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Newsgroups: rec.games.backgammon,news.answers,rec.answers Path: bloom-beacon.mit.edu!hookup!swrinde!howland.reston.ans.net!ix.netcom.com!netcom.com!damish From: damish@netcom.com (Mark Damish) Subject: Backgammon --- Frequently Asked Questions. [monthly] Message-ID: <damishD5JG0A.2FI@netcom.com> Followup-To: rec.games.backgammon Summary: This posting contains answers to questions about the game of backgammon. It also contains resources pertaining to the game. It should be read by anyone interested in backgammon, especially those posting to the rec.games.backgammon news group. Keywords: backgammon BG FAQ reference Sender: damish@netcom23.netcom.com Supersedes: <3hge7p$hsp@testnews.ll.mit.edu> Reply-To: damish@ll.mit.edu (Mark Damish) Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest) Date: Thu, 16 Mar 1995 14:52:58 GMT Approved: news-answers-request@MIT.EDU Lines: 5111 Xref: bloom-beacon.mit.edu rec.games.backgammon:5394 news.answers:37153 rec.answers:10762 Archive-name: games/backgammon-faq Posting-frequency: Monthly, around the 13th of each month. Last-modified: March 1995 Version: 9503 _________________________________________________________________ BACKGAMMON --- FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS. Last modified: Thu Mar 16 09:15:17 1995 Mark Damish <damish@ll.mit.edu> _________________________________________________________________ CONTENTS SECTION 0: FORE FAQ Definition , Editor , Purpose , Contributions , Availability, Disclaimer , Editorial , Changes Gratitude , and News . SECTION A: ESSENTIALS * A1. What is backgammon? * A2. What are the basic rules of the game? + Backgammon Equipment + The backgammon board + Object of the game + Starting the game + Moving your men + Doublets + Making points + Prime + Blots + Closed board + Compulsory move + Bearing off + Gammon and Backgammon + Cocked dice * A3. What is the doubling cube for? * A4. What is the Crawford rule? (Why won't FIBS let me double?) * A5. What is the Jacoby rule? * A6. What is the Holland rule? * A7. What are those critters --- Beavers, raccoons? * A8. What is a Chouette? * A9. Basic Strategy for Beginners. SECTION B: ELECTRONIC BACKGAMMON: VS OTHER HUMANS * B1. FIBS + FIBS Introduction + FIBS Help + FIBS Ratings + FIBS Misc. * B2. What is the Internet and how do I get onto it? * B3. Are there any GUI's for FIBS? + Tinyfugue + xfibs + MacFIBS + TkFibs + FIBS/W + xibc * B4. Whats about LDB? (Long Distance Backgammon. BG by Email) * B5. What other ways are there to play people via nets/modems/e-mail? + Netgammon backgammon server + GEnie * B6. Are there any electronic tournaments? * B7. Do other game servers exist? + Backgammon , Bridge , Scrabble-like , Chinese Chess (Xainqi) , Othello , Chess , Go SECTION C: ELECTRONIC BACKGAMMON: VS MACHINE * C1. Are there any BG programs out there for my computer? Where are they? + JellyFish + Expert Backgammon + bg06 + A PD mac program called ? + Death by Backgammon + xgammon * C2. Which programs are good? How good is good? * C3. Why is it so hard to write a good backgammon program? * C4. What is TD-GAMMON? SECTION D: RESOURCES * D1. I'm looking for a club to play in... + Backgammon clubs in North America + Playing Backgammon in the Boston area + Other Backgammon Clubs * D2. Where are the tournaments? * D3. I'm looking for information about newsletters and other publications. + Anchors + Backgammon Magazine + Backgammon Quarterly + BLITZ + Chicago Point Newsletter + European Backgammon News + Flint Area Backgammon News + GAMMON + Hoosier Backgammon Club Newsletter + Inside Backgammon + Norpunkt * D4. Backgammon books and book reviews. + BG books [summary] by Marty Storer + BG books [summary] by John Bazigos + How to play tournament BG [book] + Backgammon (Robin Clay) [book] + In The Game Until The End... [booklet] + Learning From the Machine... [booklet] + Kit Woolsey's "Tournament Series Backgammon" + The Backgammon Book + Playboy's Book of Backgammon + Other Books + Danny Kleinman Books * D5. A List of Backgammon Articles in Science and Business * D6. Backgammon software and software reviews. + BOINQ + Hyper-Backgammon + Matchqiz (and demo) + BG-SCRIBE + The Match Strategist (and demo) + rfibs (fibs recorder & playback) + LaTeX Style for BG Positions and Games * D7. Where does one purchase backgammon supplies and books? + The GAMMON PRESS + Carol Joy Cole + Danny Kleinman + Dansk Backgammon Forlag + Crisloid + Larry Strommen * D8. An index of backgammon resources available on the Internet. SECTION E: MISC. * E1. What other games can be played on a backgammon board? + Hyper-Backgammon + Nackgammon + Tapa + Narde + Diceless Backgammon + Acey-deucy + One Point Matches * E2. How does one become a better player? * E3. Misc. _________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ Section 0: FORE FAQ DEFINITION 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 EDITOR Mark Damish damish@ll.mit.edu PURPOSE The 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. CONTRIBUTING Contributions will be thankfully accepted. Send E-Mail to the editor of this list for inclusion and credit in future FAQs. AVAILABILITY The 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: rtfm.mit.edu /pub/usenet/news.answers/games/backgammon-faq 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. HTML version: An HTML (hypertext) version of the faq has been created. It is currently the `source' document for the ASCII version posted to rec.games.backgammon, and the rtfm archive. Most of the body of the html version has been marked up with preformatted sections. This is a tradeoff, as the quality of the ASCII version takes precedence. Within the document there are ``links'' from the table of contents, links within the document, and several links to ftp sites and other documents which make getting around the document, and the backgammon portion of internet quite easy. This version of the FAQ is called bg-faq.html, and may be downloaded for local reading with a Web-Browser, or may be read on line at: ftp.netcom.com /pub/da/damish/bg-faq.html The HTML version of the faq is updated at this site when the ascii version is posted to rec.games.backgammon. An HTML version is also currently (95-03) available at: http://world.std.com/~damish/bg-faq.html This site is less congested than the netcom address. FAQ Pointer and micro-faq: A `faq-pointer' and `micro-faq'. will be posted to rec.games.backgammon 2 or 3 times between regular faq postings. diff file: A diff file will created and posted to the rec.games.backgammon news group at the same time the FAQ is posted. This will contain the differences between successive FAQs. It will not be posted to the *.answers newsgroups, nor will it be archived at rtfm.mit.edu. The purpose of the diff file is to show recent changes without having to browse the entire FAQ. DO NOT use this file to update previous versions of the FAQ as it will have been edited! DISCLAIMER This 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. EDITORIAL Whom started rec.games.backgammon? What was its original charter? ...Mark CHANGES Changes 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. GRATITUDE Major and minor contributions and suggestions from the following: Jeremy Bagai Matchqiz review. Matthew Clegg The entire 'What is Internet' section. Erik Gravgaard This and that. Paul Ferguson Mac PD BG info. FIBS Client info. 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: -- The hypertext version of the FAQ is available at a 2nd address. Until I get a better provider and ditch netcom, the HTML version of the FAQ will be available at both the netcom address, and the address below: http://world.std.com/~damish/bg-faq.html This site should be less congested than the netcom address. -- John Bazigos announced the forthcoming publication of his magazine "Backgammon Quarterly". If you are interested in receiving it, please send e-mail stating so and include your postal address. John Bazigos (doc on FIBS) e-mail: jbazigos@Kate.ibmPCUG.CO.UK -- A new Tesauro article has been published. Check it out. There's actually quite a bit of backgammon discussed here, mostly accounts of play against several household-name human experts. G.Tesauro, "Temporal Difference Learning and TD-Gammon", Communications of the ACM, Vol.38, No.3, 58-68 (March 1995) -- An "as is" DOS Port of rfibs/sfibs by Robin Davies (FIBS/W author) is available for ftp from: ftp.netcom.com/pub/da/damish/rfibsdos.zip This version will work with output saved using the '> command for saving matches from FIBS/W. The file currently contains executables only. -- There is a new shareware program on my ftp site that computes cubless equity for bearoffs with up to 15 checkers in each home board. ftp.netcom.com/pub/da/damish/boa_v10.exe The file is quite large, and is probably downloaded easiest during non peak (US) hours. -- It looks like Garrett's Netgammon backgammon server is shut down. Many thanks for the service provided! Netgammon will be remembered and missed. -- FIBS address change! The name remains the same, but the new physical address is now 129.16.235.90 4321 -- JellyFish Tutor 1.2 and JellyFish Analyzer are now available! JellyFish is a Neural Network backgammon program written by Fredrick Dahl. It was mentioned on rec.games.backgammon that JellyFish might play at or near the level of TD-Gammon! See the section on JellyFish in the backgammon programs section for ordering information and a review by Kit Woolsey. _________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ Section A: ESSENTIALS A1. 