Long Distance Backgammon. Play backgammon by E-mail.Program written by Perry R. Ross (perry@aap.com) From the ldb man page: Ldb allows two people to play backgammon over a network using electronic mail. It runs on character-oriented terminals, or emulators thereof, using the curses screen package. It will run on most UNIX dialects, as well as VAX-C under VMS 5.0 and above. Ldb handles all aspects of starting, playing, checking, and scoring games. It enforces all normal game rules, as well as several optional rules, and will not let you make an illegal move. When you have made your moves, ldb will automatically package your move and send them to your opponent. The latest version is 1.3.2. Version 1.3 can be found in directory volume36. Patches can be found in subsequent volumes at your favorite comp.sources.misc archive site. Patch 1 is in volume 39. Patch 2 is in volume 41. Use: 'unix_prompt$ archie ldb' to locate the sources. [from Perry] [Has anybody written a PC/Mac version using CC-mail via a Novell network?] [from Perry...] [Anybody have a little ambition?] The ldb 'game starter' operated by leopard@midnight.WPI.edu (Leo Gestetner) has been shut down. [ Are there others? ...Mark] LDB may be obtained on the net from: ftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/vms/games/board/ldb.shr and ftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/unix/games/ldb.tar.gz B5. What other ways are there to play people via nets/modems/e-mail?Netgammon backgammon serverGarrett has shut down Netgammon as of late February 1995. It will be remembered and missed.
GEnieRSCARDS Backgammon on GEnieGEnie (General Electric's Consumer Information Service) offers on-line multi-player games in RSCARDS including backgammon. Features:
To sign up to GEnie, just follow these simple steps:
Once you have a GEnie account, simply type RSCARDS from
any GEnie prompt. This will take you to the main area, where you can download
GUI's and get general information on RSCARDS. TOURNAMENT INFORMATION: GEnie Backgammon Tourneys are held quarterly. Sign-ups
start: Tourney play starts the third Wednesday of those months [Section on tourney rules is available online at GEnie]
outlandBackgammon is among a package of eight Macintosh only internet games offerred for a flat monthly fee ($9.95) by the on-line service Outland, Inc. The games are advertised and offerred for ftp and free trial at http://www.outland.com/OutlandBackgammon.html Judging from the web page it appears to share many features with FIBS plus providing a nice built-in graphical (draggable pieces) interface.
PBeMPlay By E-MailWhile not quite in thte same league as FIBS, I have a PBeM Server that supports Backgammon as one of its' games. Send mail to: pbmserv@vtsu.prc.com with 'help' as the Subject: line for details, or visit Richards page at: http://coyote.vtsu.prc.com:8080/~pbmserv JavaGammonThis appears to be a backgammon server that allows players with the hotjava browser to play other players. The server has been created by Lee Smith.http://www-leland.stanford.edu/~leesmith/JavaGammon.html JavaGammon http://www-leland.stanford.edu/~leesmith/hotjava.html Info on Java extensions, programs, etc... B6. Are there any electronic tournaments?There are tournaments on FIBS and GEnie.Tournaments on FIBS have been organized by David Escoffery (davide), and David Eggert (snoopy). contact: davide@sco.com eggertd@aisb.ed.ac.uk http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/staff/personal_pages/eggertd/backgammon.html GEnie has a quarterly single elimination tournament. $25 entry fee. Cash and credit prizes for first-fourth place. Hourly fee in effect while you play. The draw is non random, in that previous winners are placed such that they do not play each other in the first several rounds. B7. Do other game servers exist?BackgammonThere are no backgammon servers other than FIBS in operation on the internet at present.
BridgeGet 'OK.FAQ' from rec.games.bridge or rtfm.mit.edu for info on the Internet bridge server. Reported servers:
telnet okbridge@irc.nsysu.edu.tw 4321
login: okbridge password: okbridge
telnet bridge:bridge.0@zaphod.ttu.ee
login: bridge pasword: bridge.0
[The above servers have been reported to have an annual fee.]
telnet vanderbilt.okbridge.com
[Free guest trials are availble for the above server.]
A further source of information is available at:
http://www.cts.com/~okbridge/
Scrabble-liketelnet seabass.st.usm.edu 7777 or 134.53.14.112.7777 Chinese Chess (Xianqi) USA: telnet coolidge.harvard.edu 5555 or 128.103.28.15 5555
Sweden: telnet hippolytos.ud.chalmers.se 5555 or 129.16.79.39 5555
Taiwan: telnet 140.112.50.160 5555
A Xianqi Web page may be read at: http://www.io.org/~sung/xq/xq.html
OthelloOthello(tm)/Reversi: telnet faust.uni-paderborn.de 5000 Chessrafael.metiu.ucsb.edu 5000 128.111.246.2 5000 anemone.daimi.aau.dk 5000 130.225.18.58 5000 chess.lm.com 5000 129.15.10.21 5000 It has been reported that the chess servers now charge an anual fee. Goigs.nuri.net 6969 203.255.112.3 6969 information: tweet@ig.nuri.net tcasey@adobe.com It has been mentioned that it is possible to play chinese chess on this server. CheckersInformation about the checker playing program
``Chinook'' may be obtained by visiting the web page: Besides information, the Chinook page lets you play a game on-line against the computer program which has beaten the human world champion. Other Games Servers and Web Pageshttp://www.yahoo.com/Entertainment/Games YAHOO WWW Games Directory http://www.dcs.qmw.ac.uk/~steed/Games/bygame.html Games and Puzzles on the Internet http://www.io.com/games/servers.html A list of game servers http://www.inrete.it/games/telnet_e.html A list of game servers. Section C: ELECTRONIC BACKGAMMON: VS MACHINECommercial backgammon playing programsC1. Are there any BG programs out there for my computer? Where are they?JellyFishEver since Gerry Tesauro finished TD-Gammon, it was only a matter of time before a neural network program would become available to the public. That time has come. Fredrik Dahl's masterpiece, Jellyfish, is a breakthrough for backgammon. Both the checker play and cube action of the program are at an expert level, making Jellyfish a truly enjoyable and challenging competitor. In addition the program looks over your plays and points out when you have made a serious error, making it extremely valuable for learning purposes.Jellyfish is run under Windows for the PC. Moves are made with the mouse, and can be done very quickly and efficiently. The display is nice and easy to see. Some additional features of the program: Plays both single games and matches (yes, it understands match equities). Allows the user to construct positions and save them. Gives the user the program's evaluation of the equity of a position upon request, and the evaluation function is surprisingly accurate. Tells the user when he has made an error in checker play or cube decision, making the program the most valuable tutor in the world. In addition, a separate version is expected which will also permit the user to roll out positions. In the past computer rollouts were always suspect because the program didn't play well enough so the results could be very distorted. This is no longer the case, since Jellyfish definitely plays well enough to handle almost any position adequately. Results from its rollouts can be trusted, and we will be able to find the answers to many backgammon questions which we previously did not know. For the casual player, Jellyfish provides an excellent opponent and a way to improve while playing. For the serious student of the game, this program is an absolute must. Our knowledge of the game is about to take a quantum leap, and the player who does not have access to Jellyfish will be left far behind. Kit Woolsey
Hardware requirements: 386sx or better Also available from: The GAMMON PRESS , Carol Joy Cole and The Dansk Backgammon Forlag. The program, and technical support are also available from Larry Strommen within the USA. Contact: L. A. Strommen; 6866 Meadow View Dr.; Indianapolis, IN 46226Fredrik Dahl may be contacted at fredrikd@ifi.uio.no It should be noted that JellyFish uses a copy protection scheme. The program requires that you ``confirm'' your installation once a month, at the first of the month, by inserting the original disk. There are no limits to how many machines you may install the program on. The DOS rollout module is not protected at all, although the rollout files must be created using JellyFish. TD-GammonFrom wbitting@crl.com Sat Sep 16 20:40:09 PDT 1995Article: 9552 of rec.games.backgammon From: wbitting@crl.com (William C. Bitting) Newsgroups: rec.games.backgammon Subject: TD-Gammon & IBM Family FunPak Date: 14 Sep 1995 22:41:22 -0700 Excerpted from: by Jeri Dube (This section is out of sequence as presented in original article.) Although playing backgammon on a computer that plays as well as a world class master seems somewhat awe-inspiring, you can work up to it. The game comes with five skill settings, where each higher setting uses an increasing larger and more complex neural network as its underlying engine. If you want to use TD-Gammon to improve your backgammon skills, it is quite good as a learning device. Not only do you get feedback from the results of your playing but the system is quite supportive of you. It gives a modest, `I win' message when you lose and a hearty `Congratulations, you win!', when the computer loses. To embody this expert backgammon-playing neural network into an OS/2 game, IBM Research hired Keith Weiner, a professional PC game developer, to add a front end written for OS/2's presentation manager. TD-Gammon is fully 32-bit and takes full advantage of OS/2 Warp's multi-threading capabilities. Like all presentation manager programs, TD- Gammon comes with a settings notebook where you can set things such as the background color and the animation speed. Given the success of the TD-Gammon game, I asked Gerry what his next neural network game would be. He told me that researchers have used other games such as Chess, Othello, and Go with varying degrees of success to study neural network learning. None have been as successful as backgammon. Gerry theorizes that the stochastic element of backgammon (i.e. throwing the dice) is what makes backgammon so useful in modeling the self-learning process. With that in mind, Gerry's next venture into self-learning is with financial time series analysis. If that project is as successful at learning as the backgammon game, then I'm really looking forward to that program. For more information on Gerry's work, you may want to read his article ``Temporal Difference Learning and TD-Gammon'' published in Communications of the ACM, volume 38, number 3, pp. 58-68 (March 1995). (The newsletter article starts here and ends with the above 4 paragraphs.) When most people think of IBM Research, they tend to think of fractals, scanning- tunneling-electron microscopes, or high temperature superconductivity. Games are not usually one of the thoughts that come to mind. However, the TD- Gammon game included in the IBM Family FunPak for OS/2 Warp was developed by IBM Research. By virtue of being created at such an auspicious place, you would think that this version of backgammon is quite special. Well, to be quite honest and not so humble, it is! TD-Gammon is the most advanced computer version of backgammon. It can play at the most advanced levels. If the system were a human, it would be rated as a World Class Master. TD-Gammon was developed by IBM Research Staff Member, Gerry Tesauro. Gerry is not a game developer, rather he is a theoretical physicist who has been working in the area of neural networks and artificial intelligence for several years. He did not initially intend to develop an OS/2 game for the Family FunPak. All he wanted to develop was a basic research project to study learning algorithms that would enable a computer to teach itself a task. Gerry chose backgammon as the task because it appeared to be a good domain in which a neural network might work well. At this point you may be wondering now that I've mentioned it twice, what is a neural network? Well, in short, it's a model of interconnected neurons (also known as nodes) that was inspired by the logical neurons in the human nervous system. Each connection between neurons has a particular weight value associated with it. In the case of backgammon, the state of the backgammon board is fed into input neurons that have connections to hidden neurons (or units). These hidden neurons in turn connect to an output layer that holds the value of the state (that is, the chances of winning from that particular state). The computation between the input neurons and the hidden neurons is a weighted linear summation of all the input neurons. The result of the summation is put through a thresholding function. This function compresses the value to lie within a certain range of probabilities. (In case it ever comes up in conversation, the function is known as a squashing function.) The squashing function is a non- linear function. The non-linearity allows a system to learn more complex functions. To use this model to teach a system backgammon, all the initial weights between the neurons are randomly set. The neural network starts from the opening backgammon position and plays both sides until one of the sides wins. The outcome of the game is used as a reward signal for reinforcement learning. That is, the neural network takes the outcome of the game and adjusts the weights accordingly. The adjustments improve the network's ability to evaluate board states for subsequent plays of the game. This learning process is repeated hundreds and thousands of times. Using an RS/6000 computer, the learning actually took about two weeks. Gerry and his colleagues were amazed at how well the neural network learned to play backgammon. The system kept getting better and better until it reached the world class master status. Actually, the neural network could improve its play even more with further training and a larger network. TD-Gammon is available on the new IBM Family FunPak for OS/2. The FunPak may be purchased from Indulable Blue [add url] or from a number of other mail order software houses. From: jiml@teleport.com (Jim Little) IBM has made TD-Gammon, their supposedly groundbreaking neural network- based version of Backgammon, available for free download. It seems to be part of an attempt to promote their IBM Family FunPack. You can get it by surfing to http://www.austin.ibm.com/pspinfo/funtdgammon.htm and following the "Read the license information" link. You will have to fill out a form with your name, address, etc. (But nothing forces you to enter valid information. ;) ) From their web page: "TD Gammon requires OS/2 2.1 or higher, an Intel 386-SX or higher, with Advanced and Expert levels requiring a 486-DX 33MHz or higher, and a minimum of 6 meg of memory is recommended." -Jim Little (jiml@teleport.com) [md] The original article is available at: http://www.austin.ibm.com/psinfo/m4bakgam.htm Newsgroups: rec.games.backgammon From: tesauro@watson.ibm.com (Gerry Tesauro) Subject: TD-Gammon paper available by FTP Sender: Gerald Tesauro (tesauro@watson.ibm.com) Date: Wed, 2 Jun 1993 18:06:35 GMT Disclaimer: This posting represents the poster's views, not necessarily those of IBM.The following paper, which has been accepted for publication in Neural Computation, has been placed in the neuroprose archive at Ohio State. Instructions for retrieving the paper by anonymous ftp are appended below. ---------------------------------------------------------------
TD-Gammon, A Self-Teaching Backgammon Program,
Achieves Master-Level Play
Gerald Tesauro
IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center
P. O. Box 704
Yorktown Heights, NY 10598
(tesauro@watson.ibm.com)
Abstract: TD-Gammon is a neural network that is able to teach itself to play backgammon solely by playing against itself and learning from the results, based on the TD(lambda) reinforcement learning algorithm (Sutton, 1988). Despite starting from random initial weights (and hence random initial strategy), TD-Gammon achieves a surprisingly strong level of play. With zero knowledge built in at the start of learning (i.e. given only a ``raw'' description of the board state), the network learns to play at a strong intermediate level. Furthermore, when a set of hand-crafted features is added to the network's input representation, the result is a truly staggering level of performance: the latest version of TD-Gammon is now estimated to play at a strong master level that is extremely close to the world's best human players. ---------------------------------------------------------------
FTP INSTRUCTIONS
unix% ftp archive.cis.ohio-state.edu (or 128.146.8.52)
Name: anonymous
Password: (use your e-mail address)
ftp> cd pub/neuroprose
ftp> binary
ftp> get tesauro.tdgammon.ps.Z
ftp> bye
unix% uncompress tesauro.tdgammon.ps
unix% lpr tesauro.tdgammon.ps
For a list of articles written by Gerry Tesauro, check out: A List of Backgammon Articles in Science and Business
Expert BackgammonExpert Backgammon 2.1 for PC: List of features.Mark Damish E-Mail: damish@ll.mit.edu Here is some initial information on Expert Backgammon version 2.1 for the IBM PC.
