Party Backgammon

[bobhalford]

Anyone have any thoughts as to what will happen with this?

Here's the scenario that's been going through my mind lately:

Poker players, sharks and fish alike, will start to experiment playing backgammon, then lose a bunch of money to players like me. Eventually they will have that "ahhh" moment where they understand the game and how awesome it is, and will start playing more and more. The poker experts will eventually buy books and try to get better (they will inevitably lose money at the start as backgammon is a difficult game). The fish will lose lots of money and won't stop losing. A significant percentage of the poker population becomes addicted to backgammon (not only because it's awesome, but also because it's a great way to take a break from playing poker). The end result is that bad players will be available 24/7 to lose money to me. The quality of my life improves and I no longer worry about money.

The question is, will Party Backgammon be anything like the wonderland that is Party Poker? I think it's possible. The great thing about backgammon is that bad players donate a lot of money. Mistakes become very costly in backgammon, not unlike NL hold 'em cash games.

Right now I am furiously working on my backgammon game, only because I heard that Party will be offering backgammon. I figure that if I can improve my game a few notches, that I can make a killing at backgammon if I can play against bad players.

My feeling is that poker players are more likely to gambool and lose. At first, backgammon can appear to be pretty easy. After some time, you realize that it is very difficult and requires a lot of skill. This means that players will overestimate their ability, which should lead to great losses to good players. Also, there may be poker players from the higher limits willing to play a few dollars a point to learn the game. There may be lots of action from people intent on learning how to play the game who don't mind losing a few hundred or a couple grand at backgammon.

I also think gammon is as addictive as poker. As poker players start to realize how much fun the game is, and that it is a game meant for gambling, we might have a 1970's style backgammon renaissance!

What think you?

[Runner Runner]

Nope sorry. IMO, some will give it a try at the low stakes and lose. Very few will have this "Ahhh" moment you are talking about and take the game up seriously.

Very few will get addicted to backgammon, because there just isn't as much action in that game. Think about it, what's more fun: blufffing, betting, sucking out, getting run over by the deck or....hitting twice, building a prime, racing your men in. Poker is much more fun and it's not close.

Poker has better appeal to gamblers then backgammon and though there will be some good games available to you when backgammon gets initially released just like when any new game is offered on Party, the games will quickly get tougher. Don't expect to be making money hand over fist like you can in poker.

[Koss]

Bots will always be an issue in online backgammon. It's yet to be proven if a Poker Bot can be made that will be able to put up a fight against competent poker players. Backgammon programs exist for free that will tangle with all but the greatest players.

[bobhalford]

[ QUOTE ]
Nope sorry. IMO, some will give it a try at the low stakes and lose. Very few will have this "Ahhh" moment you are talking about and take the game up seriously.

Very few will get addicted to backgammon, because there just isn't as much action in that game. Think about it, what's more fun: blufffing, betting, sucking out, getting run over by the deck or....hitting twice, building a prime, racing your men in. Poker is much more fun and it's not close.

Poker has better appeal to gamblers then backgammon and though there will be some good games available to you when backgammon gets initially released just like when any new game is offered on Party, the games will quickly get tougher. Don't expect to be making money hand over fist like you can in poker.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm not sure that it's so that poker is way more exciting than backgammon. One thing about poker is that a good player in a full ring game won't be playing much more than 20% of the time. In backgammon, you are playing all the time.

Sure, getting run over by the deck is fun, but so is offering a double, rolling a good number and then getting the gammon. There are lots of exciting events that can happen in a backgammon game. I think the roll of the dice is exciting the same way it is when the dealer flips over the river card to make you a flush. There are loads of crazy things that happen in backgammon.

Emotionally speaking, backgammon messes me up the most. I get a form of tilt when I make a bad take of the cube, or move my checkers in a bad way. The other thing I forgot to mention in the OP is the existence of GNU and Snowie. The fact that these programs exist should be enough to attract a lot of players. To have the ability to analyse your play like this is a boon to the thoughtful gambler. It's money in the bank for those willing to invest the time to improve their play.