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.'' ..The Rules _________________________________________________________________ ``It's just a game.'' -- Many _________________________________________________________________ ``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.'' -- submitted by David Forthoffer davidf@lpd.sj.nec.com _________________________________________________________________ ``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''. -- From the foward of the Expert Backgammon (Mac) documentation. _________________________________________________________________ ``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.'' -- Paul Magriel _________________________________________________________________ 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.'' -- Felix Yen (from Anchors, Jan 92) _________________________________________________________________ A2. WHAT ARE THE BASIC RULES OF THE GAME? Backgammon Equipment - A Backgammon board or layout. - Thirty round stones, pr checkers, 15 each of two different colors, generally referred to as `men'. - A pair of regular dice, numbered from 1 to 6. (For convenience, two pairs of dice, one for each player, are generally used.) - A dice cup, used to shake and cast the dice. (Again, it is more convenient to have two dice cups.) - A doubling cube---A six-faced die, marked with the numerals 2,4,8,16,32 & 64. This is used to keep track of the number of units at stake in each game, as well as to mark the player who last doubled. The backgammon board 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''. 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 game The 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 game Each 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 men Each 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. Doublets If 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 points A 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. Prime A 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. Blots A 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 board A 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 move A 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 possable, the lower if not. [Another way of saying this...] * If both parts of the roll can be played legally, then this must be done. Note that you may play the roll in such a way as to move fewer pips than the larger die indicates by playing the smaller die first --- this is common in bearoff situations, and legal as long as each part of the roll is played legally at the moment you play it. * If only one part of the roll can be played legally, then you must play the higher die if possible; if not, play the lower die. --kw Bearing off Once 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 Backgammon If 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 dice It 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: 1) Distribution. Distribution is how evenly your checkers are divided among the points occupied. It is usually better to have 3 checkers each on two different points rather than 4 checkers one and 2 on the other. You should rarely have six checkers on a point and almost never have any more. A player with even distribution will seemingly get "luckier" dice than his less flexible opponent. 2) Exposure. Don't be afraid to leave shots early in the game to establish a strong offense or defense. Be more cautious as your enemy's home board gets stronger. The more points he has in his home board, the more difficult it will be for you to re-enter after being hit. Conversely, the more points that you control in your enemy's home board (anchors) the bolder you may play. Even if his board is weak, limit the number of blots (single checkers) to no more than four. If you are significantly ahead in the race or position, then restrict your exposure to maintain your lead. 3) Blocking and Priming. Try to build points without gaps between them directly in front of the enemy checkers in your home board to prevent their escape. Establishing these critical points as early as possible in approximate order of importance: 5, 4, 7 to start your blockade. Six points in a row is called a prime. This makes it impossible for your opponent to escape for as long as you can maintain that structure. 4) Hitting. Try to hit checkers that are the most advanced or checkers that your opponent would like to cover to establish an important point. Attack only when it is advantageous to do so. For example, if you already have two enemy checkers on the bar, it is more critical to make another point in your home board than to hit a third checker. Also refrain from hitting if it makes you more vulnerable than your opponent. Keep your objectives in mind and don't be side-tracked. However, there is an old backgammon adage that still carries weight, "When in doubt, hit." 5) Anchoring. Anchoring is establishing a defensive point (anchor) in your enemies home board. This gives you a landing spot to come in on should you get hit and prevents your opponent from making his home board. Early in the game try to establish anchors on the higher points (20,21). If you become significantly behind in the race, the lower points (22,23,24) have more value as your strategy is to build your home board and wait for a shot. If you have two anchors try to keep them on adjacent points. These are just a few ideas for the beginner to get started and is not meant as a tutorial. There are many fine books available if you awant more information. -- From Macintosh Expert Backgammon Documentation by Tom Johnson komodo@netcom.com _________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ Section B: ELECTRONIC BACKGAMMON: VS OTHER HUMANS _________________________________________________________________ B1. FIBS FIBS INTRODUCTION 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! You can connect to FIBS using telnet; the server runs on machine fraggel65.mdstud.chalmers.se (raw address 129.16.235.90). 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 129.16.235.90 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 129.16.235.90 ... 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.abekrd.co.uk/Users/mike/fibs/fibs.html. Mark Damish made a version available for ftp or online reading from ftp.netcom.com /pub/da/damish/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 HELP FIBS Command Help Summary. (One liners) * about - Display information about the server * accept - accepting doubles and resigns * address - make your email address known to other users. * autologin - how the TinyMUD style autologin feature works * average - show average number of users * away - Leaving a message for other users before leaving the terminal * back - Back again after the away command was used * beaver - Offering an instant redouble that is a beaver * beginner - very short introduction to the server * board - Displays the board again * boardstyle - the various boardstyles * bye - leave the First International backgammon Server * client - one way to use a client * cls - Clear the screen on a vt100 terminal * commands * complaints - how to complain about cheaters * countries - where do the players live * crawford - The Crawford rule * date - equivalent to the time command * dicetest - show statistics about the dice * double * erase - How and why accounts are erased * formula - The formulas used to calculate rating changes * help - help on different topic * hostnames - how to interpret hostnames given by the who command * invite - invite another user to play a game of backgammon * join - accept an invitation from another player * kibitz - talking to players and watchers * last - Display information about login times * leave - leave