Shareware and Public Domain backgammon playing programsBLOTA backgammon program for MS-DOS"I believe Blot makes primarily other mistakes than the backgammon programs I know. Due to the selective (rather speculative) style definitely Blot is tactically the weakest program of all (with outrageous blunders in the endgame), but positionally not as flawed as many computer opponents." Blot has good results against many backgammon progs (see blot.doc). If you have any comments on blot, the authors are glad to receive mail from you. In case you don't want to bother with sending (real) mail, you can E-mail me, I'll forward your comments to the authors. The programm is still being developed, so be prepaired to get new blot versions soon :-). I hope you enjoy the programm! Alexander Fuchs available from: ftp://ftp.cybercom.net/pub/users/damish/backgammon/ Backgammon, By George!Backgammon, by George! Version 1.50 has been available since June 1995. This shareware ($15) program is suitable for Windows 3.x and Windows 95 and may be downloaded from the WINFUN forum in CompuServe and other places on the net. If you can't find it contact the author:George Sutty P.O.Box 6247 bg06Backgammon for Windows version 0.6A fairly weak backgammon program for windows, originally introduced in 1990. bg06 is available for anonymous ftp from ftp.cica.indiana.edu in the directory /pub/win3/games/
A PD mac program called ?There is a backgammon game for the Macintosh by Stephen Young, Debra Willrett, and David Young. The 1.0 version is fairly widespread, although there is a 2.0 version (dated May 25, 1989) available on America Online. The play is pretty weak, and the graphics are designed for the original small B&W Mac screen, but if you're really bored and can't find a human opponent, it works. The game is freeware, and you get what you pay for.-- Paul Ferguson
Death by BackgammonFor those interested in a good bg game for Windows, why not try Death By Backgammon for Windows. It runs under Windows 3.1 or OS2/2.1, and features animated dice/game pieces, comprehensive help, move undo, suggest move, speed control over all motion, and is fully resizeable. Best of all, its strategy is very competitive (I wrote the thing, and have a roughly 50:50 average against it over many hundreds of games). If you are interested, I would be happy to send out a shareware version for evaluation. The shareware version is fully functional, except that the computer's moves are painfully slow. There is also a DOS version, which is a bit older, but still features animation and VGA graphics.To get hold of the program there are two options:
Prices: Shareware - Nil
Registered: WIN $AS 35.00, $US 30.00.
DOS $AS 20.00, $US1 5.00.
My Postal address is: Chris Kanaris
PO Box 495
Essendon,
Victoria, 3040
Australia.
[ People who have tried the shareware version claim that the program plays a pretty weak game. Hopefully computer bg game writers will continue to make their games stronger and stronger. Not and easy task! ]
xgammonFrom: klasen@obelix.uni-muenster.de at SMTP-Post-Office Subject: contribution to FAQ xgammon.0.96 xgammon is a BG-playing programm originally written for Linux. The authors are Lambert Klasen (klasen@uni-muenster.de) and Detlef Steuer (steuer@amadeus.statistik.uni-dortmund.de, blotstorm on FIBS) Features: xgammon is Freeware under the Gnu Copyright. xgammon has nice graphical interface, you move by clicking on mousebuttons. You can do a maildump for a position, that means you get a file with a FIBS style board with current position in it. You can do money game or tournament game. You can edit positions via mouse on the board or via ascii plain text files. You can turn doubling on and off. You can do rollouts with doubling turned on and off. The programm uses an endgame database for perfect bearing off (and for reasonable running game). There is an compi_finish for shorten the boring part of the game. and and and .... You can have fun with xgammon. Give xgammon a chance getting compiled on your machine. We'd like any reactions, especially porting reports to OS different from Linux. (heard of AIX and Sun OS compiling), especially bug reports . Send a mail if you use it, please! You find the latest Version of xgammon, at the time xgammon.0.96.tar.gz, at ftp sunsite.unc.edu /pub/Linux/X11/games/strategy/xgammon.0.96.tar.gz. Detlef Steuer steuer@amadeus.statistik.uni-dortmund.de (blotstorm on FIBS) MiscOther programs that can be found around the net include: backga.zip, egagam20.zip pcgame.zip, pcgam416.zip and pcgammon.zip. Check DOS related ftp sites for locations.
C2. Which programs are good? How good is good? Program Name Source Type Score
----------------- ------ ------ ------
TD-GAMMON 2.1 N/A N/A -0.05
TD-GAMMON IBM OS/2
JellyFish 1.0 Dahl IBM-PC/Win -0.15
Expert BG 2.1 Weaver IBM-PC -0.20
Expert BG 1.61 Weaver IBM-PC -0.35
Championship BG Spinnaker IBM-PC -0.66
Expert BG Komodo Macintosh -0.82
Sensory BG 2 Scitek Portable -0.94
Backgammon Odesta IBM-PC -1.20
BG by George GS Labs IBM-PC/Win -1.52
Video Gammon Baudville IBM-PC -1.61
PC-Gammon Repsted IBM-PC -3.67
Gammon Gakken Portable -12.40
Windows BG Baudville IBM-PC/Win -13.83
Gammon Pal Fidelity Portable -15.63
Micro BG Fidelity Portable -15.53
Games People Play Toolworks IBM-PC -26.60
[ From the 1994 The GAMMON PRESS catalog.
and program reviews in Inside Backgammon.]
Score is the number of points won per game, on average, against a top
flight human player. Very large numbers are caused by bad doubling algorithms
which cause a program to double when behind (typically when primed but ahead in
the race), causing the computer to lose some very large cubes.
C3. Why is it so hard to write a good backgammon program?There are two basic ways that a computer can play a game as well as or better than humans. One is to be really smart, the other is to do an awful lot of work. The general strategy most game-playing programs use is to use an evaluation function that isn't very smart, but to make up for it by looking ahead a lot of moves (doing a lot of work).With chess, there are typically 20-30 moves by each player per turn. With backgammon, there are 21 unique rolls and often 4-6 ways to play each one (not counting doubles with could have 10 or more ways of playing). This makes it very difficult to look ahead very many levels. Looking ahead 3 moves by both players examining all possibilities when there are 25 choices at each play requires evaluating "only" 244 million positions. If there are 90 ways to play each move, there are 530,000 million, positions. With a game like chess, one can discard all but the best 5 or 10 plays per person. With backgammon, there are always 21 different choices of best plays, depending on the dice. This makes it crucial to have an excellent evaluation function. The difficulty in doing this is that factors such as the race have a different effect on the value of the position depending on what stage the game is in. Consider the concept of timing -- hard enough for people to grasp, extremely difficult for computers. Another example of the difficulty of evaluating plays: It's almost always beneficial to close out your opponents checkers. But if you've hit one checker and you almost have to hit a second to be able to win, closing out your opponent is very bad. -michael j zehr Further information relating to machine learning in games may be found at: http://forum.swarthmore.edu/~jay/learn-game/systems/gammon.html C4. Backgammon support software and software reviews.Commercial Software[NOTE: Programs that play backgammon are in the section: Are there any BG programs out there for my computer? Where are they? " ie: JellyFish & Expert Backgammon.]BOINQBoinq is a program which analyzes bearoffs. It can handle any position where both sides have all their men in the inner board. All results are cubeless. For any position you enter, you can get the probabality of each side winning, equity on a 1-cube, proper way to play any roll of the dice, and a distribution of probabality of bearing off in any number of rolls. The results are displayed virtually instantaneously, since they are read directly from a data file rather than done by simulation. Very user friendly and easy to use -- I use it a lot for a quick check on bearoff problems. Program takes about 4 meg, so have some room on your hard disk. Produced by Hal Heinrich -- cost is $100 I think. Can contact Hal at:Hal Heinrich Phone: (403) 234-9944 Kit [Note: Also available from Carol Joy Cole]
Hyper-BackgammonHyper-Backgammon is a short version of backgammon where each side has three checkers. In initial position, these checkers start on opponent's ace, two and three points. From then on normal backgammon rules apply. Cube is in play, Jacoby rule, gammons and backgammons count (and are quite frequent). Proper play is much more subtle than might be imagined. The program produced by Hugh Sconyers plays the game perfectly, since Hugh has established a full data base which has the equities for all possible positions, and the program will tell you if you make an error. It can be a lot of fun to play, the games go quickly, and by playing the program you learn pretty quickly the correct strategies.Kit [Note: Also available from Carol Joy Cole and The GAMMON PRESS] [Note: The distribution is a CD-ROM for the PC ...Mark]
Hugh Sconyers Bearoff & Backgame CDs
Volume 1: Bearoff Equities and Backgame ProbabilitiesINTRODUCTION: This CD-ROM disk contains two large databases of equities and probabilities. One database has the exact equities for all bearoff positions when each side has 9 men or less. The other database contains the probabilities for getting hit or hitting a man when one side has a backgame of 4 men or less. The bearoff database is over 400 MB and contains the answers to over 100,000,000 bearoff problems! In addition, you can do a MONTE CARLO simulation on any bearoff position with more than 9 men on a side. The program also has a feature which finds the best move given a specific position and dice roll. The backgame database is 90 MB and contains the answers to over 22,000,000 backgame positions (some of them are not legal positions). There is a feature which finds the best move given a dice roll and position. These databases will help settle many questions about fair settlement and the best moves. BEAROFF: Once the program has been loaded you can enter any bearoff position, assuming that all men are in their home board. If both positions you enter have 9 men or less, the program will give you the EXACT equities for all 4 cube positions - NO CUBE, ROLLER'S CUBE, CENTER CUBE, AND NON ROLLER'S CUBE. In addition, it will display the proper cube decision. These cube equities, as throughout this bearoff program, are the equities if you roll with the cube in that position. To compute the proper settlement in any bearoff position(assuming you are going to roll with the cube in that position) you would multiply the equity times the value of the cube. After the equities are displayed, you are given a chance to find the best move for the position you have just entered. Keep in mind your best move in the bearoff is the one that leaves your opponent with the smallest equity. The best move will often be different depending on the cube position. If you enter a bearoff position where one or both side have more than 9 men you will enter the MONTE CARLO subroutine. You will first be asked how many simulations you want to run. There is a limit of 30,000. This Monte Carlo subroutine rolls the dice and moves the men until each side has 9 men or less. Then it looks up the exact answers from the database. With a few hundred simulations the NO CUBE result should be very close to exact. The other cube positions results will be distorted by the fact that this subroutine assumes that there is no doubling until the positions are back in the database (ie each side has 9 men or less). For example, if you have 12 men and the cube is in the center and your opponent has 12 men, the cube will stay in the center until each side has 9 men or less. At that point, the subroutine will retrieve the exact equity from the database. BACKGAME: Once the program has finished loading you can enter any backgame position provided the position not bearing off has 4 men or less. The side bearing off can have from 1 to 15 men. The program will return two probabilities: one for each side being on roll. These results are the probabilities that the side bearing off will have a man hit. After the probabilities are displayed, you are given a chance to find the best move for the position you have just entered. Keep in mind that the best move for the position bearing off is the one that leaves the other side with the smallest probability of hitting a man. The best move for the side in the backgame is the one that gives it the highest probability of hitting a man. This program assumes that the side playing the backgame has infinite timing; ie, he will never be forced to leave his opponent's home board. It follows from this assumption that the backgame side can take some, part or none of any roll. Sony's MMCD Player: This disc works on an MMCD player also. Sony makes this very small CD-ROM player which takes special exe files. This disc works both for dos and MMCD. The MMCD version is the same as the PC version except in a few places. To start the program place the disc in the MMCD player and turn the power on. If you plan to use the bestmove feature and the MONTE CARLO routine you will need to put the Volume #1 disc in the player after the program loads. The MONTE CARLO simulations are limited to 20,000 games.