I think I agree with you guys, that gammon won't become popular. If it was meant to be popular, it already would be. But something gives me the feeling that not enough people have been exposed to backgammon, and that if they were offered it on the largest poker site, they would like it. I don't agree with you about how exciting or fun backgammon is compared to poker. I think poker players and backgammon players have a lot in common. There is a similiarity between offering the cube and making a bet. The big difference between the two games is that your opponent doesn't matter much. With a weak opponent you may redouble when it's too good to redouble because he will take, or you can play complicated positions to force an opponent into making large and frequent errors. By and large your moves depend on the board and not your opponents. Regardless of the similarities and differences, I think backgammon appeals to gamblers because it's a game made for gambling. I can't see any reason why a poker player wouldn't go gaga for it. At the least, it's a fun and relaxing change of pace from 6-tabling Party poker.

I think backgammon needs to get out of the ivy league dorm rooms and into the computer of the average poker player. Once they see how you can gamble it up with dice (and the smarter ones will see how they can win money on top of being able to gamble), they will love it.

Is your feeling about backgammon shared among most poker players? I think it's awesome. I thought everyone who played it thought so for some reason. It's only those that don't really know how to play that might say it's boring.

Anyway, I guess if I had to bet on it, I would bet against backgammon. It would be cool though if it became popular and there were an unlimited supply of fish wanting to gamble it up 24/7. I'll just have to wait and see what happens.

[Runner Runner]

What you need to get that game going is a world backgammon tour:

" I can't believe it Vince! After his opponent doubled, he turned around and re-doubled! You've got to admire this kid's backgammon courage Vince."

[cardcounter0]

World Backgammon Tour needs to be on TV and a guy named Dollarmaker needs to win the SuperBowl of Backgammon event after having won an entry online.

[bobhalford]

[ QUOTE ]
What you need to get that game going is a world backgammon tour:

" I can't believe it Vince! After his opponent doubled, he turned around and re-doubled! You've got to admire this kid's backgammon courage Vince."

[/ QUOTE ]

That is hilarious. /images/graemlins/grin.gif

[smoothraise]

[ QUOTE ]
What you need to get that game going is a world backgammon tour:

" I can't believe it Vince! After his opponent doubled, he turned around and re-doubled! You've got to admire this kid's backgammon courage Vince."

[/ QUOTE ]

Awesome

[boc4life]

I know I'll donk up a few hundred bucks in backgammon to break the monotony of poker if it's right there on Party...

[stigmata]

I do think that if party introduce backgammon in their lobby, then anyone already skilled at backgammon will be well placed to make some money. It will definately be good for online backgammon, although I doubt it will ever be able to support more than a handfull of pro's and a smattering of decent amateur's.

I'm sure myself and many, many others, will be donating some money. Just wait till we start fighting back though /images/graemlins/wink.gif

[testaaja]

I don't know about anyone else but I would never even consider playing backgammon for money untill I was atleas somewhat good. I mean there is no way I can never overcome the gap in experience. Sure there can be some donks but I don't really think that the fish are willing to play backgammon like poker. And anyone who plays poker well is not going to bust his money into a game that he has no chance of winning. No one plays roulette right?

[ski]

I know backgammon moves are somewhat opponent dependant but wouldn't it be pretty easy to write a program that would give anyone expert (or at least non fish) status? It would be undetectable because one could just run it on a seperate computer and enter the moves manually.

[testaaja]

[ QUOTE ]
I know backgammon moves are somewhat opponent dependant but wouldn't it be pretty easy to write a program that would give anyone expert (or at least non fish) status? It would be undetectable because one could just run it on a seperate computer and enter the moves manually.

[/ QUOTE ]
Yes it would be easy. I doubt that there isn't one already.

[Runner Runner]

There are a couple of programs called snowie and jellyfish I think. From what I've heard, you enter the info and they tell you the optimal move. You can tell when someone is using one of these programs though, because they take longer to make their moves. Also, many people use these programs not to cheat, but to analyze their play. They can enter a game into these programs after it is done and it will tell them what % of errors each player has made. If a player plays too well, they know that the opponent is using a program or is a world class player.