and save a game * look - Take a short look at a game * man - alias for help * message - Leave a message for a user * motd - Display the message of the day * move - Moving pieces on the board * names - name completion * off - bear off pieces with every possible move * oldboard - Display the board of a saved game. * oldmoves - Display the moves of a saved game. * otter - Offering an instant redouble that is an otter * panic - save a game to a special file * password - change password * pip - Display pip count * raccoon - Offering an instant redouble that is a raccoon * ratings - Display information from the rating list * rawboard - how to interpret the raw board output * redouble - accepting doubles by redoubling * reject * resign - resign a game * roll - roll the dice * rules - The basic rules of backgammon + rule1 - how the board looks like + rule2 - the direction you move pieces + rule3 - the goal of the game + rule4 - rolling the dice + rule5 - moving pieces + rule6 - moving pieces + rule7 - bearing off pieces + rule8 - winning + rule9 - doubling * save - save your current toggle settings * say - talk to your opponent * screen - how to tell FIBS about your screen * set - how to set variables that are not toggles * shout - say something to all users * show - Display information * shutdown - shutdown the server * sortwho - how the 'who' command sorts it's output * stat - display system usage information about the server * tell - say something to a specific player * time - display the current time * timezones - How the server supports different timezones * tinyfugue - a few hints on using the TinyFugue client * toggle - display or change the value of toggles + toggle-allowpip + toggle-autoboard + toggle-autodouble + toggle-automove + toggle-bell + toggle-crawford + toggle-double + toggle-greedy + toggle-moreboards + toggle-notify + toggle-ratings + toggle-rawboard + toggle-ready + toggle-report + toggle-silent + toggle-telnet + toggle-wrap * unwatch - stop watching a player * version - display version number of the server * watch - watch a player * where - display full hostnames * whisper - say something to watchers of a game * who - display information about currently logged in users * whois - Display information about a player * !! - repeat the last command [Last updated August 1994] _________________________________________________________________ FIBS RATINGS FIBS RATING FORMULA (From the FIBS man pages) NAME formula - The formulas used to calculate rating changes DESCRIPTION These are the formulas used to determine the ratings of a player: Let's say that two players P1 and P2 were playing a n-point match. The ratings of the players are r1 for P1 and r2 for P2 . + Let D = abs(r1-r2) (rating difference) + Let P_upset = 1/(10^(D*sqrt(n)/2000)+1) (probability that underdog wins) + Let P=1-P_upset if the underdog wins and P=P_upset if the favorite wins. + For the winner: o Let K = max ( 1 , -experience/100+5 ) o The rating change is: 4*K*sqrt(n)*P + For the loser: o Let K = max ( 1 , -experience/100+5 ) o The rating change is: -4*K*sqrt(n)*P The 'experience' of a player is the sum of the lengths of all matches a player has finished. Every player starts with a rating of 1500 and an experience of 0. SEE ALSO ratings _________________________________________________________________ From: gmortens@newstand.syr.edu (Gerald E Mortensen) Subject: fibs ratings formula plots Date: 23 Dec 1994 22:28:16 GMT i 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 FIBS ratings tables submitted by William C. Bitting btbr68a@prodigy.com wbitting@crl.com _________________________________________________________________ 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 Rockland MD 20852 _________________________________________________________________ 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, O'Reilly & Associates, 1992. Kehoe, Brendan P., Zen and the Art of the Internet: A Beginner's Guide, 2nd ed., Prentice Hall, 1993. LaQuey, Tracy, with Jeanne C. Ryer, The Internet Companion: A Beginner's Guide to Global Networking, Addison-Wesley, 1993. 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 WWW: http://www.statslab.cam.ac.uk/~sret1/home.html _________________________________________________________________ B3. ARE THERE ANY GUI'S FOR FIBS? Tinyfugue Tinyfugue 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. Patches made by: David Eggert eggertd@sanibel.csee.usf.edu (window routines) Andreas Schneider marvin@fraggel.mdstud65.chalmers.se (board printing routines and /board command) 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 _________________________________________________________________ xfibs [Note: The current version of xfibs is xfibs07] Article: 2440 of rec.games.backgammon From: torstein@itekiris.kjemi.unit.no (torstein hansen) Newsgroups: rec.games.backgammon Subject: Motif-based client for FIBS available Date: 6 Jan 1994 13:03:58 GMT As some of you fibsters already know, I have been strugling with a Motif-based client to the FIBS -server for some time now. As I'll be moving away from my beloved X-terminal at the end of this month, and thus won't be able to do much more work on the client, I hereby declare xfibs as released... (include standing ovation here... :) At present, and at least for a few months the code can be fetched by anonymous ftp from itekiris.kjemi.unit.no (129.241.12.40) in the /pub-directory. The last version last time I looked was xfibs05-02. itekiris.kjemi.unit.no /pub Description of the program: xfibs uses several seperated windows for its output. (3 to be excact.) At the top there is the graphical view of the backgammon board with dices, doubling cube etc. Below is two more windows, one for text coming from the server and the other acting like a command window. Nice features: The pieces may be moved by moving them with the mouse. Depending on what is happening, the right mouse button brings up different popup-menues with choices like roll,double,resign; accept double, reject double; accept move, reject move etc. To see what is available, just try it... User configurable menues. By editing a .xfibsrc file you may configure the menubar according to your personal taste. Look at the accompaning xfibsrc-example file for ideas. Also, look into the example app-defaults file for what resources that may be specified. \gag and \hilite commands: It seems like these commands are quite useful. Check out the new_in_05-02 file for an explenation for its use. (This file is living by itself at the ftp-site) Not so nice features: There are probably bugs... If the mouse stops working, try issuing the move command from the input window. That should do the trick. I hope it doesn't happen, though. Input window is limited in size. If you experience that your commands doesn't get through, try deleting some lines in the window. (Or try to reduce your shouting :)) Athena widgets are not supported. Help needed: There is no man-page at present. If anyone out there with some knowledge on nroff, troff or whatever it's called could jot down something I would be more than happy. If you experience bugs, and actually manage to track them down, put patches on the ftp-server in the directory pub/patches. Put wishes for new or improved feautures in the /pub/wishes directory. I won't be able to do anything about them though, but there might be some kind soul out there that wants a programming challenge :) Conditions for use: If you actually use the program, could you send me an e-mail message stating so? It would be nice to know if the program is useful for anyone else but me... Final comment: HAVE FUN, AND A HAPPY NEW FIBS-YEAR TO EVERYONE! Torstein Hansen torstein@itekiris.kjemi.unit.no [pick up any patches/bugfixes as well] [Note: Torstein no longer maintains this package. There appears to be two seperate efforts by differant individuals in the "new feature" department for this package]. __________________________________________________________________________ From: eggertd@aisb.ed.ac.uk (David Eggert) Subject: Patches for xfibs / New FIBS tournament coming soon Date: Fri, 10 Mar 1995 19:24:08 GMT Recently a couple of people (most notably igor), have mentioned that they don't use xfibs (the GUI for X windows developed by torstein) because of having problems. When I started looking for an interface I decided I liked the look of xfibs, but when I started using it I too had some problems. So I decided to do a little hacking. If you would like to get ahold of these patches, you can get them via my WWW home page: http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/staff/personal_pages/eggertd/ or you can get them via anonymous ftp from