Volume 2: Bearoff Equities for 4 Points and 15 MenINTRODUCTION: This CD-ROM disk contains two databases of equities for the bearoff. The first database(4X15) has the exact equities for all bearoff positions when each side has 15 men or less on the first 4 points. The second database(3X15) contains the exact equities for all bearoff positions when each side has 15 men on the first 3 points. The second database is a subset of the first. The smaller database(3X15) is included for a number of reasons, which will be explained later. Everything that follows applies to the 3X15 database when the 4's are change to 3's etc. The bearoff database for 4 points and 15 men is over 240 MB and contains the answers to over 60,000,000 bearoff problems! In addition, you can do a MONTE CARLO simulation for any bearoff position where one or both sides have men on the 5 or 6 points(4,5 or 6 in the case of the 3X15 database). The program also has a feature which finds the best move given a specific position and dice roll. These databases can help settle many questions about fair settlement and the best moves. BEAROFF EQUITIES: Once the program has loaded you can enter any bearoff position, assuming that all men are in their home board. If both positions you enter have all their men on the first 4 points, the program will give you the EXACT equities for all 4 cube positions - NO CUBE, ROLLER'S CUBE, CENTER CUBE, and NON ROLLER'S CUBE. In addition, it will display the proper cube decision and probability for winning in the no cube case. These cube equities, as throughout this bearoff program, are the equities if you roll with the cube in that position. If you find an equity greater than 1.000 or less than -1.000 this is due to the fact that a position with 15 men can still lose a gammon. To compute the proper settlement in any bearoff position(assuming you are going to roll with the cube in that position) you would multiply the equity times the value of the cube. After the equities are displayed, you have an opportunity to find the best move for the position you have just entered. Keep in mind your best move in the bearoff is the one that leaves your opponent with the smallest equity. The best move will often be different depending on the cube position. If you enter a bearoff position where one or both side have men on the 5 or 6 points you will automatically enter the MONTE CARLO subroutine. You will first be asked how many simulations you want to run. There is a limit of 30,000. This Monte Carlo subroutine rolls the dice and moves the men until each side has all men on the first 4 points. Then it looks up the exact answers from the database. With a few hundred simulations the NO CUBE result should be very close to exact. The other cube positions results will be distorted by the fact that this subroutine assumes that there is no doubling until the positions are back in the database (ie each side has all men on the first 4 points). For example, if you have 12 men on the one and 3 men on the 5 point versus the same, the cube stays in the current position until both sides have all their men on the first four points. At that point, the subroutine will retrieve the exact equity from the database. THE 3X15 DATABASE: There are several reasons that this database is included. First, it is small(only 10 MB!). This will allow it, if you desire, to be copied to your hard disk(be sure to copy BEQT4X15.EXE, helvb.fon and tmsrb.fon). Secondly, the 3X15 database has an advantage in speed when doing MONTE CARLO simulations. Simulations will run faster at the expense of some accuracy. If you have copied the 3X15 database to your hard disk it will run MONTE CARLO simulations substantially faster.
Volume 3: Bearoff Equities for 6 Points and 10 MenThis CD-ROM disk contains a database of equities for the bearoff. The database has the exact equities for all bearoff positions where one side has 10 men in the home board and the other side has 10 men or less in the home board. The bearoff database for 6 points and 10 men is over 625 MB and contains the answers to over 156,000,000 bearoff problems! In addition, you can do a MONTE CARLO simulation for any bearoff position where one or both sides have more than 10 men. The results of these simulations will be more accurate than the results from Volume #1. The program also has a feature which finds the best move given a specific position and dice roll. You will need Volume #1 to use the MONTE CARLO feature and you may need Volume #1 for the best move feature. These databases can help settle many questions about fair settlement and the best moves. BEAROFF EQUITIES: Once the program has loaded you can enter any bearoff position, assuming that all men are in their home board. If you enter a position where both positions have 9 men or less you will get an error message because all these positions are on Volume #1. For positions where one side has 10 men and the other side has 10 men or less, the program will give you the EXACT equities for all 4 cube positions - NO CUBE, ROLLER'S CUBE, CENTER CUBE, and NON ROLLER'S CUBE. In addition, it will display the proper cube decision and probability for winning in the no cube case. These cube equities, as throughout this bearoff program, are the equities if you roll with the cube in that position. To compute the proper settlement in any bearoff position (assuming you are going to roll with the cube in that position) you would multiply the equity times the value of the cube. After the equities are displayed, you have an opportunity to find the best move for the position you have just entered. Keep in mind your best move in the bearoff is the one that leaves your opponent with the smallest equity. The best move will often be different depending on the cube position. For some positions you will need Volume #1. If you enter a bearoff position where one or both sides have more than 10 men you will automatically enter the MONTE CARLO subroutine. You will need Volume #1 to use this subroutine. You will first be asked how many simulations you want to run. There is a limit of 30,000. This Monte Carlo subroutine rolls the dice and moves the men until both sides have 10 men on less. Then it looks up the exact answers from the database. With a few hundred simulations the NO CUBE result should be very close to exact. The other cube positions results will be distorted by the fact that this subroutine assumes that there is no doubling until the positions are back in the database (ie each side has all men on the first 4 points). For example, if you have 12 men on the six point and 3 men on the 5 point versus the same, the cube stays in the current position until both sides have 10 men or less. At that point, the subroutine stores that position and later retrieves the exact equity from the database on Volume #3 or Volume #1. Sony's MMCD Player: This disc works on an MMCD player also. Sony makes this very small CD-ROM player which takes special exe files. This disc works both for dos and MMCD. The MMCD version is the same as the PC version except in a few places. To start the program place the disc in the MMCD player and turn the power on. If you plan to use the bestmove feature and the MONTE CARLO routine you will need to put the Volume #1 disc in the player after the program loads. The MONTE CARLO simulations are limited to 20,000 games. Available from Carol Joy Cole, The GAMMON PRESS and The Backgammon Shop for $99 per volume. If you have any comments or questions, please forward them to the Hugh Sconyers Matchqiz (and demo)With the MatchQiz software, Kit Woolsey (long time contributer to Inside Backgammon and Backgammon with the Champions, author of How to Play Tournament Backgammon, and currently ranked #9 in the world) has added his name to the short list of backgammon indispensables. The very short list. Magriel, Robertie, Woolsey. I think that's all you really need.MatchQiz is more than very good; it is the single best tool I know of for transforming your game from intermediate to expert. First let me describe the format: You choose a match from a menu, and the computer shows you the starting position and opening roll. *Then you choose your play.* Now you get to see the actual play, plus Kit Woolsey's commentary. This happens for every play, every cube decision. It is an improvement over printed annotated matches in several ways: Convenience and speed. How many times have you followed a match on your own board only to find that the moves and commentary have stopped making sense? Perhaps you moved the wrong piece two rolls ago? Or was it three rolls ago? Maybe you should just start this game over. Never again with MQ. How many hints do you receive when going over printed matches? You can see that the player drops the cube because a new game begins next page. Or did the index card you use to cover the bottom of the page slip, denying you the chance to come up with your play without seeing Svobodny's? Not with MQ. Perfect use of default options. Do you have a tendency to forget the cube in complex positions? MQ will let you make that mistake -- but will chide you for it. Of course the format wouldn't mean much if the annotations weren't up to par. But they are exquisite. Woolsey is complete, concise, and entertaining. He covers all aspects of play, from the most elementary opening moves to the most subtle match equity considerations. Here is one small sample:
``This is an expert play which many players would not find. If Magriel quietly plays 13/5, O'Laughlin will be free to make any point that his dice dictate, and Magriel will be poorly placed in the upcoming prime vs. prime battle since he will have two men back will O'Laughlin will have only one man back. Magriel's play forces O'Laughlin to attack on the bar point whether he wants to or not, thus preventing him from making optimal use of such point making numbers as 42 or 51. It is thematic when you have the better board and your opponent has one man back to split your runners to make it difficult for your opponent to catch up in the board-building battle.'' You get this level of analysis after every nearly every play. One final benefit that might go unnoticed is volume. Woolsey has 18 matches available now, and volume four is due soon. That is quite a library. Often an annotater will mention some general theme or principle and show how it applies it to a specific position. But would that principle apply if the position were slightly different? With the MQ library, you will be able to compare similar positions and examine if the same principles apply. This is especially true for the opening phase of the game, where the same sorts of decisions come up all the time. Woolsey sells one match for $20, or a set of 6 for $100. This is a fantastic deal considering that most printed annotated matches go for $20 or so, and I guarantee that you'll get more use out of these. Write to: Hal Heinrich or call (403) 234-9944 Jeremy Bagai [Note: Also available from Carol Joy Cole and The GAMMON PRESS] [Note: This program is written for the IBM-PC, but it 'should' run under "Soft-PC" for the Macintosh, any level, as the graphics are CGA (640x200x2) ...Mark]
From: kwoolsey@netcom.com (Kit Woolsey)
As many of you know, Hal Heinrich and I have produced several annotated matches which run on computer (PC only -- sorry, you MAC users). Hal is the programmer, I wrote the annotations. We have a demo match which we give away for free, so I thought it would be a good idea to make it available on the net both for the enjoyment of R.G.B. readers and, of course, to entice you to purchase the other annotated matches. This is my first effort at doing this so I may have screwed up somewhere -- if so, please let me know what went wrong. The program can be gotten via an anonymous ftp to ftp.netcom.com. go to the directory /pub/kw/kwoolsey/gammon/matchqiz -- there you will find 2 files. One is: readme, which is instructions for retrieving and running the program. The other is: mqizdemo.exe, which is the program and necessary files. Feel free to distribute this demo package to any friends who may be interested. If you run into any problems, please contact me at: kwoolsey@netcom.com Kit Woolsey
Backgammon Position Analyzer[9507]BPA is a program which has three basic features: The CPW of a position, the correct way to play either one or two numbers of a roll, and the number of rolls that bear-off all checkers in N turns. The data base is uniquely compressed to fit within 20 megabytes and covers all home board positions, many bear-in positions where you are setting up to bear-off, and a single checker race. In the single checker race, any number of checkers can be off and the single checker can be on any point from the 7 to the 19 point. Contact is allowed and a cpw will be calculated if the opponents position is in the data base, but contact is ignored in the calculation. Thus there are over 25 BILLION positions covered, not counting all the single checker positions. That's a very efficient use of data in memory. This concentration is possible because the answer for the cpw is an approximation, not an exact figure. However, the approximation is very good. Using an extended calculation from where others had left off, the expected error in the range of 20 to 80 % is 0.04%. This is good enough to make all checker plays accurately. ( Ok, you'll be able to find a few positions where the play made is off by a very small fraction of 1%.) When you have either one or two numbers you want to play, BPA will give an answer very quickly by looking into the data base and checking all possible ways to play the number(s). The number of rolls to bear-off in N turns is very helpful in understanding what is going on in certain positions, but is not for everyone. BPA is supplied with all the data calculated, and is distributed on 14 diskettes. It is currently not copy protected but because of the extent of illegal distribution that has gone on, it will be protected in the future. Each program is individualized by showing a subsciber's name on the screen. btw, if anyone has an illegal copy and wants to get registered at no cost to them, they should contact me at diceman@indy.net for the procedure. This is a limited time offer and will end when and if BPA is integrated into any of the commercial game playing programs. Registered users will receive an upgraded EXE file to be able to use BPA with such a program. Larry Strommen diceman@indy.net Available from Larry Strommen and Carol Joy Cole BG-SCRIBESoftware Review: BG-SCRIBE, A Program By Walter Trice.Mark Damish (E-mail: damish@ll.mit.edu) BG-Scribe -- A system for editing, replaying, and printing backgammon matches for the IBM-PC by Walter Trice. This is a program which I consider essential for myself. It will:
The program is run from one of two screens. The first is a text screen with options for creating a new match, loading, saving, etc. The second screen displays the backgammon board using a CGA 4 color, 40 column text mode. Trust me here---this mode, with its X's and O's, looks a lot better than backgammon boards I've seen drawn using the CGA 2 color graphics mode. Why CGA text mode? Probably because it will run on any portable or palmtop machine, and likely on most PC emulators on other platforms. It also runs fine in a window under MS Windows, without having to mess around with a .pif file. The second screen is where matches are entered or played back. When playing back a match, you may see the dice, then the players choice, and then see the move when the screen is updated. It is possible to go forwards or backwards in a game. Although you may have entered your rolls in `landing spot' format, the program can optionally display them in `from/to' format. It only prints in the format which it was entered though. You may also mark positions which you would like to have diagrammed. As stated above, the user interface consists of two screens. Unlike modern X/Windows/Mac programs which do a lot for you, this program assumes that what you tell, or don't tell the program is exactly what you want. I.E.: You can enter data, then quit the program. If you didn't save, the program won't prompt you. It is like driving a standard after getting used to cruise control. The program does a lot, you have to remember to tell it what to do though! The learning curve has a slight incline, but the program is well worth the time it takes to become familiar with it. I found the instructions clear. I want to start bringing pen and steno paper to local events to record some `master games' for later entry/playback. I also want to review some of my `bad games', searching for weakness. There is a lot to be learned! The price of the program is $50, including 11 matches. Additional matches are available from Walter. I am not affiliated with BG-SCRIBE in any way, except for being a very satisfied customer. Please mention where you saw this article if you should contact Walter. I did mention to him that I was going to write a review---Last spring! ...Mark
Walter as added a program which will convert FIBS oldmoves format to BG-Scribe. I haven't tested it with output from rfibs. The Match Strategist (and demo)Tom Johnson (komodo@netcom.com) has written a progam which is best described as a match equity calculator. Given: Match length, Score, Gammon chances, Cube value, and wether the cube is on the last roll, last two rolls, or a normal cube, the program will will calculate the information shown in the sample screen shown below. BLACK WHITE Menu
Input data --------------------- -----
match length (2 - 25) | 3 | 3 | L) Match length
score (0 - 2) | 0 | 0 | S) Score
cube value | 1 | | C) Cube value
chance of winning the game | 35 % | 65 % | W) Winning chance
chance of winning a gammon | 20 % | 20 % | G) Gammon chance
cube situation (1 - 3) | 3 | 3 | V) Cube situation
--------------------- N) New table
Static match winning chance with --------------------- X) Exit
no double this game | 45.99% | 54.01% | A) About demo
double and take | 41.00% | 59.00% |
double and drop | 60.44% | 39.56% | Cube situations
double, take and redouble | 35.00% | 65.00% | ---------------
Dynamic data (game win %) --------------------- 1) Last roll
minimum give point | 50.00% | N/A | 2) Last two rolls
optimum give point | 61.63% | N/A | 3) Normal cube
minimum take point | N/A | 30.43% |
doubling window (size) | 19.57% | 19.57% | N/A = Not applicable.