[testaaja]

[ QUOTE ]
There are a couple of programs called snowie and jellyfish I think. From what I've heard, you enter the info and they tell you the optimal move. You can tell when someone is using one of these programs though, because they take longer to make their moves. Also, many people use these programs not to cheat, but to analyze their play. They can enter a game into these programs after it is done and it will tell them what % of errors each player has made. If a player plays too well, they know that the opponent is using a program or is a world class player.

[/ QUOTE ]
Yes, but what if you make it to do errors? I know that it's easy to detect when there are no errors but random error here and there. I think you get the idea /images/graemlins/wink.gif

[Runner Runner]

You would still have enough clues to know whether there is a good chance you are playing someone who is using a program, even if they were throwing in some random errors. Like I said it takes time to enter the info in the program. If you have suspicions, you would report it to Party and stop playing them.

[stigmata]

Bill Robertie made a post in the archives somewhere about this. At the moment, there is very little cheating in online blackjack, and when it happens, it is patently obvious.

[Robertie]

I'd like to see it happen (obviously), but I'm doubtful. My gut feeling is that no game in which computers play as well or better than the best humans can ever have a real boom in popularity the way chess and backgammon did in the 1970s or poker in the last few years.

When the backgammon computers arrived on the scene in the late 1990s, there was an initial small surge in activity, but the tournament and gambling scene then dried up over the next few years. A similar thing happened in chess after Kasparov lost to one of the Deep Blue clones a few years ago. Sponsors and TV money quickly disappeared once people realized that a "World Championship" match was just a match between two players who couldn't play as well as a program. Once the mystique vanishes, the game loses something necessary to mass appeal. Just my two cents.

[spanshcastlemagc]

yea, backgammon is awesome, but when a computer can tell you the optimal move for every situation, i dont people will be interested in playing for money online

[waxie]

No. Backgammon will never be on ESPN.

[ColdCaller]

[ QUOTE ]
yea, backgammon is awesome, but when a computer can tell you the optimal move for every situation, i dont people will be interested in playing for money online

[/ QUOTE ]

Plenty of people still play for cash on GamesGrid and other sites. The bot's equity play, just like NLHE, sucks.

[pzhon]

[ QUOTE ]

Plenty of people still play for cash on GamesGrid and other sites.

[/ QUOTE ]
Yes, and I have encountered remarkably little evidence of cheating over thousands of matches and money games.

[ QUOTE ]
The bot's equity play, just like NLHE, sucks.

[/ QUOTE ]
Nonsense. Only a handful of human players might play better than the bots. Some people (including Neil Kazaross) believe no human plays as well as the current best bots.

Several years ago, two top human players played a bot (Jellyfish) 300 money games each for high stakes. Over the 600 games, Jellyfish broke even. That's not decisive, but it was strong evidence that Jellyfish played at a high level. Since then, bots have gotten much stronger, and although humans have gotten stronger, far fewer top backgammon players would be willing to bet on humans against their coaches.

[tempogain]

perfectly good free one is gnu. if play is mostly limited to hardcore gamers then cheating will be more limited than it would be if the game gained the kind of popularity the op hopes for. a double-edged sword?

[2/325Falcon]

BETandWIN (http://www.presseportal.de/story.htx?nr=791960&ressort=7) looks like they want to add backgammon and chess.

[Popeye]

are you The Robertie
i mean Bill Robertie

[Thremp]

Are these bots able to give you optimum strategy you can replicate just by running it on your computer or another.

You play as the opponent and mimic the bot in real games?

Would you consider this cheating? How much farther is this than just using an analysis program?

[Popeye]

[ QUOTE ]

...on my backgammon game, only because I heard that Party will be offering backgammon.

[/ QUOTE ]

is this true? can anyone confirm this?
will party be offering backgammon?

[Metal_Rat]

Not even looking at Backgammon...

I'm sure online casinos are willing to try every game imaginable. If it's not profitable they'll just drop it.

With the amount of money they are making (according to 2+2 posters) from blackjack, I'm surprised they haven't implemented video poker, slots or roulette.