the machine figment.csee.usf.edu in the directory pub/misc/FIBS_client. The patches are in a compressed tar file as xfibs07.snoopy_patch.tar.Z. I hope that most of the changes will be to your liking. Enjoy. __________________________________________________________________________ From: mike@abekrd.co.uk (Mike Quinn) Subject: Re: Patches for xfibs Date: 13 Mar 1995 13:44:08 -0000 [...] It won't happen instantly, but.. I'm taking ideas for xfibs08. Is there anything you want to see added to xfibs? If so, drop me a line and I _might_ even add it in :-) Mike (mikeq) _________________________________________________________________ MacFIBS MacFIBS 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 1.0 is a self-extracting archive file: /info-mac/game/brd/mac-fibs-10.hqx --fergy Paul Ferguson pferguson@kaleida.com [MacFIBS is also available on AOL, as well as Info-Mac mirror sites. _________________________________________________________________ TkFibs From: 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 shuksan.cs.berkeley.edu /pub/tkfibs Send comments, suggestions, bugs, etc to: tkfibs@shuksan.cs.berkeley.edu Enjoy keith vetter _________________________________________________________________ FIBS/W FIBS/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: - You must have modem access to a host computer providing telnet services. If you can connect to the Internet using Windows Terminal, you can probably use FIBS/W. - You must have access to the internet via network TCP/IP, PPP or SL/IP via the Winsock software interface. If you can find the file WINSOCK.DLL on your system, you can probably use FIBS/W. FIBS/W requires version 3.1 or later of Microsoft Windows, or any version of Windows for Workgroups or Windows/NT. FIBS/W will also run as a Windows application under OS/2 2.X. FIBS/W does not currently support OS/2 Warp, or Netcom Netcruiser accounts (although Netcom shell accounts do work). 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. A WWW page for FIBS/W is available at ftp://resudox.net/pub/pc/windows/games/fibsw/html/fibsw.html v1.30 of FIBS/W is primarily intended to be a maintainance release in order to update the default FIBS server Internet address. However a few new features seem to have snuck in.... New features in FIBS/W v1.30: toggle greedy button; double-click to move checkers; save and copy text board positions; a new dialog for modifying the FIBS server address ;->. ---- I have posted a version of FIBS/W that *appears* to work correctly when running under OS/2 Warp. The file has been posted temporarily, pending confirmation from OS/2 users. Just to clarify, FIBS/W v1.33 will run as a Windows application under OS/2 Warp. This release should be considered experimental, until posted officially in all the usual places. If you are not using OS/2 Warp, you probably don't want this version. :-), although this release may also correct problems encountered when running FIBS/W under PC/NFS Winsock stacks in Windows (unconfirmed). The updated version of FIBS/W is available at ftp://ftp.nstn.ns.ca/in.coming/fibsw133.zip. Best regards, Robin Davies. rdavies@fox.nstn.ns.ca FIBS: Q _________________________________________________________________ xibc From: 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.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. WHATS ABOUT LDB? (LONG DISTANCE BACKGAMMON. BG BY EMAIL) - ldb - 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 ??. Use: 'unix_prompt$ archie ldb' to locate the sources. [from Perry] I mentioned in that patch that, for people who can't figure out how to get ldb or how to apply patches, I'd be happy to send them a complete copy of the latest version. You might want to put the same offer into the faq. [Has anybody written a PC/Mac version using CC-mail via a Novell network?] [from Perry...] Well, I'd always intended to do a PC port, but just never got around to it. I was a bad boy, 32-bit wise, so there would be a little effort involved making it 16-bit clean. There's a package that simulates curses on a PC, I've heard. As far as the particular mail transport, ldb doesn't really care. It puts outgoing messages into a text file and executes a user-defined command to send the message. Incoming mail can be read from a user-defined file (or pattern, to read multiple files), which ought to be pretty transport-independent. It wouldn't be that hard to port, I don't think. [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] _________________________________________________________________ B5. WHAT OTHER WAYS ARE THERE TO PLAY PEOPLE VIA NETS/MODEMS/E-MAIL? Netgammon backgammon server Garrett has shut down Netgammon as of late February 1995. It will be remembered and missed. _________________________________________________________________ GEnie RSCARDS Backgammon on GEnie-- GEnie (General Electric's Consumer Information Service) offers on-line multi-player games in RSCARDS including: BACKGAMMON! Features: -Graphic User Interface (GUI) is available for the following computers: IBM, Atari ST, Apple IIgs, Macintosh Mono, Macintosh Color, Amiga and Commodore 128 Mono -TTY [text only] for non-supported formats. -Friendly and fun atmosphere. Peak playing times are evenings and weekends. -Regular monthly prizes for eligible, high-score players. -Regular tournaments (see below). -Game transcripts available immediately. -Technical support and gaming discussion available in the Multiplayer Games RoundTable. -Access to other on-line multiplayer games including RSCARDS chess, checkers, reversi, poker, blackjack and bridge. How to Access RSCARDS Backgammon on GEnie: To sign up to GEnie, just follow these simple steps: 1. Set your communications software for half duplex (local echo), at 300, 1200, 2400 baud. 2. Dial toll free: 1-800-638-8369, or in Canada, 1-800-387-8330. Upon connection, enter HHH 3. At the U# prompt, enter JOINGENIE then press <RETURN> 4. When asked to enter a code enter: MMC524 [This will waive your first $8.95 month subscription fee and give you an additional $50.00 online credit during your first month on GEnie!] 5. Have a major credit card ready. In the U.S. you may also use your checking account number. For additional information including subscriptions and fees call: 1-800-638-9636 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. You can reach the Backgammon page directly by typing M877. This will bring you to a menu with specific backgammon information and access to play. For questions and technical support, visit the Multiplayer Games RoundTable. Type M1045 from any GEnie prompt and set to CATegory 29. There are a variety of Backgammon, GUI and RSCARDS TOPics available. TOURNAMENT INFORMATION: - GEnie Backgammon Tourneys are held quarterly. Sign-ups start: January 1st, April 1st, July 1st and October 1st Tourney play starts the third Wednesday of those months [Section on tourney rules is available online at GEnie] [Note: GEnie is a service like compuserve... They have a monthly fee and you pay by the hour for use. Contact GEnie for rates.] _________________________________________________________________ B6. ARE THERE ANY ELECTRONIC TOURNAMENTS? There are tournaments on FIBS and GEnie. Tournements on FIBS have been organized by David Escoffery (davide), and David Eggert (snoopy). contact: davide@sco.com eggert@mozart.ms.uky.edy __________________________________________________________________________ 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? Backgammon There are no servers other than FIBS in operation on the internet at present. _________________________________________________________________ Bridge Get '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-like telnet seabass.st.usm.edu 7777 telnet 134.53.14.112 7777 _________________________________________________________________ Chinese Chess (Xainqi) 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 _________________________________________________________________ Othello Othello(tm)/Reversi: telnet faust.uni-paderborn.de 5000 _________________________________________________________________ Chess rafael.