---------------------
Strategy: Black should not double.
His position is not strong enough.
THE MATCH STRATEGIST DEMO - copyright(c) 1994 Komodo Software
The demo program is limited to 3-point matches and is available for
anonymous ftp from:
machine: ftp.cybercom.net
directry: pub/users/damish/backgammon
file: matstrat.zip
The program runs on a MS-DOS machine, and the file needs to be 'unzipped'
with pkunzip 2.04 or later.
A commercial version, which gives equities up to a 25-point match may be
obtained from the auther for $45 + S&H.
[Now (3-95) advertized by Carol Joy Cole for $25.]
Shareware and PD Softwarerfibs (fibs recorder & playback)Newsgroups: rec.games.backgammon From: spitz@irb.uni-hannover.de (Jan Spitzkowsky) Subject: Recording and replaying games played on FIBS Date: Wed, 31 Aug 1994 10:00:21 GMT Hello fibsters, I wrote two utilities for FIBS and i want to distribute them. The tools are able to record (rfibs) own games and watched games and to replay (sfibs) them. I observe a lot of discussions about interesting positions in this group. With 'rfibs' and 'sfibs' it is possible to extract special positions played on FIBS (or even a whole game) and to comment it. I am interested in a collection of good and interesting games, commented or not, to improve my own playing. If someone wants to get these utilities for collecting and sharing some games, too, the address of our ftp-server is: ftp.irb.uni-hannover.de File: pub/spitz/bg/bg.tar.gz Below I give a short description of the two tools: Hope to find much interest for my work and many good games, Jan (hotspot on FIBS) Version 26th August 94: Any bug reports, comments ... etc. rfibs [<record file>] [-c] 'rfibs' records games played on FIBS and filters the textual output. Therefore the setting boardstyle must be set to 3 and the stdout of FIBS must be piped through 'rfibs'. The correct call for 'rfibs' is: 'telnet <...> | rfibs <args>'. Two additional FIBS-commands are available with 'rfibs': - bstyle <b>: switches the board display. Additional board displays can be created and added in the source 'boards.c' and 'fibs.h'. <b> currently ranges from 0 to 1. - switch: switches the player and the board. - recinit: stops recording of the actual game. - comment <comment>: A comment is inserted into the record file. Every started, resumed or watched game will be stored in <record file>. Every talk of the players or watchers will be included in the game as a comment. The argument '-c' suppresses recording the talks as comments. The created file has the same syntax like the output of the FIBS-command 'oldmoves'. Bugs: The prompt '>' is missing Prompts for login and password are missing, too. sfibs { <gamefile> [-g] | -p } [-y<b>] [-s] 'sfibs' shows a recorded game given in <gamefile>. The gamefile can be created with 'rfibs' or with the FIBS-command 'oldmoves'. Argument '-g' suppresses interaction: The whole game is printed. Argument '-y' gives the boardstyle. The available boardstyles are the same as in 'rfibs'. Argument '-s' puts player O on the downside. Default is player X on the downside. Argument '-p' doesn't show a game. It enables the user to create and to print his own positions. 'rfibs' and 'sfibs' are given in the following files: readme, makefile, fibs.h, sfibs.c, rfibs.c, boards.c LaTeX Style for BG Positions and Games I have just finished the first version of a LaTeX style to print out positions and matches. The main features are:
I have uploaded my LaTeX package to ftp.dante.de as a CTAN submission and was told that it's installed under macros/latex209/contrib/backgammon It should be available on every CTAN Server (these are if I am right informed: ftp.dante.de, ftp.shsu.edu and ftp.tex.ac.uk) Joerg
BOA/386 Bearoff analyzer From Harold Wittmann wittmann@fmi.uni-passau.de I have written a piece of backgammon software that gives you the winning probability for bearoff positions. BOA/386. It's inexpensive shareware. Try it!
--------------------------------------------
Never again rollout bearoffs!
Here is what FILE_ID.DIZ says:
+-------------------------------------+
| BOA/386 v1.1 |
|-------------------------------------|
| A Backgammon Bearoff Analyzer: |
| - gives probability of each side |
| winning, cubeless (both side must |
| have all their men in the inner |
| board) |
| - shows proper way to play any roll |
| of dice |
| - very fast and accurate |
| - less than 1MB HD-space |
| - MS-DOS, 386SX+ required |
|-------------------------------------|
| BOA/386 is inexpensive shareware. |
| Only 20$ registration fee. |
+-------------------------------------+
Available for anonymous ftp from: Section D: RESOURCESD1. I'm looking for a club to play in...Backgammon clubs in North AmericaBelow is a list of backgammon clubs in North America. It was taken from the January/Febrary 1995 issue of the Chicago Point newsletter. It may be copied for noncommercial purposes as long as you give full credit to "CHICAGO POINT, 3940 W. Bryn Mawr Ave., Suite 504 Chicago, IL 60659-3128"Information for this listing has been obtained directly from the featured backgammon clubs. Changes are inevitable and we suggest that you always call before attending. As a service to our readers, CHICAGO POINT would like to maintain an accurate listing of Backgammon Clubs In North America. Please send information including updates, club closings, and new clubs to: Contact: Chicago Point
Bill Davis, Editor
3940 W. Bryn Mawr Ave., Suite 504
Chicago, IL 60659-3128
Phone: 312 583-6464
Fax: 312 583-3264
(FORMAT) CLUB NAME....................... LOCATION.................. CITY & STATE........ MEETING ON................ TIME... CONTACT............. TELEPHONE... MAIL INQUIRIES TO................................... (WEST) Backgammon Club of San Diago Java House Delmar, CA Sunday 2:00 PM Mike Fujita 619/294-2007 P.O Box 178119; San Diago, CA 92177 Backgammon Club of San Diago II Forno La Jolia, CA Wednesday Monthly 6:30 PM Mike Fujita 619/294-2007 P.O Box 178119; San Diago, CA 92177 San Francisco Backgammon Golden Gate Grill San Francisco, CA Tuesday 7:45 PM Doug Adsit 415/931-4600 3200 Fillmore Street; San Francisco, CA 94123 San Francisco Bridge & BG Club Clubroom San Francisco, CA Wed., Fri. 9:00 PM Augie Hunt 415/776-6949 777 Jones Street; San Francisco, CA 94109 Gammon Associates Grand Slam Bridge & BG Club Woodland Hills, CA Tuesday 7:00 PM Patrick Gibson 818/901-0464 7641 Orion Avenue; Van Nuys, CA 91406 Gammon Associates Grand Slam Bridge & BG Club Woodland Hills, CA Sunday 7:00 PM Patrick Gibson 818/901-0464 7641 Orion Avenue; Van Nuys, CA 91406 Prime BG Club of Las Vegas Jockey Club Las Vegas, NV Tuesday 7:00 PM Howard Markowitz 702/893-6025 2620 S. Maryland Pkwy; Box 230; Las Vegas, NV 89109 No. Nevada Backgammon Assn. Rapscallion Seafood House Reno, NV Thursday 7:30 PM Jim Allen 702/329-1227 449 W. Plumb Lane; Reno, NV 89509 Oergon Backgammon Club Lacey's Lake Oswego, OR 1st & 3rd Tuesday 7:00 PM Henry Moss 503/636-6258 2360 Greebtree Road; Lake Oswego, OR 97034 Pacific NW Backgammon Assn. Shakey's Pizza Bellevue, WA Monday 7:00 PM Chuck Breckenridge 206/778-8181 18204 Olympic View Drive; Edmonds, WA 98020 Puget Sound Backgammon Assn. European Connecktion Seattle, WA Tuesday 7:30 PM Guy Thurber 206/244-6737 428 SW 127th Street; Seattle, WA 98146 (CENTRAL) Bloomington-Normal BG Club Ride The Nine Bloomington, IL 1st/3rd/5th Tues. 6:15 PM Lane O'Connor 309/454-1947 108 Riss Drive; Normal, IL 61761 Games People Play Alexander's Chicago, IL Monday 6:30 PM J.A. Miller 312/768-5523 P.O. Box 8630; Chicago, IL 60680 Chicago Bar Point Club Golden Flame Chicago, IL Tuesday 6:15 PM Bill Davis 312/338-6380 2726 W. Lunt Avenue; Chicago, IL 60645 Chicago Bar Point Club Braxton Seafood Grill Oak Brook, IL Sunday bimonthly 12:30 PM Peter Kalba 312/252-7755 2510 W. Iowa Street; Chicago, IL 60622 Pub Club Crickets Pub & Grill Glendale Heights, IL Monday 7:30 PM V.W. Zimnicki 708/924-8632 P.O. Box 72216; Roselle, IL 60172 Prime BG Club of Chicago TJ's Lounge/Radisson Hotel Lincolnwood, IL Friday 7:00 PM Joann Feinstein 708/674-0120 8149 Kenton; Skokie, IL 60076 Central Illinois Backgammon Club Cummins Family Restaraunt Peoria, IL Thursday 6:30 PM Ed Bauder 309/686-6662 1115 E. McClure Avenue; Peoria, IL 61603 Sangamon Valley BG Assn. Parker's Sports Bar Springfield, IL 2nd & 4th Tuesday 6:00 PM Sangamon Valley BG Assn. Parker's Sports Bar Springfield, IL 1st Sat./Nov.-Apr. 11:30 AM Randy Armstrong 217/528-0117 2012 N. 20th Street; Springfield, IL 62702 Winnetka Backgammon Club Winnetka Community House Winnetka, IL Wednesday 7:00 PM Trudie Stern 708/446-0537 4200 W. Lake 302C; Glenview, IL 60025 Summit City Backgammon League Alumni Club Ft. Wayne, IN Wednesday 7:00 PM Ken Bruck 219/639-6898 P.O. Box 6546; Fort Wayne, IN 46896 Hoosier Backgammon Club Spats Indianapolis, IN Thursday 7:00 PM Butch Meese 317/845-8435 7620 Kilmer Lane; Indianapolis, IN 46256 Flint Area Backgammon Club Ramada Inn Flint, Ml Thursday 7:00 PM Carol Joy Cole 810/232-9731 3003 Ridgecliffe Drive; Flint, MI 48532 Plymouth Backgammon Club Box Bar & Grill Plymouth, MI Wednesday 7:30 PM Dean Adamian 313/981-5706 42954 Barchester; Canton, MI 48187 Cavendish North BG Club Clubhouse Southfield, MI Daily except Sun. 1:00 PM Joe Sylvester 810/642-9616 30065 Greenfield Road; Southfield, MI 48076 Minneapolis Backgammon Minneapolis Athletic Club Minneapolis, MN Monday 5:00 PM Fred Kalantari 612/682-1716 4701 Valley View Road; Edina, MN 55424 Cleveland Area Backgammon Boulevard Sports Tavem Cuyahoga Falls, OH Wednesday 6:30 PM Irv Taylor 216/663-7332 P.O. Box 28515; Cleveland, OH 44128 Dallas Backgammon League Scoreboard Addison, TX Wednesday 7:45 PM Rich Weaver 214/620-7462 2682 Hearthstone; Dallas, TX 75234 Austin Backgammon Assn. Bombay Bicycle Club Austin, TX Monday 7:30 PM Jackie Seiders-Smart 512/261-8518 30 Hightrail Way, Austin TX 78738 American Backgammon Club Vickery Feed Store Dallas, TX Sunday 6:00 PM Kati Pratt 214/827-8403 5631 Ellsworth; Dallas, TX 75206 Houston Backgammon Club Abdallah's Houston, TX Tuesday 7:00 PM Jack Butler 713/774-9439 5931 Reamer Street; Houston, TX 77074 San Antonio Backgammon Dad's San Antonio, TX Friday 8:00 PM Marcel Mommers 210/606-0025 3812 Greenridge Drive; Cilbo, TX 78108 Milwaukee Backgammon Club Gas Lite North Milwaukee, WI Wednesday 7:00 PM Marv Amol 414/355-8805 9031 N. 70th Street; Milwaukee, WI 53223 Milwaukee Backgammon John Hawks Pub Milwaukee, WI Sunday Bimonthly 11:30 AM Merril Schrager 414/463-2498 9043 W. Grbaosa Druve; Milwaukee, WI 53225 (NORTHEAST) Beltway Backgammon Club Promenade Cardroom Bethesda, MD 2nd & 4th Sunday 12:00 N Barry Steinberg 301/530-0604 5712 Quebec Street; Benwyn Hts. MD 20740 bkgm@aol.com Cavendish Club of Boston Clubroom Brookline, MA Thur. & Sat. 1:00 PM Carl Saldinger 617/734-2230 111 Cypress Street; Brookline, MA 02146 New England Backgammon Club Sheraton Commander Hotel Cambridge, MA Sunday monthly [Sep-Jun] 12:30 PM Andy Latto 617/374-2537 (days) 617/784/6114 (eves) 156 Massapoag Avenue; Sharon, MA 02067 andyl@harlequin.com New England Backgammon Club Sheraton Commander Hotel Cambridge, MA Monday 