If they ran the games they have in the movie "Vegas Vacation" I bet they'd still have people lining up to gamble their money away.

[2/325Falcon]

[ QUOTE ]
is this true? can anyone confirm this?
will party be offering backgammon?

[/ QUOTE ]

Link. (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2006/04/18/upgame18.xml) It may be online by June.

[Jeffage]

Yea, he is.

Jeff

[Robertie]

The bots play very well, equal to or better than the best human players. Is their current strategy "optimal"? Don't know. If the playing strategy of bots doesn't change much over the next 10 years or so, then we can confidently say that their strategy is optimal.

You could use a bot online in the way you described. I would certainly consider that cheating, as would every other good player I know. Fortunately, it's easily detected. Entering all the moves of a game into a bot, entering the dice roll, getting a response, and then playing that response in the real game takes considerable time. The giveaway is that anyone doing this would play both their easy moves and their hard moves very slowly, whereas a good player plays the easy moves instantaneously. Players who try to cheat this way get caught quickly.

[beset]

The problem isn't complete noobs that enter every move but intermediate players who use a bot in tougher spots.

[pzhon]

[ QUOTE ]
The problem isn't complete noobs that enter every move but intermediate players who use a bot in tougher spots.

[/ QUOTE ]
There are still ways to detect that, although it is tougher. I don't want to go into details here, but I hope the backgammon sites implement them.

On the other hand, an intermediate/advanced player who gets a bot's advice on a couple decisions per game will still get crushed by an expert. Most players don't know where they make the most mistakes, and lose a lot of equity in positions they don't think are interesting. It is typical for players to overemphasize take/pass errors and perhaps wrong doubles. They underemphasize checker play errors and errors from missed doubles. Consulting a bot to avoid making a bad take may be helpful, but being told that something is a 0.9 take doesn't help a player who will blunder away far more than a tenth of a point in the rest of the game.

[Robertie]

Pzhon's analysis is 100% correct. It's the mistakes that intermediates don't know are possible mistakes that destroy them over time, not just the cube errors.

[Aces McGee]

Is Party backgammon live yet? If not, does anyone know when it's supposed to launch?

-McGee

[axelM]

These bots are very strong. They are based on neural networks (they are also used in stock trading). Using the bots while playing is cheating. The providers claim, that they track all games with a software, to find out players, who consistently use bots. But there are well known players who where caught.

The way I used them is, after a game I imported them to Snowie (one product) to analyse the strength of my opponent, then added the result to my excel sheet to track my results. So game selection is very very easy.

Actually after approx. 10 K games (played 10$ up to 100$) ( a game takes several minutes) I won, what I should have won. The dice are fair /images/graemlins/smile.gif. But it is very hard work. Party Backgammon must offer very attractive rake structure to make this attractive and even the biggest donkey can find out he is a donkey. So I think the game of backgammon online is basically dead. Very sorry about it, because it is a game of particular beauty. It has tactical aspects and strategic aspects. Poker is maybe more exciting, but the kind of decisions you make are pretty simple (fold, call, bet, raise, reraise and in NL you have the size of the bet to be interesting).

regards

axelM

[axelM]

I think online backgammon has already reached its top some years ago and will have a tough time to reach some kind of popularity like poker. The donks knowing the game have already left. New donks may come with party poker, but will leave soon quickly, because it is more difficult to suck out...

[Lawman]

Here's a thought: why not play for fun? Poker is intrinsically a money game backgammon is not. I played BG for years as a kid and recently started at play65. I never realised what a complex game BG is. I am now hooked, but it is enough for me to try to improve my rating. Not everything needs to be about the money and it is a nice change of pace from poker.

[axelM]

You are right. I have been playing a lot of time without money, because it was not available in the internet at that day. I remember being at university playing while programming some visulization stuff. My goal there was to reach a certain rating at http://www.fibs.com/ , which is a truely great community. I think it is the best non money play site in the world. But for me, once I reached that and was able to prove my level of play (no bots available at the time /images/graemlins/smile.gif )I was done with that. Play65 is somehow weird. A lot of people do not trust this site. Basically all players I know believe www.truemoneygames.com (http://www.truemoneygames.com) and www.gamesgrid.com (http://www.gamesgrid.com) are solid sites.