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. _________________________________________________________________ Go igs.nuri.net 6969 203.255.112.3 6969 information: tweet@ig.nuri.net tcasey@adobe.com It has been mentioned that it is possable to play chinese chess on this server. _________________________________________________________________ [Add pointer to generic games web pages here] _________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ Section C: ELECTRONIC BACKGAMMON: VS MACHINE C1. ARE THERE ANY BG PROGRAMS OUT THERE FOR MY COMPUTER? WHERE ARE THEY? JellyFish Ever 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 JellyFish Tutor 1.2 for MS-Windows. US$ 110. JellyFish Analyzer 1.0 for MS-Windows US$ 220. The Analyzer, will in addition to the Tutor, contain a rollout module It will be release Jan 16 1995. If you own the Tutor, the Analyzer may be purchased for the difference in price. If you order the Analyzer before Jan 16 1995, the Tutor will be shipped immediately, followed by the Analyzer when ready. Order from: EFFECT Software A/S P.O. Box 56 Skoyen N-0212 OSLO Norway. Please use International Postal Money Order, or Visa. If you use Visa, send the account number, date of expiration, amount and signature. You may also send a check, but in that case please add $10 for expenses. Hardware requirements: 386sx or better, Software requirements: Windows 3.1 The JellyFish programs come on 3.5'' diskettes. 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 46226 Tel: (317) 545-0224 E-mail: diceman@indy.net Fredrik Dahl may be contacted at fredrikd@ifi.uio.no _________________________________________________________________ Expert Backgammon Expert 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. Intro: I remember November 92, the first time I walked into a backgammon club to participate in a tourney. After playing on FIBS for a month, I thought that I was already a decent player. Wrong. I won a match, and lost a match. Afterwards, I played a few games for $1/point. I reached a simple and common holding game position where I was doubled, and thought surely it was worth 25%, and took. My opponent, being helpful to a newcomer, pointed out that the position was only worth about 15%. Later, I was able to verify his claim using Expert Backgammon, and had my first 'benchmark' position. I have since used Expert Backgammon to benchmark many other simple positions, as well as to play hundreds of games against it. What it is: Expert Backgammon, (EXBG), is a program which allows you to play backgammon against the computer either in a 'money' or 'tournament' format. It also allows you enter a position, and let the computer 'roll it out' --- that is, to let it play both sides many times, and show you the results. Expert Backgammon is currently the strongest computer program available commercially, and the game version is quite affordable! Only TD-GAMMON might lay claim to being the strongest program in the world, but alas, it is not available commercially. Brief Description of EXBG versions: Expert Backgammon is currently available in two releases: 1.61, and 2.1. Release 2.1 has 3 different versions, with different features EXBG 2.1 GAME VERSION $50. Plays the game of backgammon. EXBG 2.1 EXPERT VERSION $150. Plays BG, and Rolls out positions. EXBG 2.1 PRO VERSION $300. Plays BG, and Rolls out positions. Has some advanced rollout features. EXBG 1.61 EXPERT VERSION $100 Plays BG, and Rolls out positions. Upgrades from EXBG 1.61[expert] to EXBG 2.1[expert] $60 Upgrades from EXBG 1.61[expert] to EXBG 2.1[pro] $200 There are other upgrades available for the other versions as well. Some Random Features (pro version): -- Fast non mouse interface for moving the checkers. -- Match or Money play options. -- Optional Jacoby rule. -- Cube profile statistics. -- Save positions for future evaluation. -- Save games to be played back later. -- Computer can suggest a move. -- Shot counter. -- Computer can finish game, when it becomes routine. -- Woolsey or 35% (Friedman?) match equity table for matches. -- Pip count. -- Quick or Extended cube searches. Speed vs. accuracy. -- Rollouts: -- Random dice. -- Sequenced dice for one or two sides. That is all 36 possible starting combinations for one or two sides. -- Rollout multiple positions simultaneously in batch mode. -- Duplicate dice when rolling out multiple positions. Performance: Speed: Less than 5 seconds per game to play a game from the starting position on a 486DX2-66 processer. This assumes that the graphical display is disabled. ie: moves and rolls are not shown. Strength: Seems stronger than 1.61. Strength is also a somewhat controversial subject. Can the machine play a complex prop as well as a human who is familiar with the position? Does the machine have any 'blind spots' in early game play? Can it 'work a prime' to get a second checker when needed? Does it blitz too often, not enough? 'Seems stronger' is as far as I'll venture until I learn more about how to play the game myself! See the section on How good is good? for Bill Roberties ratings of backgammon programs. Copy Protection: The program is copy protected. The distribution disks will allow you to install the program to two hard disks, as well as allowing you to run the program from the floppy. You may 'uninstall' the program from the hard disk, back to the floppy for installation on another disk/machine if required. It is best to uninstall the program before using backup programs, or reformatting your hard disk/partition, as you can loose your installation. Early versions of 1.61 used a differant scheme. They simply stopped running after a certain date. The authur supplies free updates to those with the early protection scheme. Sample Cube Analysis Screen: B L A C K C U B I N G A N A L Y S I S C U B E Game won by - lost by Gammons Backgammons Equity location size cube play cube play won lost won lost /Game Center 1 47 3 22 8 4 9 0 0 0.108 Black 2 8 0 0 11 0 0 0 1 -0.600 Red 2 0 21 2 2 4 0 2 0 2.000 Black 4 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0.000 Red 4 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0.000 Black 8 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 -8.000 01-21-1994 The Jacoby Rule was NOT USED Only Money Play with Extended Cube Search MARK won 61.074% of the games played Equity for MARK = 0.349 per game for 149 games Cubeless equity for MARK = 0.228 Net equity when Black took a 2 cube = -0.870 per game Net equity when Red took a 2 cube = 1.879 per game [An above average performance in this set.] Help Screen: F1 = MENU OF AVAILABLE OPTIONS - Professional Edition A - Automatic Double Ctrl+A - Automatic Concession B - Beaver Ctrl+B - Clear Board C - Checker Setup Ctrl+C - Cube Setup D - Double the Cube Ctrl+D - Manual Dice Entry E - Extended Cube Search Ctrl+E - Match Equity F - New Player Name Ctrl+F - File - Alternate Path G - Game - Money or Match Play Ctrl+G - Delete Game H - On-Line Help Service Ctrl+H - Using Option Defaults I - Invert Position Ctrl+I - Alter the Starting Position J - Jacoby Rule Ctrl+J - Title for Rollout K - Monitor Type Ctrl+K - Player Cube Profile L - Level of Difficulty Ctrl+L - Listing of Game M - Take Back Move N - Sound Ctrl+N - Start New Game O - Options Currently Selected Ctrl+O - Open Position P - Player on Roll Ctrl+P - Print Position Q - Show PiP Count Ctrl+Q - Black Shotcounter R - Replay Game Ctrl+R - Rollout Position S - Speed of Checker Movement Ctrl+S - Save Position T - Suggest Move for Black Ctrl+T - Match Win % Table U - Skip Save Game/Position Ctrl+U - Delete Position V - Black Detailed Shotcounter W - Expert to Finish the Game Ctrl+W - Write Rollout to Disk X - Cancel Move and Reroll Dice Ctrl+X - Print Disk Rollout Z - Zero the Score Spacebar - Roll the Dice Escape - Leave EXBG Rollout summary printout: EXPERT BACKGAMMON ROLLOUT SUMMARY Date: 12-12-1993 Games viewed = 0 File: 65_21_A Summary only = 1296 Version: 2.1 1296 games rolled out at Used Hrs:Min:Sec 1:37:41 4.522 seconds per game. Batched Duplicate Rollout of 1296 games. No doubling allowed - Cube at 1 level [ Diagram of board position was cut from here...] O on roll. O won 45.83% games 594 11.42% gammons 148 0.46% backgammons 6 --------------------------- 57.72% of the games 748 +0.170 points per game. X won 32.18% games 417 9.41% gammons 122 0.69% backgammons 9 --------------------------- 42.28% of the games. 548 -0.170 points per game. The dice rolls were generated randomly. Note: There is also a screen which shows the results of several games rolled out simultaniously. Note: Above screens were 'captured' by redirecting my printer port to a file, and have been edited slightly. Ordering Info: Tom Weaver Expert Backgammon 8063 Meadow Road, # 108 Dallas, Texas 75231 Call: Expert Backgammon (214) 692-1234 M-F 10am-10pm Central US time. An answering service answers when Tom isn't around. Tom also has an email address: tomweave@netcom.com Also available from Carol Joy Cole and The GAMMON PRESS. A Macintosh version of Expert Backgammon is also available. Contact the sources above, or Tom Johnson (auther) directly at komodo@netcom.com. A demo of the Macintosh version is available for anonymous ftp from: ftp.netcom.com /pub/da/damish/exbgdemo.sea. _________________________________________________________________ bg06 Backgammon for Windows version 0.6 Most PD/Shareware backgammon programs are currently weak. The strongest that I have played has been bg06.zip for windows. This _looks_ an awful lot like the commercial program "BG by George". I've also seen the Spinnaker program sold as public domain, even though it is still being sold commercially. 