7:00 PM New Jersey Backgammon Assn. Best Western Oritani Hotel Hackensack,NJ Tues. & Fri. 7:45 PM Ron Whitney 201/833-2915 279 Glen Court; Teaneck, NJ 07666 Ace Point Backgammon Club Clubroom New York, NY Daily 3:00 PM Michael Valentine 212/753-0842 41 E. 60th Street; New York, NY 10022 Coterie Clubroom New York, NY Daily 1:00 PM Louise Goldsmith 212/371-5151 Private club. Telephone for information. New York Chess & Backgammon Office Building New York, NY Daily, Tour. Sunday 12:00 N Steve Manning 212/302-5874 120 W. 41st Street 3; New York, NY 10036 Saratoga Backgammon Club Waterfront Restaraunt Saratoga Springs, NY Friday 1:00 PM Lee Hoge 518/584-1714 P.O. Box 563; Saratoga Springs, NY 12866 Greater New York BG Club Woodbury Ramada Inn Woodbury, NY Sunday monthly 12:30 PM Dr. Bob Hill 718/341-3779 194-22 115th Road; Jamaica, NY 11412 Cavendish Club of Philadelphia Clubroom Philadelphia, PA Mon, Wed, Thu, Sat 1:00 PM Ken Relver 215/878-5777 3801 Conshohocken Avenue; Philadelphia, PA 19131 Pittsburgh Backgammon Assn. Murphy's Tap Room Pittsburgh, PA Tuesday 8:30 PM Steve Hast 412/823-7500 3560 Ridgewood Road; Pittsburgh, PA 15235 (SOUTH) Suncoast Backgammon Assn. New York, New York Lounge Clearwater, FL Monday 7:00 PM Drew Giovanis 813/726-1398 25350 U.S. Hwy 19 N. 67; Clearwater, FL 34623 South Florida Backgammon Big Apple Sports Club Ft. Lauderdale, FL Sunday 1:00 PM Elayne Feinstein 305/785-1282 2621 NE 7th Terrace; Pompano Beach, FL 33064 Backgammon Club of N.W. Florida Olde English Pub Lynn Haven, FL Tuesday 7:30 PM Rick Bieniak 904/773-2013 P.O. Box 416; Wausau, FL 32463 Orando Backgammon Coach's Locker Room Orando, FL Tuesday 7:30 PM David Thomas 904/736-2844 P.O. Box 803, Deland, FL 32721 Backgammon Society of Sarasota Bath & Raquet Club Sarasota, FL Tuesday 7:00 PM Frank Shank 813/792-3992 5320 86th St. W.; Brandenton, FL 34210 Atlanta Backgammon Association Cabo Wabo & Grill Atlanta, GA Wednesday 7:00 PM Dave Cardwell 404/682-1969 P.O. Box 956547; Duluth, GA 30136 Atlanta Backgammon Association CafFiends Coffee Bar Atlanta, GA Sunday Monthly 7:00 PM Dave Cardwell 404/682-1969 P.O. Box 956547; Duluth, GA 30136 Louisville Backgammon Club Encore Restaurant Louisville, KY 2nd & 4th Tuesday 6:30 PM Quint McTyeire 502/896-9783 4906 Crofton Road; Louisville, KY 40207 Raleigh Backgammon Club Western Bowling Alley Raleigh, NC 1st & 3rd Friday 7:30 PM Frank Bommarito 919/552-2291 401 St. John Court; Holly Springs, NC 27540 (CANADA) Vancouver Backgammon Jo-Anne's Place Vancouver, BC Tuesday 8:00 PM Marty Jensen 604/688-8317 1339 Burnaby St. 402; Vancouver, BC V6E 1R2; CANADA Nat'l Capital Backgammon Club Lunergan's Pub Vanier, ON lst Sun./Sep.-Jun. 12:30 PM Eden Windish 613/741-2530 396 Talbot Street; Ottawa, ON KlK 2N6; CANADA Le Gammon Clubroom Montreal, QB Daily 3:30 PM Michel Medifti 514/845-8370 552 St. Catherine East, Montreal, OB H2L 2E1; CANADA Playing Backgammon in the Boston areaFrom: mau@world.std.com (Michael A Urban) Date: 19 Oct 1993 Frequently, membership fees are waived for initial participants. For complete details, contact the club of interest. Cavendish Club 617-734-2230 111 Cypress St. Brookline, MA 02146 USA Fee: $150/year The Cavendish runs chouettes on Thursday evenings and Saturday afternoons. The club also has duplicate and rubber bridge. New England Backgammon Club c/o Sheraton Commander Hotel 16 Garden Street Cambridge, MA 02138-3609 USA Fee: $35/year President: Andy Latto 617/374-2537 (days) 617/784/6114 (eves) 156 Massapoag Avenue; Sharon, MA 02067 andyl@harlequin.comThe NEBC runs weekly Monday tournaments starting at 7pm and monthly Sunday tournaments beginning at 1pm. No smoking is permitted in the tournament room. The NEBC publishes, "Anchors", a monthly newsletter. A homepage for the NEBC is under construction: [Note: There are no Sunday tournaments in July or
August]
Other Backgammon ClubsThe Danish BG Federation Phone: (+45 39 40 06 07)The Danish Backgammon Federation is maintaining two extensive national ratinglists (all matches and tournament matches). As far as I recall we are currently rating more than 50,000 matches a year !! Furthermore the DBgF is offering a variety of things stretching from a monthly magazine, live tournaments EVERY DAY, international tournaments (NORDIC OPEN every Easter) and many more things. For your information: The DBgF is a democratically governed organisation. We encourage all other nations to form national organisations. It is the only way if we really want to promote the game in a serious manner. Erik M. Gravgaard
[95-03] Rose and Thistle, Argyle Road, Reading, UK. Weekly Wednesdays from 8:30 pm. Informal - no officers, but contact number: Marina 01734 612814 Thanks. :-) From: Jake Jacobs Newsgroups: rec.games.backgammon,rec.gambling Subject: New Backgammon Club in Chicago Date: 4 Dec 1995 16:48:00 GMT In January, 1996, Dean Muench will be opening the Chicago Board Of Backgammon. The CBOB will be a private club for backgammon and other games. Address is 175 w. Jackson (right near the CBOT). It will be open Monday through Friday from 12 noon, and on weekends for special events. I can forward inquiries to Dean till he gets a phone #. I'm at itaewon@interaccess.com. The CBOB will hold a grand opening tournament on 1/6/96 at 12 noon. The address is 175 w. Jackson, suite 1103. The phone number from that date onward will be 312-922-0404. From: pfmcm@worm.hooked.net (Paul McMillan) Newsgroups: rec.games.backgammon Subject: New Weekly BG Site in San Francisco Date: 27 Feb 1995 15:55:35 -0800The Baja Cantina will begin hosting weekly BG tournaments on Wednesdays at 8:00 p.m. starting March 8, 1995. The format will largely resemble that of the tournaments formerly held on Tuesdays at the Golden Gate Grill. The Baja is located across the street from the Golden Gate Grill at 3154 Fillmore, corner of Greenwich. The phone number there is 415 885-2252. Please bring your boards. Hi Mark! On my recent trip to Sydney, I visited the bg club that has been running there 12 years. They said to put it on the FAQ, so here are the details: The Clocktower pub * Marina Smith * Reading, U.K. * From: "Dr. Linton Hutchinson" (webuniv@iag.net) Newsgroups: rec.games.backgammon Subject: Re: North American clubs on WWW Date: 28 May 1995 03:35:26 GMT The Orlando Backgammon meets on Tuesday 9:30 to whenever. The location is on 436 just past I-4. First shopping center on the right. Behind TGI Friday's at the Coaches Lockerroom. Upstairs. The Tyson's Corner Backgammon Club meets every Monday at 7:00 PM at Mr. Smith's Restaurant, 8369 Leesburg Pike (Route 7) in the Pike 7 Shopping Center. It's in northern Virginia near Washington, DC. call Bill Pow at (703) 549-1808 or (301)227-1915 [Submitted by Mel Leifer] Backgammon clubs around the world may be obtained from:
D2. Where are the tournaments?
D3. I'm looking for information about newsletters and other publications.AnchorsNewsletter of the New England Backgammon ClubMonthly except July, usually 8 pages, two devoted to local news with remaining to analytical material and backgammon related stories with minimal advertising. Subscription: USA/Canada/Mexico: $15/year.
Overseas: $25/year (check drawn on U.S. bank).
Contact: NEBC
c/o Sheraton-Commander Hotel
16 Garden Street
Cambridge, MA 02138-3609
Backgammon MagazineLately this has been published quarterly in a combined German/English edition. Vertrieb (sales/marketing)
Edith Johanni
Emil-Nolde-Str. 26
90455 Nurnberg
Tel.: 0911/883253
Redaktion (Editor)
Harold Johanni
Hochstr. 7
90429 Nurnberg
Tel.:0911/269567
BLITZBi-monthly, 24 A5 sized pages. in Danish. It is a newsletter/magazine for a BG club in Copenhagen. 4-6 pages are directed towrds the members of the club, the rest is general analysis, commentated matches, articles, problems etc. There is a quiz a la Inside BG's quiz. 4 problems each issue, with the answers taking 4-6 pages. Subscription: Scandinavia Danish kr. 120
Europe Dkr. 140
Overseas (USA/Canada) Dkr. 160
Contact: Asger Kring (proj13@srv.imsor.dth.dk)
Lykkesholms Alle 4B,3 th.
1902 Frederiksberg C.
Denmark
tlf: 3131 1439
Chicago Point NewsletterA Prime Source of Backgammon Information Monthly newsletter, 10 pages:
Subscription: USA/Canada/Mexico: $25/year.
Overseas: $35/year airmail in USD check drawn on
U.S. bank.
Contact: Chicago Point
Bill Davis, Editor
3940 W. Bryn Mawr Ave., Suite 504
Chicago, IL 60659-3128
Phone: 312 583-6464
Fax: 312 583-3264
European Backgammon News Contact: European Backgammon News
Apartado 81
E-04630
Garrucha (Almeria)
Spain
FAX: 34/68-438347
Subscription: $30/12 issues in Europe. $40 elsewhere.
Published since July 1993 by Martin de Bruin.
Flint Area Backgammon NewsMonthly newsletter, 10 pages: Problem analysis, book and software reviews, tournament schedules and complete results, local, national and international backgammon news and views. Full page catalog of backgammon merchandise. Subscription: USA/Canada/Mexico: $20/year or $200 lifetime.
Overseas: $25/year or $250 lifetime subscription.
Contact: Carol Joy Cole, Editor
3003 Ridgecliffe Drive
Flint, Michigan 48532-3730 USA
Phone/Fax: 810-232-9731.
GAMMONMembers magazine for the Danish Backgammon Federation.A5 sized. Published 6 - 8 times a year with a circulation between 1,800 and 10,000 (10,000 during Carlsberg Backgammon Cup). 32 to 44 pages with articles, rating lists, tournament invitations and reviews, general BG theori, "ask the experts"-coloumn, annotated matches etc. Mainly in Danish, with occasional English articles. Subscription can also be obtained by non-members for DKK 180 per year (US$ 30). Advertisement: Please contact Chris Ternel for prices. Editor:
Chris Ternel
Danish Backgammon Federation
Gersonsvej 25
DK-2900 Hellerup
DENMARK
Tel. +45 39 40 06 07
Fax. +45 39 40 01 44
or you can contact:
Erik Gravgaard, president of DBgF
e-mail: erikg@inet.uni-c.dk
Hoosier Backgammon Club NewsletterBi-monthly, 8 pages: Articles/problems plus very issue non-annotated matches of todays best players. Subscription: USA: $12/years Canada/Mexico: $14/year.
Overseas: $16/year (cash or check drawn on US bank.)
Contact: Butch & Mary Ann Meese
Hoosier Backgammon Club
7620 Kilmer Lane
Indianapolis, IN 46256 USA
Tel: 317.845.8435
E-mail: hbc@ix.netcom.com
Inside BackgammonBi-monthly, 24 pages: Technical magazine with quizzes, articles and annotated matches by the best backgammon players today. Subscription: USA: $40/years
Canada/Mexico and oversea ground: $45/year.
Overseas airmail: $60/year (US funds).
Contact: INSIDE BACKGAMMON
P. O. Box 294
Arlington, MA 02174 USA
(617) 641-2091
NorpunktNorpunkt is the magazine of the Norwegian Backgammon Federation (Norges Backgammon Forbund). It's published quarterly, but only written in Norwegian.A sample of articles written in Norwegian appears at WWW site: http://www.oslonett.no/home/swelle/norpunkt.html The WWW page for the Norwegian Backgammon Federation is: http://www.oslonett.no/home/swelle/NBgF.html For Further information send E-mail to Stein Welle at swelle@oslonett.no
Are there any other backgammon newsletters or magazines out there? Please help to keep the faq up to date. (thanks!)