[SenecaJim]

Hey. I'm not trying to hijack your thread, but I did a search for books and I'm SURE this has to have been discussed before.

So, I just got back into BG, (like this week) . My friends won't play poker with me anymore, but that's fine, I play 40+ hrs a week at casino. Because of their reluctance and poker is a job anyway and I always liked BG ( never played for money) when I played back in college 30 years ago, this is to be my new gambling game with my friends.

Obviously, I have already acquired the titles of Mr. Robertie's books and am hitting bookstore this week. Can anyone advise me on other steps ( other books or otherwise) to begin getting my edge. thank you, and sorry again, i'm NOT trying to be a hijacker. I am just attempting to stave off the attacks of posting this topic and getting the invevitable " Do a search you Idiot " stuff.

[axelM]

download www.gnubg.org (http://www.gnubg.org)

or

buy www.bgsnowie.com (http://www.bgsnowie.com)

let all your games be analysed by the products and search
for the blunders (forget about the errors, you can concentrate on them later) and try to understand why you blundered. Here books may help, but there are few out.

18 years back (when I started BG) the magriel and robertie books were enough to become a winning player... not the case today anymore (but maybe against your friends :=) )

[pzhon]

[ QUOTE ]
Can anyone advise me on other steps ( other books or otherwise) to begin getting my edge.

[/ QUOTE ]
It is good to read good books and practice against a bot. See Backgammon Galore (http://www.bkgm.com/rgb/rgb.cgi?menu) for a free collection of articles from book reviews to strategy discussions.

[cbloom]

Backgammon might never be big in the U.S. but aren't there a ton of European money players?

[pzhon]

[ QUOTE ]
Backgammon might never be big in the U.S. but aren't there a ton of European money players?

[/ QUOTE ]
I wouldn't say so. Many people play for small stakes, but you need higher stakes games to make a decent living playing backgammon. There are high stakes players in Europe, but I think it is easier to make a living playing backgammon elsewhere.

In Denmark, Carlsberg (Beer) sponsored weekly tournaments in the pubs for a few years. Many people of college age at that time started playing backgammon competitively, and quite a few earned some spending money. Danes now make up a disproportionate fraction of the top players and international tournament participants. However, there weren't many people willing to lose a lot of money playing backgammon in Denmark, and some of the top players moved to other areas. I ran into Peter Jes Thomsen (World Champ in 93 from Denmark) in New York City, for example, where he found it much easier to find high stakes games than in Denmark. Of course, many players who were making a little playing backgammon have switched over to poker.

I look forward to Party Backgammon, which may boost the interest in backgammon. I doubt it will be as fashionable as in the 1970s when Lucille Ball and Hugh Hefner made backgammon glamorous, but the inclusion of the Internet Backgammon menu item in Windows XP and now Party Backgammon should increase the interest in backgammon tremendously.

[ChipWrecked]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Can anyone advise me on other steps ( other books or otherwise) to begin getting my edge.

[/ QUOTE ]
It is good to read good books and practice against a bot. See Backgammon Galore (http://www.bkgm.com/rgb/rgb.cgi?menu) for a free collection of articles from book reviews to strategy discussions.

[/ QUOTE ]

The great Dr. Thorp's Mathematics of Gambling (http://www.bjmath.com/bjmath/thorp/tog.htm) has a backgammon section.

[pzhon]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
read good books and practice against a bot.

[/ QUOTE ]

The great Dr. Thorp's Mathematics of Gambling (http://www.bjmath.com/bjmath/thorp/tog.htm) has a backgammon section.

[/ QUOTE ]
He might be a great guy, but that section primarily covers simple situations in the late bearoff, most of which are trivial. Even if you want to study technical positions, there are better technical references accessible to beginners. I recommend that beginners focus on checker play in the opening and middle games rather than cube decisions in the last exchange of the game.