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 Backgammon For 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: 1. To get the shareware version, (free of charge) let me know and I can email you a zipped uuencoded version of the shareware. Alternatively, I can send you a floppy if you provide your mailing address. 2. To get a registered copy of the program, send a cheque made out to Chris Kanaris, and I will email or post as above. 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. A demo has been reported available for transfer at: http://baugi.ifi.uio.no:80/~paalf/BG [ 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! ] _________________________________________________________________ xgammon From: 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) _________________________________________________________________ C2. WHICH PROGRAMS ARE GOOD? HOW GOOD IS GOOD? Program Name Source Type Score ----------------- ------ ------ ------ *TD-GAMMON 2.1 N/A N/A -0.05 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. ] * Not available commercially, but may sometimes be played on FIBS. 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. TD-Gammon, a neural network backgammon program by Gerry Tesauro, plays at the level of human experts. It is not, alas, available commercially. See 'What Is TD-Gammon' for more details. The most recent version, 2.1, has been estimated to play at -0.05 points per game against a top flight human expert, making the program the best anywhere, and one of the strongest players in the world; period! How strong will it become with a 3-ply lookahead? _________________________________________________________________ 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 _________________________________________________________________ C4. WHAT IS TD-GAMMON? 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 [ In the November/December 93 issue of Inside Backgammon, there is an article by Kit Woolsey, which rates ALL of the moves made by 3 programs for an entire 31 game series. TD-GAMMON was the strongest! I think that this is enough to officially call it the strongest backgammon program currently in existence!!!! ...Mark ] For a list of articles written by Gerry Tesauro, check out: A List of Backgammon Articles in Science and Business _________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ Section D: RESOURCES D1. I'M LOOKING FOR A CLUB TO PLAY IN... Backgammon clubs in North America Below 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, 2726 West Lunt Avenue, Chicago, IL 60645-3039." 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: CHICAGO POINT 277 W. Lunt Ave Chicago, IL 60645-3039 Or FAX: 312/338-6384 (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 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 New England Backgammon Club Sheraton Commander Hotel Cambridge, MA Monday 7:00 PM Seth Towle 508/486-0668 29 Robinson Rd; Littleton, MA 01460 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 area From: 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 617-643-8154 c/o Sheraton Commander Hotel President: Seth Towle 16 Garden Street Cambridge, MA 02138-3609 USA Fee: $35/year The 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. [Note: There are no Sunday tournaments in July or August] [Note: Some Sunday tournaments start at noon. Nov and May in 94/95 season] _________________________________________________________________ Other Backgammon Clubs The 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 President of the Danish BG Federation erikg on FIBS __________________________________________________________________________ [94-12] A new Backgammon club has opened in Raleigh, NC. It currently meets at the Western Bowling alley across the road from North Carolina State University. Time 8:00 P.M. starting Day Friday night at this point - club participants are deciding if this night will become "the night" __________________________________________________________________________ [95-03] In your FAQ you have details of backgammon clubs ... can you include ours please? Several fibsters come to it regularly. Rose and Thistle, Argyle Road, Reading, UK. Weekly Wednesdays from 8:30 pm. Informal - no officers, but contact number: Marina 01734 612814 Thanks. :-) -- * Marina Smith * Reading, U.K. * marina on FIBS. __________________________________________________________________________ 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 -0800 The 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. __________________________________________________________________________ Date: Thu, 8 Dec 1994 09:02:22 -0800 (PST) [...] While I'm writing you, I should probably also tell you that the Backgammon Club of San Diego now meets at the Java House in Del Mar at 2 p.m. on Sundays. The contact phone number remains the same (and Mike Fujita should be online soon, so I'll have him send you an email contact address). __________________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ D2. WHERE ARE THE TOURNAMENTS? -- Look for ads in backgammon newsletters. -- Check backgammon clubs. -- Sometimes announcements are posted to the news group rec.games.backgammon. -- Various WWW pages are now posting schedules. _________________________________________________________________ D3. I'M LOOKING FOR INFORMATION ABOUT NEWSLETTERS AND OTHER PUBLICATIONS. Anchors Anchors: Newsletter of the New England Backgammon Club Monthly 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 Magazine Backgammon Magazine Lately 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 _________________________________________________________________ Backgammon Quarterly [...] I will provide details of all these, and more, things in my forthcoming magazine "Backgammon Quarterly", for which I have been collecting and working through ideas for the last four years (If you are interested in receiving it, please send me e-mail stating so and including your postal address). -- John Bazigos e-mail: jbazigos@Kate.ibmPCUG.CO.UK FIBS-handle: doc _________________________________________________________________ BLITZ Bi-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 Newsletter Chicago Point Newsletter - A 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 2726 West Lunt Avenue Chicago, IL 60645 _________________________________________________________________ European Backgammon News Contact: European Backgammon News Apartado 81 E-04630 Garrucha (Almeria) Spain Fax: 34/68-438347 _________________________________________________________________ Flint Area Backgammon News Monthly 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 $250 lifetime subscription. Contact: Carol Joy Cole, Editor 3003 Ridgecliffe Drive Flint, Michigan 48532-3730 USA Phone/Fax: 810-232-9731. _________________________________________________________________ GAMMON Members magazine for the Danish Backgammon Federation. A5 sized. Published 6 - 8 times a year with a circulation between 1,800 and 10,000 (10,000 during Carlsberg Backgammon Cup). 32 to 44 pages with articles, rating lists, tournament invitations and reviews, general BG theori, "ask the experts"-coloumn, annotated matches etc. Mainly in Danish, with occasional English articles. Subscription can also be obtained by non-members for DKK 180 per year (US$ 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 Newsletter Bi-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 _________________________________________________________________ Inside Backgammon Bi-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 _________________________________________________________________ Norpunkt Norpunkt 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.ifi.uio.no/~steinw/norpunkt.html The WWW page for the Norwegian Backgammon Federation is: http://www.ifi.uio.no/~steinw/NBgF.html For Further information send E-mail to Stein Welle at steinw@ifi.uio.