D4. Backgammon books and book reviews.BG books [summary] by Marty Storer(From rec.games.backgammon) From: hunter@work.nlm.nih.gov (Larry Hunter) Subject: Bibliography Date: 21 May 92 20:11:35 GMT Sender: usenet@nlm.nih.gov (usenet news poster)One more for the FAQ. Before Marty Storer left the list, I pestered him for an annotated bibliography. He came through in grand style. Here it is: Must have:
I repeat--all his books are "must have's" for the serious player. They're a bit expensive since I think he bears all the production costs himself, but for the serious player they're worth every cent. Pretty Good Books But Not "Must Have's":
Other books that I've read aren't worth much, including Competitive Backgammon Vol. II, Mike Labins, Marty Storer, and Bill Tallmadge, Competitive Backgammon Publications, Syracuse 1981. (It was good for the time but would be considered lousy now.) As I mentioned before, you can reach Gammon Press at (617)641-2091, fax: (617)641-2660 or PO Box 294 Arlington, MA 02174 USA Larry [Note: Fax number edited to reflect the current number.] BG books [summary] by John BazigosArticle: 1666 of rec.games.backgammon Newsgroups: rec.games.backgammon From: johnsson@sara.cc.utu.fi (MIKA JOHNSSON) Subject: BG BOOKS INFO Date: Thu, 1 Jul 1993 10:20:19 GMTHI ! Many people (last Snoopy) have asked about good BG books, well here is and answer that i got from John Bazigos (Doc), when I asked him about books -Mika BG BOOKS BY JOHN BAZIGOS The two best introductory books are Paul Magriel's ``Backgammon'' (New York Times Quadrangle Press; New York, NY; USA; 1976) and Enno Heyken's and Martin B. Fischer's ``The Backgammon Handbook'' (The Crowood Press; Ramsbury, Marlborough, Wiltshire SN8 2HE; Great Britain; 1990). The advantages of Magriel's ``Backgammon'' are, first, Magriel was a clear-minded, distinguished mathematician at the top of the backgammon world when he wrote it; second, it was the only truly analytic book on backgammon since Oswald Jacoby's and John R. Crawford's ``The Backgammon Book''; third, it rendered all backgammon texts preceding it (including ``The Backgammon Book''), and even some subsequent backgammon texts, obsolete as introductory texts; fourth, it systematically elucidates backgammon strategy, from fundamental to intermediate to advanced; fifth, it does great justice to its topics in its well-diagrammed over-400 pages; and sixth, it has passed the test of time as an introductory text, having been commonly referred to as ``The Bible'' of backgammon. Its disadvantages are, first, some important details of some advanced topics (e.g., desirable back-game points), and even some major points of some beginning/intermediate topics (e.g., tradeoffs between positional and racing equity) are obsolete; second, the prose, though very readable, is structurally and stylistically weak; third, the text has been out-of-print since some time last year, though is well worth a search of *all* your local used/out-of-print bookstores; and fourth, though the publication price was $24.95, the only mail-order list on which I have found it prices it at $80, which makes a used/out-of-print bookstore an even better source -- since it is typically discounted to about $15 there, in my experience (here in the San Francisco Bay Area). The advantages of ``The Backgammon Handbook'' are, first, like ``Backgammon'', it systematically elucidates backgammon strategy; second, it contains the complete score, with some annotations, of the very illuminating, 26-game match between two-time World Backgammon Champion and leading bg theorist Bill Robertie and now-inactive [as of this writing] international master Nack Ballard (Reno, 1987) that the former described as ``...perhaps the most interesting one I've ever played in my life!''; and third, it is still in print with a publication price of about $35. Its disadvantages are, first, Heyken --though an International Master in chess-- does not have an international backgammon rating, and Fischer does not have a master rating in backgammon; second, it contains only about 60% as much text as ``Backgammon'', while not being significantly terser; and third, the authors' lack of qualifications is evidenced in some of their misleading and/or naive analyses. I think that you should search your local, or even not quite local, used/out-of-print bookstores for ``Backgammon'', and pay up to about $50 for it -- though if you find it in such a store, it is likely to be discounted to about $15; and then, if you cannot find it at a reasonable price, buy and read ``The Backgammon Handbook'' -- after which your time won't be best spent reading Magriel soon thereafter. [ Note:
The Backgammon Handbook is still in print and can be ordered direct from
the (very small) publisher:
The Crowood Press
Ramsbury
Marlborough
SN8 2HE, U.K.
Or from any decent bookshop. The price is UKP 15.95 ]
> are you familiar with Danny Kleinmans books, I have read most of his ``magnum opus'' ``Vision Laughs at Counting'', which contains much sound advice on the practical aspects of bg play (e.g., sections on bg hustlers, bg cheaters, chouette money management), seminal advice on handling the doubler, and even a few unprecedented mathematical characterizations of certain aspects of certain positions (e.g., how many pips to penalize a player for having one or more checkers on the bar). > are they good ? ``Vision Laughs at Counting'' is generally insightful and often very amusingly written, but not suitable as an introductory text, sometimes obsolete, and sometimes simply wrong; and though it is the only text by Kleinman that I have read, I have good reason to believe that that judgment applies to Kleinman's other texts, as well. Ok; then after finishing ``Backgammon'' or ``The Backgammon Handbook'', study Jeff Ward's ``The Doubling Cube in Backgammon'' -- which has long been offered through Carol Joy Cole. Magriel's ``Backgammon'' routinely used to be, and sometimes still is, referred to as ``the Bible (of backgammon)''; but since the publication of Robertie's three books on backgammon --i.e., ``Lee Genud vs. Joe Dwek'' (1982), ``Advanced Backgammon'' (1984 and 1991, the latter edition in two volumes), and ``Reno, 1986'' (1987)-- I think that it's more appropriate to refer to ``Backgammon'' and collectively those three as the Old and New Testaments of backgammon, respectively. Given that you have already finished studying ``The Backgammon Handbook'' and ``The Doubling Cube in Backgammon'', I think that you should read one or more books of Robertie's ``New Testament'' fairly soon after finishing Roy Friedman's ``World Class Backgammon, Move-By-Move'' -- which I, also, recently received a copy of from Carol Joy Cole, and is the backgammon book that I intend to read next. Well, from the quality perspective, I was significantly more impressed with it when perhaps the only bg literature I had read was typical junk from the 1970s (i.e., Bruce Becker's monumentally horrible ``Backgammon for Blood'', and Barclay Cooke's often-misleading ``The Cruelest Game'' and slightly-better ``Championship Backgammon''), ``The Backgammon Book'', and Magriel's ``Backgammon''; and from the price perspective, the decision is strictly yours, though I hereby make the following three interrelated claims:
> BTW are there other good bg newspapers or magazines ? Last year was an unprecedentedly good one for backgammon periodicals, in that it saw the first issues of what I strongly believe were and still are the two best periodicals for backgammon theory ever --i.e., Bill Robertie' and Kent Goulding's bi-monthly ``Inside Backgammon'', and Roy Friedman's almost bi-monthly ``Leading Edge Backgammon''. The former is still being published (I recently received my copy of the fourth issue of its second volume), and publication of the latter was suspended at the end of last year (due to some personal problems that Roy was having); but it was possible to order either or both of them from Carol the last time I checked (Please inform me if you need ordering information on either or both of them). Those are the only three backgammon periodicals to which I (have ever) subscribe(d), though that may change soon; more on that in a forthcoming e-mail message from me. > Do you know any technical papers about BG, One of the best features of both ``Inside Backgammon'' and ``Leading Edge Backgammon'' is they consist mostly of (what I would consider) technical papers on backgammon. >I have read Keelers and Spencers "optimal doubling in BG" So have I, but I have also read a paper co-authored by Zadeh, titled ``On Optimal Doubling in Backgammon'', that explicitly rendered that paper obsolete. I'll provide you with more information on both that and other technical papers from the 1970s in a forthcoming e-mail message. > and in one AI-magazine was an article about Tesauros TD-gammon (about 20 p) The second volume of ``Inside Backgammon'' contains about one article per issue on TD-Gammon, two of which document (recent) sessions that Robertie, Magriel, and at least one other bg master had against it; more on that, also, in an forthcoming e-mail message from me.
How to play tournament BG [book]``How to play tournament BG'' by Kit WoolseyThis is an excellent introduction to how play and particularly cube handling varies in games. It shows how to compute push and cash points, recube equity, how to figure gammon costs, etc. It gives Kit's latest match equity chart and gives a method for remembering most of it fairly well. If you play matches games and don't immediately recognize any of these terms, I strongly suggest reading it. -michael j zehr
Here is an outline of the book: 0. Introduction
1. Crawford Game Strategies
2. Post-Crawford Play
2.1. The Free Drop
2.2. Mandatory Doubling
3. The Two-Away versus Two-Away Score
4. The Match-Equity Table
5. Learning the Table
5.1. The Janowski Formula
6. Using the Table
6.1. Gain-Loss Tables
6.2. The Doubling Window
7. Initial Cube-Decisions at Various Scores
8. Redoubles and Cube-Leverage
9. Cube-Leverage in Gammonish Positions
10. Gammon Potential and Checker Play
11. Five Practical Examples
12. An Illustrative Game: Woolsey-Robertie, Reno 1993
-- John Bazigos (``doc'' on FIBS)
Backgammon (Robin Clay) [book]Backgammon by Robin Clay $7.95 NTC Publishing GroupI was surprised to see this book for sale recently at a local book shop. This book was 'skimmed' by two intermediate players, and both immediately found that the some of the concepts and advice given were grossly incorrect. One of these 'reviewers', went as far as to say: "If your opponent says that he has just read this book, immediately raise the stakes!". ...Mark
In The Game Until The End... [booklet]In The Game Until The End: Winning In Ace-Point Endgames by Bob WatchelYou've played an ace-point game; Your opponent is down to his last few checkers. Should you run? Should you stay? If your opponent wants to settle, what's the game worth? How aggressively should you try to pick up a second checker? If you don't know the answers to these critical questions, you need this book. In Chapter 4 alone you'll discover the secrets of the famous "Tino Road Position," an endgame so complicated that - once you know how to play it - you can take the position from either side and win. Olympiad Champion Bob Watchel has thoroughly analyzed hundreds of ace-point game positions to generate a complete picture of what's really going on in these common yet widely-misplayed situations. Soft bound, 112 Pages. Level: Advanced and Serious Intermediate. Available from The GAMMON PRESS. US$25 + Shipping [From a flyer from The GAMMON PRESS]
Learning From the Machine... [booklet]Learning from the Machine: Robertie vs. TD-GAMMON by Bill RobertieFor years, computer backgammon was a languishing sideshow, with the best computer programs barely able to rise to the intermediate level. This all changed in 1991 with the emergence of TD-Gammon, an experimental neural network program developed at IBM's research labs. TD-Gammon taught itself to play, starting with a knowledge of the rules of the game. After playing thousands of games against itself, the program reached strong Open player level; within months, it became world-class. TD-Gammon plays like a strong human player in many parts of the game. In some areas, it plays quite unlike what has generally been accepted as "correct strategy" leading increasing numbers of top players to begin to experiment with some of TD-Gammon's unconventional plays. Here is your chance to see for yourself. Bill Robertie played two long matches against TD-Gammon as part of its evaluation process. "Learning from the Machine" is the complete account of the 31 games of the first match, with annotations by Robertie. Soft bound, 56 Pages. Level: All. Available from The GAMMON PRESS. US$20 + Shipping [From a flyer from the GAMMON PRESS]
Kit Woolsey's "Tournement Series Backgammon"In December 1994, The GAMMON PRESS announced its publication of the first three (of 18) volumes Kit Woolsey's Tournement Backgammon Series. These are text versions of Kit's instructional Match Qiz software. There are many diagrams, which means a board is not required to study the material. The typesetting is elegant. The comments are elequent.Book 1: Joe Sylvester vs. Nack Ballard 150 pages US$20 Book 2: Philip Marmorstein vs. Michael Greiner 240 pages US$25 Book 3: Mika Lidov vs. Hal Heinrich 220 pages US$25 The Backgammon Book[Authers: Oswald Jacoby and John R. Crawford]There are many who will be quick to dismiss _The BG Book_ because it was written in 1970 and knowledge has come very far since then. However, I recommend this book to players who are just beginning to study the game seriously because it offers an excellent overview of several central features of backgammon thinking and analysis. Although the anaysis doen't go very FAR, a reader will get clear introductions to:
I think this book is a fine place to start, but if you hope to get anywhere you will need to follow up with some more sophisticated books. Magriel if you can find it, of course. Dwek's _BG for Profit_ is a good next step, too. Avoid Barclay Cooke's _Paradoxes & Probabilities_ and _Championship BG_, though, because those books are wrong in their evaluation of many common positions. Good luck in your studies! Albert Steg
Playboy's Book of BackgammonOne of my favorite books on BG is Lewis Deyong's _Playboy's Book of Backgammon_, becasue he alternates chapters on tactics and strategy with sections recounting various stories from major tournaments all over the world : California, Las Vegas, Munich, Athens, Johannesburg, Beirut.Reading it, you get a pretty vivid picture of the BG "scene" in the 60's and 70's. You also get some understanding of how Calcutta Auctions work, and may learn some good anecdotal lessons about the psychology of the game: steaming, taking insurance, etc. -- Albert Steg
Other BooksOther books seeking write-ups:
Danny Kleinman BooksA list of Danny Kleinman books (Backgammon)
Pages Price (US$)
----- -----------
VISION LAUGHS AT COUNTING with ADVICE TO THE DICELORN 438 $64
WONDERFUL WORLD OF BACKGAMMON 132 $18
MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE CHOUETTE 142 $20
DOUBLE-SIXES FROM THE BAR 135 $19
IS THERE LIFE AFTER BACKGAMMON? 148 $21
HOW CAN I KEEP FROM DANCING? 134 $19
THE DICE CONQUER ALL 228 $33
HOW LITTLE WE KNOW ABOUT BACKGAMMON 168 $25
THE OTHER SIDE OF MIDNIGHT 142 $20
... BUT ONLY THE HOGS WIN BACKGAMMONS 244 $37
A Backgammon Book For Gabriel. 144 $24
The Long Road To Gammon. 176 $32
[Note: Danny will be raising the price of his publications shorty (9507)]
D5. A List of Backgammon Articles in Science and Business[Original list submited by Mika Johnsson] [sorted by date]
D6. Where does one purchase backgammon supplies and books?The GAMMON PRESS The GAMMON PRESS (Bill Robertie)
PO Box 294
Arlington, MA
02174
U.S.A.