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: _Backgammon_, Paul Magriel, NY Times/Quadrangle Press, New York 1976. The best introduction to the game. Covers basic checker play very well. If you read and thoroughly understand this book, you'll play a decent game. Weaknesses--skimpy treatment of the doubling cube. _Genud_vs_Dwek:_The_1981_World_Backgammon_Championship_ (or similar title), Bill Robertie, The GAMMON PRESS, Arlington, Mass. 1982. Very thorough coverage of the 25-point finals of the 1981 Monte Carlo tournament. Goes into quite a bit of detail about ins and outs of match play. Excellent section on backgames. I've referred to this as Robertie(red) since it has a red cover 8-). _Backgammon_With_The_Champions_, Kent Goulding, ~1980-82. Series of annotated matches between good players. Forget how many in all. Excellent material, giving very good insight into how top players think. Commentary by Goulding, often in collaboration with Kit Woolsey; both of these guys are very, very strong players. Let's see, the matches are Seidel vs. Hodis; Magriel vs. Sconyers; Genud vs. Posner; Pasko vs. Motakhasses; two (?) 5-point matches in one volume: Lester vs. Horan and Woolsey vs. Pasko; Robertie vs. Senkiewicz; Goulding vs. Maxakuli; Dwek vs. Chafetz; Ballard vs. Lubetkin; Eisenberg vs. Magriel(?); and more I can't remember. I can't recommend this series too highly (though Genud vs. Posner was a lousy match). _Advanced_Backgammon_ (2nd edition; two volumes), Bill Robertie, The GAMMON PRESS, Arlington, Mass. '91. I haven't seen this yet--only the first edition of one volume. Series of problems, giving very good introduction to truly advanced concepts. Errors in first edition are supposedly corrected. The first edition is what I call Robertie(blue); the second is Robertie(white). _Backgammon_Times_, all back editions. This was a very good backgammon newspaper that was around in about '82-'83. A lot of interesting articles by top players and analysts. Probably hard to get these days. _Reno_1986_, Bill Robertie, The Gammon Press, Arlington, Mass. 1987. Two annotated matches from the very strong Reno tournament of '86. Semifinal match is between Nack Ballard and Mike Senkiewicz; an excellent match, well annotated. Finals between Ballard and Howard Markowitz. The book is in quiz format, so you can test your skill against Ballard's (well, kind of: Ballard had to find his moves over-the-board under great pressure--nothing like the finals of a big tournament to get the adrenalin flowing!). I've only found a couple of mistakes in the annotations. This book is referred to as Robertie(yellow). _World_Class_Backgammon_,_Move_By_Move_, Roy Friedman, 1989 or 90; forget other publication info. Annotated matches between Robertie and "international star" Rick Barabino (Barabino is strong, but "international star"--I dunno...). Three 9-point matches with some excellent games (check out the second game of the first match particularly). Annotations are very good; Friedman put a lot of work into rolling out many of the diagrammed positions. The annotation style is terse; Friedman takes a very scientific approach. _Vision_Laughs_at_Counting_ (two volumes), Danny Kleinman, ~1978. -all other material by Kleinman is "must have"--write to him at 5312-1/2 Village Green, Los Angeles, CA 90016 and tell him I sent ya. Seminal work on match play, money play, doubling cube, races, and more. Kleinman is very prolific. His analyses are often more mathematical than the average reader can handle, but Real Mathematicians [tm] and even the layperson with math aptitude shouldn't be fazed. A Real Mathematician wouldn't call Kleinman's math "deep", but it sure is accurate, and you won't find anything similar anywhere else. He does the important work of formulating the right problems the right way, where many others couldn't. Drawbacks: his books are self-published with lousy layout and graphics. He's supposedly not that great a player (I've never seen him play), so his analyses often lack the world-class insight into the thought processes of the strong practical player that you could get from a Goulding or a Robertie. In particular, his middle-game intuition seems less than world-class. But these drawbacks are more than made up for by the wealth of information in his books, which I still haven't completely soaked up after many years. Kleinman is a subtle thinker and a meticulous analyst of the countable, and he does a lot to develop backgammon "vision." His stuff is often uproariously funny, but sometimes one gets impatient trying to filter out what's relevant to the practical player from the humor. 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": _Backgammon_For_Profit_, Joe Dwek, Stein and Day, New York 1975 (out of print) Problems that would now be considered fairly basic. Almost all solutions are right. Tables of replies to opening moves show how badly people played in 1975. _Paradoxes_and_Probabilities_, Barclay Cooke, Random House, New York 1978. This is almost a "must have." 168 problems, most of which are very interesting. Current thinking is that solutions to about a third of them are wrong, but the analysis gives very good insight into how Cooke, a first-generation world class player, thought about backgammon. _The_Doubling_Cube_In_Backgammon_, Jeff Ward, Aquarian Enterprises, San Diego 1982. Goes into basic doubling-cube concepts and gives some benchmark positions with equities derived from rollouts. Gives some bearoff tables, etc. Analysis of benchmark positions is pretty good but sometimes skimpy; Ward only admits to having done 100-200 rollouts to derive his equities. Worth having. _Backgammon_Master_Games_, Bill Kennedy and Chuck Papazian, 1982 (forget other publication info). Annotated games and positions from master match play. Analysis is largely based on intuitive concepts, and isn't well grounded in match-equity considerations etc. Not well supported by rollouts; a fair amount of errors, but the analysis overall is pretty sound. 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 -- Lawrence Hunter, PhD. National Library of Medicine Bldg. 38A, MS-54 Bethesda. MD 20894 (301) 496-9300 (301) 496-0673 (fax) hunter@nlm.nih.gov (internet) [Note: Fax number edited to reflect the current number.] _________________________________________________________________ BG books [summary] by John Bazigos Article: 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 GMT HI ! 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 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: 1. If you read enough backgammon books, there will quite possibly come a time when "Vision Laughs at Counting" will be the best book for to read next to improve your technique maximally. 2. You are probably at least seven books from that point: "World Class Backgammon, Move-By-Move", the four volumes of backgammon's New Testament, and both volumes of Kent Goulding's "Backgammon With The Champions" are presently better for that purpose (and you can perhaps most profitably read them in that order). 3. "Vision Laughs at Counting" is the most entertaining instructional backgammon book that has been published to date. > 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 Woolsey This 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 Group I 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 Watchel You'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 Robertie For 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] [Note: This is most likely TD-GAMMON Version 1.0] _________________________________________________________________ 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: -Basic probability (how dice work) -Pip Counting (the basis for evaluating racing chances) -Doubling Cube theory (the 25% rule) -Settlements (useful concept even if you never settle) -general strategic categories (backgames, etc). 