PHONE: (617) 641-2091
FAX: (617) 641-2660
Books, software, video, backgammon sets, precision dice, ++. The GAMMON
PRESS publishes Inside Backgammon, as well as books and booklets.
Carol Joy Cole Carol Joy Cole
3003 Ridgecliffe Dr.
Flint, MI
48532
U.S.A.
(810) 232-9731.
E-mail: carlcole@sils.umich.edu
Books, software, backgammon sets, precision dice, cubes, ++. Carol Joy Cole is also the editor of the Flint Area Backgammon News.
The Backgammon Shop The Backgammon Shop (Backgammon Butikken)
Gersonsvej 25
DK-2900 Hellerup
Denmark
Tel. +45 39 40 06 07
Fax + 45 39 40 01 44
E-mail: erikg@inet.uni-c.dk
Danny Kleinman Danny Kleinman
5312 1/2 Village Green
Los Angeles, CA
90016
U.S.A.
Read Kleinman, or rely on dice.
Books on Backgammon, Bridge, O'Hell, and life.
Dansk Backgammon Forlag Dansk Backgammon Forlag (Danish Backgammon Press)
Gersonsvej 25
dk-2900 Hellerup
Denmark
phone: +45 39 40 06 07
or contact Erik Gravgarrd at erikg@inet.uni-c.dk
Books, sets, dice and generel backgammon equipment. You can get all the modern books there, plus some of the old ones from the seventies, among them `Backgammon' (Magriel). Also some software.
Crisloid Crisloid INC.
P.O. Box 2205
Providence, Rhode Island
02905
tel: (401) 461-7200
fax: (401) 785-3750
They require a minimum order of $100 to obtain wholesale prices.
Larry Strommen L. A. Strommen
6866 Meadow View Dr.
Indianapolis, IN 46226
Tel: (317) 545-0224
E-mail: diceman@indy.net
Precision Dice and JellyFish sales & support, Backgammon Position Analyzer. John RatherA source for hard-to-find BG books. John C. Rather -------------- Old & Rare Books P.O. Box 273 Kensington, MD 20895 USA Telephone: (301) 942-0515 John is a longtime book collector and dealer who specializes in hard- to-find out-of-print BG books. He usually has a copy or more of Magriel's ``Backgammon'' (aka ``The Bible''), for sale at a fair price. A carefully annotated book price list is available upon request. John's other book specialities are chess, magic and mountaineering. D7. An index of backgammon resources available on the Internet.By Site: rec.games.backgammon The backgammon newsgroup. Articles, problems, and information about the game of backgammon are discussed daily in this group. fraggel65.mdstud.chalmers.se 4321 The First Internet Backgammon Server (FIBS) http://www.cybercom.net/~damish/backgammon/bg-faq.html The backgammon faq. http://www.statslab.cam.ac.uk/~sret1/backgammon/faq.html Mirror of the backgammon FAQ in the UK. Thanks Stephen! http://www.statslab.cam.ac.uk/~sret1/backgammon/main.html Stephen Turner's World Wide Web backgammon page. http://www.oslonett.no/home/swelle/NBgF.html WWW page of the Norwegian Backgammon Federation. http://www.cybercom.net/~damish/backgammon/nebc/nebc.html New England Backgammon Club home page (under construction). http://baugi.ifi.uio.no:80/~paalf/BG Paal Fladstrups Index of Backgammon files. http://www.ifi.uio.no/~paalf/backgammon.html Paal's Backgammon Page. http://www.utu.fi/harrastus/bg/ BACKGAMMONSIVU WWW page in the Finnish language http://hdirisc9.kfk.de/www/mata/mata93/mat0m6/bg/bg.html Marco Lau's Backgammon-Seite (German and English) http://www.cybercom.net/~damish/backgammon/mike_quinn/fibs.htm Michael Quinn's Guide to FIBS. http://www.dknet.dk/~kring/backgam.html Asger Kring's (Albatross) backgammon page. http://www.cybercom.net/~damish/backgammon/fibshelp.html Mark Damish's FIBS help document. http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/staff/personal_pages/eggertd/backgammon.html David Eggert's page, which includes announcements and results for his FIBS tournaments. http://www.statslab.cam.ac.uk/~sret1/backgammon/clubs/ Stephen Turner's compilation of backgammon clubs around the world. http://www.gammon.com Patti Beadles backgammon page: A central repository for backgammon related information, and Patti's personal playground. FIBS T-shirt info. http://www.io.org/~takeith/bg/glossary.html Backgammon glossary. http://www.msen.com/~lwp/BGglossary.html Spider's BG glossary. http://www.phil.uni-sb.de/fun/jargon/backgammon.html Jargon File 3.0.0 - backgammon http://sg3.organ.su.se/~tsz/equity.html Equity Tables for different gammon rates and player strengths. http://forum.swarthmore.edu/~jay/learn-game/systems/gammon.html Jay Scotts machine learning in games web site. http://www.columbia.edu/~radev/backgammon/fibsratings/ Back issues of the FIBS Rating Reports. http://www.cs.ualberta.ca/~banks/fibs/test.html Back issues of the FIBS Rating Reports. http://www.yahoo.com/Recreation/Games/Board_Games/Backgammon/ A list of backgammon resources around the net. http://www.mi.aau.dk/~mortend/elite.html Morten Daugbjerg's homepage, which includes the bearoff program BGOUT http://www.io.org/~takeith/bg/mpd.html "Backgammon Match Play Doubling Strategy" By Tom Keith. http://www.io.org/~takeith/bg/met.html "How to Compute A Match Equity Table" By Tom Keith. http://158.38.60.54/webcon/bgframes.html A web page bearoff analyzer (BOA) http://webcom.com/~markplag/backgammonpage.html Mark's (A differant Mark) Backgammon Page. Upgrade MacFibs to include http://www.outland.com/OutlandBackgammon.html Outland Backgammon http://realbeer.com/realbeer/games/beergammon.html Games - BEERgammon http://www.pmms.cam.ac.uk/~gjm11/programs/main.html#race3 Gareth McCaughan: programsGareth McCaughan: programs (Bearoff program) http://www.pmms.cam.ac.uk/~gjm11/bgm/ Some Backgammon Things. ftp://resudox.net/pub/pc/windows/games/fibsw/html/fibsw.html FIBS/W web page. http://este.darmstadt.gmd.de:5000/persons/fankhaus/backgammon.html funk's Backgammon links. Section E: MISC.E1. What other games can be played on a backgammon board?
Hyper-BackgammonNewsgroups: rec.games.backgammon From: mau@world.std.com (Michael A Urban) Subject: Re: 3-Checker Hyper Backgammon Date: Thu, 14 Oct 1993 02:23:24 GMT Each side starts with 3 checkers on their respective 24, 23, and 22 points. The cube is in play. Jacoby rule in effect. Matches will start at 7 points and work their way up in later rounds. All other normal backgammon rules apply. NackgammonFrom: kleef@cs.utwente.nl (Rolf Kleef) at SMTP-Post-Office 10/15/93Nackgammon: The same as backgammon, but with a different starting position: instead of five men on both your midpoint and 6-point, you just put four there. The remaining two men end up at the 23-point: 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24
+------------------------------------------+ X:
| O X | | X O O |
| O X | | X O O |
| O X | | X |
| O | | X |
| | | |
v| |BAR| |
| | | |
| X | | O |
| X O | | O |
| X O | | O X X |
| X O | | O X X |
+------------------------------------------+ O:
12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
This was invented by Nack Ballard (hence the name), to force his bg students to practice positional play. Games tend to be much longer, since you can't easily start a race with a 65 or 66 opening-phase roll. In July this year, we hosted the first European Championship Nackgammon during our series of Kater Cup tournaments. Teun Ruardy from Groningen, The Netherlands became the first EC Nackgammon! [What are the cube and gammon rules for Nackgammon?]
TapaFrom: vladimir@cs.ualberta.ca 1/24/95Subject: Tapa (yet another kind of backgammon) The word "tapa" means "bottle cap" and it's an apt name because one seeks to block out the opponent's pieces. The starting position is as shown below 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24
+------------------------------------------+
| | | OOO|
| | | OOO|
| | | OOO|
| | | OOO|
| | | OOO|
O v| |BAR| |
moves | | | XXX|
this | | | XXX|
way | | | XXX|
| | | XXX|
| | | XXX|
+------------------------------------------+
12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
The move direction and game objective are the same as in
BG. There is one important difference: If you leave a blot at your home slot (1 or 24) and it gets covered, you certainly lose a backgammon (unless your opponent has done the same, in which case it's a tie). A long doublet (5 and 5 or 6 and 6) in the initial stage of the game can be very useful because usually the opponent would have some blots in their home quadrant and you may cover them. The closer this happens to their home slot, the better, because the later you will free the blot when you are bearing off. Tapa is very much a game of strategy. Even if you get caught very close to your home row, you may be able to force the opponent to free it by blocking enough of his men, so that he doesn't have any other move. During most of the game it better to move SLOWER rather than faster. Primes are not necessarily useful, eg when the opponent has enough space for short moves behind the prime. If nobody gets caught in the early stage, the two players try to advance their men in "almost primed" formations. Then the passing-through of the two armies can be a rather dramatic clash. Tapa is quite popular in Bulgaria. In fact people play three games --BG, Gul Bara, and Tapa-- in a row. The cube isn't used and there are no backgammons (although there are gammons, called "mars"). I think these games (or at least the names) have come to Bulgaria from Turkey. Some people (esp. the older ones) use Turkish names for the rolls, eg "shesh-besh" is "6 and 5". I'd say backgammon is the favorite recreation of Bulgarian pensioners. Gul Bara is similar to Narde (the actuall name is Nardy where "y" signifies the Russian letter "ery" as in "byk" (bull)), but double rolls are very powerful, eg if you roll 1 and 1 then you get to move 4 ones, 4 twos, 4 threes, ..., 4 sixes.
NardeFrom: zweije@wi.leidenuniv.nl (Vincent Zweije)In Kazachstan, and probably Russia too, people play a game called "Narde" on a backgammon board. It is also played with 15 checkers each, in the following starting position (point numbering is taken from backgammon). O's side
13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24
+------------------------------------------+
| | | OOO|
| | | OOO|
| | | OOO|
| | | OOO|
| | | OOO|
v| |BAR| |^
|XXX | | |
|XXX | | |
|XXX | | |
|XXX | | |
|XXX | | |
+------------------------------------------+
12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
X's side
Do to language problems I never got a formal introduction to the game. I'll have to write down the rules out of my head. It is played like backgammon, with the following exceptions: 1: Both players move in the same direction. X moves from 12 down to
1, then to 24 and down to 13, and finally off; O moves from 24 down
to 13, then to 12 and down to 1, and finally off.
2: A point is already made with one checker on it. There is no
hitting in the game.
3: Doublets are not special. If you roll 3-3, you get to move a
checker three pips twice. Possibly the same checker.
Bearing off is like backgammon. Moving is mandatory when possible. I don't know whether, like in backgammon, you have to move the higher of the dice if you have to choose. It never happened during actual play. The game is almost fully one of chance. The main thing is to take care not to get blocked by a six-point prime (already made with six checkers in a row!). [ There seems to be quite a few games with this starting postion, going the same direction, where 1 blot is a blocker, and there is no hitting. The rules vary with how many may be in a row, doubles, and starting criteria. It seems to be a game where 'blocking' is the predonimant strategy. Some games have double games, triple games, quad games, depending upon what quadrant the opponent has his remaining checkers in. I've never seen this played in the USA. ...Mark ]
Diceless BackgammonFrom: igor@krest.kharkov.ukraine.ussr (Igor) Newsgroups: rec.games.backgammon Subject: Re: Diceless Backgammon? Date: 27 Mar 92 00:48:51 GMT Organization: Society of connoiseurs of female beautyIn fact, there's a version of backgammon, which is much more popular than regular bg in USSR, especially in Azerbajdzhan and Uzbekistan. Main features are following:
Acey-deucyIn this game all the men start off the board. They enter and move around the board in the same way as men sent home in regular backgammon. In other words, the white men enter in black's home board and move around through black's outer board and white's outer board until all are gathered in white's home board; then white can start to bear them off. Black enters his men in the white home board and moves around in the same manner.Rules are the same as for backgammon, except that you can move any man you want to at any time, whether or not you have men to bring in. In addition, the roll of 1-2 -- acey-deucy -- is an especially valuable roll. You begin by playing your ace-deuce. Then you play any number four times (in other words, you pick any double you wish). Then you get an extra roll. and if this extra roll is also 1-2 you get the same extras with it. Early game strategy in acey-deucy is to try to establish
advanced points as quickly as you can, and if possible also establish adjacent
points as base for a prime. If both sides develop primes right smack up against
one another, the advantage lies with the prime that is farther advanced. Even if
the man with the farther-advanced prime has to break his first, he will probably
win the game; if he can hold his prime longer, he almost surely will win. My own comments: Acey-deucy is a fun game, with a much greater element of luck or chance than regular backgammon. 1-2 rolls are deadly. You are never out-of-it right to the end. The pace is fast and furious (at least compared to regular backgammon -- which, incidentally, I still prefer, but Acey-deucy makes a nice change of pace once in a while). One key point of strategy -- block your opponent from a play of 1 or 2 if you can. This opportunity only occasionally presents itself, but watch for it. If you can't play your lowly 1-2, you lose the bonus double and extra roll. Acey-Deucy typed/submitted by Peter Nickless
One Point MatchesThis variant is played the same as `regular' backgammon with two exceptions; the cube is not used, and gammons/backgammon don't exist. This often leads to very strategicaly played games, where a back-game is more of an option than in the regular version since staying back forever never leads to losing more than one point. Since all games are played to to completion, `slime vigorish' to turn a game around suddenly occurs more frequently since you cannot cube your opponent out.Why play `one point matches'? Well, similar games occur all of the time in tournament play. Double match point, and crawford to an even score are examples. One point matches have been labled the `Crack' of backgammon at the New England Backgammon Club (NEBC), and the opium of the game by others.
FeugaFrom: sheyn@cs.bu.edu
(Igor Sheyn) OK, here's the attempt to put down a complete set of rule for the game called feuga in Greek. Equipment: Backgammon board, 15 checkers for each player, 2 pairs of dice ( we play it with 1 pair, but let's keep it to bg as close to possible ) Initial checkers setup: Each player has all of his checker on the same point. 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13
X
X
X
X
15
15
O
O
O
O
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
Direction: Both players move counter clock-wise. Using numeration above, O
moves from 1 to 19-24 quater, which is his home. X moves from 13 to 24 and then
continues 1 to 7-12 quater, which is his home.
Goal: Bring your men home and bear them off as in backgammon. Main difference from backgammon: Hitting is not a part of a game, hence the point is considered made when there's only 1 checker on it ( no blots and slotting in this game ). Various aspects: the initial point for each player ( 13 for X, 1 for O in the setup above ) is called "head". A player is allowed to move only 1 checker from his head per roll. If he can't obey this rule on any given roll, he can't play his roll fully. Exception: if your 1st roll of the game is 6-6 or 4-4, you're allowed to play 2 checkers off your head, 1/7(2) with 6-6 and 1/9(2) with 4-4. Priming: there's one restriction on building a 6prime. You can build a 6prime only provided there's at least one opposing checker ahead of your prime. E.g., if you want to build your prime from 1 to 6 as O, X has to have at least 1 checker anywhere from 7 to 12. This rule is to prevent trivial strategy of building 6prime right in the beginning and then just rolling it home. Gammon: Gammon is counted in same way as in BG. Backgammons do not count ( as far as I know ). Cube: No cube is used ( this can be easily fixed though ). If u have any questions or if u think I left smth out, please let me know. Igor Greek/Turkish variation called ?From: eadengle@cgl.uwaterloo.ca
(Ed "Cynwrig" Dengler) As taught to me by my uncle (who is a Greek): Setup: All 15 of your men start on your 24 point (farthest point from your bearoff). Initially: Each player rolls 1 die, whoever rolls the highest uses both dice to move. Play alternates with each player rolling two dice. Movement and bearing off is the same as standard backgammon. The big difference in Greek backgammon is that you never 'hit' an opponent's checker and send it to the bar. Instead, you 'trap' the checker under your own. Your opponent is not allowed to move his checker until you uncover it. In addition, the trapped checker acts as one of your own to form a blot (ie. equivalent to two checkers of your own colour on a point). Because of the trapping rule, if you manage to trap an opponent's checker in your bearoff quadrant, you can pretty much force a gammon, unless you get trapped yourself and are forced to break the trap first. Also, backgammons are much more common than in regular backgammon. E2. How does one become a better player?[Suggestions/articles from ALL levels sought for this space][Edited from a message about proper cube handling. ...Mark] Always play backgammon for affordable but meaningful stakes. This is surprisingly important. If you play "just for fun" you'll take doubles "to see how they'll turn out" and win some of those games anyway, giving yourself incorrect reinforcement. Likewise you'll drop doubles you should take because "you dont' feel like playing it out." If something is riding on the game, you're much less likely to do that. In short, it hones the senses and makes you think about the cube all the time. There is also definite penalties and rewards for correct cube action. Practice practice practice. -- michael j zehr
I think the first step in becoming a good player is to realize what a game backgammon is. Many people think they're unlucky when they lose, and don't realize that it is actually also a game of skill. The first thing I learned from backgammon was to lose, even from the most incredible positions. You shouldn't spend your energy whining about your bad rolls, spend it on making good moves (and cube decitions!) instead. Other than that, it's simple to describe how to become a good backgammonplayer: Study, and read all books you can get your hand on. If you go to a club or a tournament, watch the good players. One of my friends did that a lot when he started. Also, don't be afraid to ask strong players questions about a move you made, a move HE made or something like that. Most of the strong players are very friendly when people ask them about their opinion. You can also record matches. This can be matches between two good players, or you can have ask a friend to record one of your matches. There's a big difference in what you can learn from the former compared to the latter. I played a tournament in Chicago in '92 and recorded a couple of matches, one between Rick Barabino and Dean Muench. Afterwards I went through the match myself, and noted the plays I would certairnly not have made myself. I asked Dean Muench about why he did this and that, and he explained it in a very logical way to me. He asked me which flight i played in, I answeared 'Intermediate', and he said 'You won't be that for much longer if you keep studying like that!' I was also lucky to get an extremely interesting game in that match. If you get one of your friends to record your match, you get a chance to analyse your own play. This can particularly helpfull if you do it a while after the match has played, to see how (if) your game has evolved. -- Asger Kring
[...] But a must if you want to reach a high level of backgammon skill is to build a positions database. Study positions, and remember as many benchmark positions as you can. The most costly mistakes are bad middlegame cube actions, and the more benchmarks you have available, the better your equity estimates can be, and the more accurate will be your related match-equity calculations. Also, the less time you have to spend grunting and sweating over equities, the more time you'll have for figuring out your opponent--and you'll just have more energy, which is at a premium in long tournaments or money sessions. --Marty Storer
Just study and play. What else is there? -- Roy Friedman [...] One last thing: someone remarked that the best way to learn bg was to play and observe on FIBS. I might argue. Get a hold of the matches Heinrich sells. Go through them. Many times. Roll out positions. Try and see the line of thought behind a play. Second only to playing countless hours, those matches were some of the most useful studying I've done. -- Kim Scheinberg Exerpts from `A Talk with Paul Weaver' by Walter Trice from `Anchors' (The New England BACKGAMMON CLUB Newsletter) Oct 1994 [Paul Weaver was rated number 1 on Kent Goulding's International rating list in June 1992, and June 1993.] [...] PW: Well there's no way that he can ENSURE winning it without cheating. Even if you're the best player in the world the chances that you're going to win this tournament are actually quite small. WT: Okay, let's just say that he wants to give himself a damn good shot at it. PW: Well, first of all he needs to be in excellent shape physically. You need to have a lot of stamina. If you're in good enough shape to go out and run 5 miles a day, then you're probably in good enough shape to play. Stamina is a very important ingredient of success in this kind of tournament, and if you look at Sylvester and Horan, both of them have a lot of stamina. In addition to stamina, technical knowledge is important, so how do you get to be a good player technically? Read the newsletters, read the books including Kit Woolsey's MATCHQIZ material, and start doing all you can to analyze positions and roll out positions. When I say roll out positions, I don't just mean feed them to your computer, I mean sit down and move the checkers yourself. When you roll something out yourself you learn an awful lot more than just the raw numbers. You get an insight into the variations that develop in the position, and you start figuring out for yourself what checker strategies work and what strategies don't. You see fluky ways that you can lose the game, and when you start seeing them over and over again, you realize that maybe they aren't so fluky and that you should find ways to prevent them. So my advice to any intermediate who wants to improve his game would be to get your hands dirty and do some work and roll out positions. When I did this my game began to improve immensely. WT: You've certainly rolled out a lot of positions. How many is it at this point? PW: Well, the number has got to be over a thousand. WT: Do you think it's important to actually play? PW: Oh sure. Rolling out positions by itself is not going to make you a good player. It's important to play, and also to play the strongest competition available. To play in the toughest tournaments that you can, and to play heads-up sessions with the strongest players that are available. Play for enough to make it meaningful. WT: So it's read, roll out, play. Plus jog. PW: More than jog -- I would say run. Get yourself in good shape. Diet and rest are also important. WT: How much time do you devote to backgammon during the average week? Is it like a full-time job? PW: Well, I suppose it is. It varies -- sometimes very little, sometimes as much as 40 or 50 hours. But lately my life has changed and with all the travelling I'm doing and being in Brazil, I don't spend nearly as much time rolling out positions. And I've decided that my time has come to stop rolling things out and start playing the game for real. But I constantly review my material. I have close to 1000 reference positions. WT: So you don't see yourself having any more major improvements in your game? You've just about "got it?" PW: No! Not by a long shot. For one thing, the computer software... I believe that within a few years someone is going to come up with a piece of software that will nail down the equity of any backgammon position to within 1/100 of a point. It's conceivable that it has already happened. WT: You think maybe there's a perfect backgammon machine out there? PW: Not just one. Enough different people are working on
it that there's a good chance that this thing will be solved by more than one
person. And since a lot of people are working on it it won't be kept a secret
for long. And when this tool becomes available I'll learn a lot, for example
about backgames. I'll learn whether it's true that different match scores will
affect your opening plays and responses. We'll get all the openings and
responses nailed down, and pretty much all the 3rd roll things will be committed
to memory.
[...] What is it that makes the better player better? It is his ability to play through a full game making fewer mistakes than the weaker player. [...] From a posting to rec.games.backgammon by Kit Woolsey
IMHO, FIBS is the single best learning took for backgammon right now. Hang around, play, watch better players... you can't help but improve your game. Patti Beadles pattib@gammon.com
I have personally developed my skills in backgammon partly by reading the available literature, but also by playing fairly high stakes money games. One of the single most developing activities has been my money game session with another Danish player. We have invoked our own very special rule that sharpens your game considerably and hence improves your performance.
With this rule in effect you have to consider any cube action much more in depth, because you also have to consider the other side. And also there will be no "cheap" drops where you might want to "play it safe" on the score sheet. A drop that really is a take can prove very costly indeed. For my friend and myself it has been a very efficient learning tool as well as a great gambling add-on to normal backgammon. --- Erik Gravgaard
While I'd agree that watching good players is a useful part of learning, I doubt that there is any substitute for playing many many many games. Most really strong players are people who spend many hours at a (real) backgammon table, playing for $ both head up & in chouettes. Reading good books can help a great deal, but the knowledge in them doesn't really become "your own" until you have put it into uses over the course of hundreds/thousands of games. Because there are many different criteria (racing chances, shot equity, timing, prime architecture, etc.) to bring to bear on any given play, it is difficult to learn how to the *weight* of the various considerations from reading alone. Experience develops your feel for what is most important in a given situation. After reading the fundamental books, and perhaps taking notes on the bits you find "new & useful," I'd spend 5-10 hours playing to one hour studying. Write down interesting positions that arise when you play and study them, perhaps rolling them out by hand later. Play in chouettes as often as possible, in which you are neither the strongest nor weakest player. Learn from your betters, and earn from your lessers. Wonderful as it may be in many ways, I still think FIBS is a "second best" playing option -- you just don't get as many games per hour played. -- Albert Steg E3. Kent Goulding's International Backgammon Rating ListKent Goulding maintains the International Backgammon Rating list for Backgammon. Copies are available for $5 from:Kent Goulding 9201 Marseille Drive Potomac MD 20854 E4. Misc.Apparently it is possible to receive and post to newsgroups via E-mail. Send mail to netnews@db.stanford.edu Put "help" in your message. You will receive a reply explaining how you can subscribe to all Usenet messages that contain a particular keyword or list of keywords in them.radev@news.cs.columbia.edu (Dragomir R. Radev) Netnews@stanford is good for reading Usenet by mail. To post to rgb you need the UTexas mail-to-news gateway send mail to "rec-games-backgammon@cs.utexas.edu and this will post to r.g.b. -- Radev From: lwp@conch.msen.com Newsgroups: rec.games.backgammon Subject: access to r.g.b. without a news server Date: Thu, 16 Nov 1995 09:42:16 -0500 This is a test post. If this appears in r.g.b., I have found a working gateway for posting news via email. See my backgammon page at http://www.msen.com/~lwp/bg.html for links which allow people to read r.g.b. without a news server and to post to r.g.b. via this gateway. -- Spider
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