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 Backgammon One 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 Books Other books seeking write-ups: -- Fascinating Backgammon by Antonio Ortega, Edited by Danny Klienman, forwarded by Carol Joy Cole and Neil Kazaross (English Version) -- Backgammon For Winners by Bill Robertie. $6.95 Cardoza Publishing _________________________________________________________________ Danny Kleinman Books A list of Danny Kleinman books (Backgammon) Pages Price (US$) ----- ----------- VISION LAUGHS AT COUNTING with ADVICE TO THE DICELORN 438 $64 WONDERFUL WORLD OF BACKGAMMON 132 $18 MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE CHOUETTE 142 $29 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 _________________________________________________________________ D5. A LIST OF BACKGAMMON ARTICLES IN SCIENCE AND BUSINESS [Original list submited by Mika Johnsson] [sorted by date] Hans Berliner: " A Program that Plays Backgammon", SIGART Newsletter No. 54, October 1975 E.B. Keeler, J. Spencer: "Optimal doubling in Backgammon", Operations research Vol. 23 No. 6, November-December 1975 N. Zadeh: " On Doubling in Tournament Backgammon ", Management Science 23, 986-993 (1977) P.J. Orth: " A Comment on "Optimal Doubling in Backgammon'", Operations Research 24, 1179 (1976) David Levner: "is Brute Force Backgammon Possible ?", SIGART newsletter No. 58, June 1976 N. Zadeh and G.Kobliska: "On optimal doubling in backgammon" , Management science 23, 853-858 (1977) Hans Berliner: "Backgammon computer program beats world champion", Artificial intelligence 14 (1980), 205-220 Hans Berliner: "Computer Backgammon", Scientific American 243:1, 64-72 (1980) G. Tesauro: "Neurogammon wins Computer Olympiad.", Neural computation 1, 321-323 (1989) G.Tesauro, T.J.Sejnowski: "A parallel network that learns to play Backgammon", Artificial intelligence 39 (1989) 357-390 G. Tesauro, ``Neurogammon: a neural network backgammon program.'' IJCNN Proceedings vol. III, 33-40 (1990). G. Tesauro, ``Practical issues in temporal difference learning.'' Machine Learning vol. 8, 257-277 (1992). G. Tesauro, ``TD-Gammon, a self-teaching backgammon program, achieves master-level play.'' Neural Computation, vol. 6, 215-219 (1994). G. Tesauro, ``Temporal Difference Learning and TD-Gammon'', Communications of the ACM, Vol.38, No.3, 58-68 (March 1995) _________________________________________________________________ D6. BACKGAMMON SOFTWARE AND SOFTWARE REVIEWS. 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. BOINQ Boinq 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 #203, 215 14th Ave. SW Calgary, AB Canada T2R 0M2 Phone: (403) 234-9944 E-mail address: heinrich@cuug.ab.ca Kit [Note: Also available from Carol Joy Cole] [Note: As far as I know, this is a PC program ...Mark] _________________________________________________________________ Hyper-Backgammon Hyper-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] _________________________________________________________________ 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 #203, 215 14th Ave. SW Calgary, AB Canada T2R 0M2 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) Subject: Matchqiz Demo X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL1] 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 netcom2.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 _________________________________________________________________ BG-SCRIBE Software 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: -- Allow one to enter matches from books and magazines, or from those personally recorded, to be played back and studied later. Entry is done using the numeric keypad. After a while, you end up being able to enter a match very quickly, and become quite proficient at touch-typing the keypad to boot. An `AT' style keyboard is preferable for entering matches. -- Play back matches purchased from Walter. Watching great matches between the masters is definitely enlightening. My favorite matches are the ones from annotated books. It shouldn't be hard to write a program to convert a match from one format to another, if already have a collection of matches. I've converted matches posted to Internet by Butch Meese using nothing more than simple editor macros. The matches are currently stored as plain ASCII files---one directory per match, and one file per game. -- Print out matches to disk or printer. I like to: print out to disk, annotate my comments using a simple editor, then print the resulting file to a printer. The program will also embed diagrams of positions to the printout, but it uses IBM graphics characters, which might have to be changed if your printer doesn't support them. The diagram feature is especially useful for diagramming doubling decisions. 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 Contact: Walter G. Trice 549 Wachusett St. Holden, MA 01520 (508) 829-3283 _________________________________________________________________ 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.netcom.com directry: pub/da/damish 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 comercial 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.] _________________________________________________________________ rfibs (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 __________________________________________________________________________ An "as is" DOS Port by Robin Davies (FIBS/W author) is available for ftp from: ftp.netcom.com/pub/da/damish/rfibsdos.zip This version will work with output saved using the '> command for saving matches from FIBS/W. The file currently contains executables only. _________________________________________________________________ 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: - Boards produced with a special font made with metafont, no inclusion of Postscript files needed (i.e. every dvi previewer should be able to display the boards). - Two different environments for single positions and complete matches. - Board layout customizable in both environments. - Automatic generation of the current board at arbitrary places in the game environment. Only the moves have to be entered, the state of the board is maintained internally by the style. 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 _________________________________________________________________ D7. 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. _________________________________________________________________ Danny Kleinman Danny Kleinman 5312 1/2 Village Green Los Angeles, CA 90016 U.S.A. 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. _________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ A 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. _________________________________________________________________ D8. AN INDEX OF BACKGAMMON RESOURCES AVAILABLE ON THE INTERNET. By Site: http://www.statslab.cam.ac.uk/~sret1/backgammon/main.html Stephen Turner's World Wide Web backgammon page. http://www.ifi.uio.no/~steinw/NBgF.html WWW page of the Norwegian Backgammon Federation. http://baugi.ifi.uio.no:80/~paalf/BG Pal 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/matawww/mata/mata93/mat0m6/bg/bg.html Marco Lau's Backgammon-Seite (German and English) http://www.abekrd.co.uk/Users/mike/fibs/fibs.html Michael Quinn's FIBS help document. ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/da/damish/fibshelp.html Mark Damish's FIBS help document. ftp.netcom.com /pub/kw/kwoolsey/gammon/matchqiz/matchqiz.exe matchqiz.exe Match Qiz demo for DOS. Self extracting. ftp.netcom.com /pub/pa/pattib/backgammon/ kvj_*.ps.gz Kit Woolsey vs. Jeremy Bagai match. Postscript format. Typeset by jrichter@aldebaran.cs.uni-sb.de (Joerg Richter) ftp.netcom.com /pub/da/damish/ File Name Type Notes ------------ ---- ----------------------------------------------------- .message A File that contains this message. bg-faq-ptr A Location of the backgammon FAQ (ASCII version). bg-faq.html A Hypertext version of FAQ. Read with Mosaic. bg-matches D Directory containing backgammon matches. bg-rules.html A Backgammon Rules in formated hyper-text. bg_1.0.tar.gz B Joerg Richter's LaTeX style & font for documenting backgammon positions and games. boa_v10.exe B Bearoff program. Gives cubeless probability of winning, and best move for up to 15 checkers on each side in the home board. Shareware. bqdemo.zip B Walter Trices Bearoff Quizmaster Demo. (MS-DOS) exbgdemo.sea B Demo of Expert Backgammon for the Macintosh. Change type to "APPL", creater to "aust" would a .hqx (binhex) be better? fibshelp.html A Formated HTML of FIBS help screens. AUG 94 kw_jb.tar.Z B Kit Woolsey vs. Jeremy Bagai match. Text version. matstrat.zip B MS-DOS demo of 'Match Strategist'. pubeval.tar.Z B Gerry Tesauros backgammon 'benchmark' function. race.tar.Z B 2 bearoff programs: 'race2' & 'race4'. No makefile. rfibsdos.zip B Robin Davies DOS port of rfibs and sfibs. figment.csee.usf.edu /pub/misc/FIBS_client tiny-fugue text interface to FIBS. itekiris.kjemi.unit.no /pub xfibs07 X interface to FIBS. shuksan.cs.berkeley.edu /pub/tkfibs/ TkFibs X Tk/Tcl interface to FIBS. resudox.net /pub/pc/windows/games/fibsw/ fibsw MS Windows interface to FIBS. ftp.cd.chalmers.se /pub/xibc/ xibc-X.XX.tar.Z X Tcl/Tk/Expect interface to FIBS. ftp summex-aim.stanford.edu /info-mac/game/brd/mac-fibs-10.hqx MacFIBS Mac interface to fibs. ftp ftp.statslab.cam.ac.uk /pub/users/sret1/backgammon/ bg2fig Board description to fig converter. matches Backagmmon matches. printmatch FIBS `oldmoves' to ascii bg boards converter. psboards --> bg2fig ftp ftp.irb.uni-hannover.de /pub/spitz/bg/ bg.tar.gz FIBS recording/playback tools. _________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ Section E: MISC. E1. WHAT OTHER GAMES CAN BE PLAYED ON A BACKGAMMON BOARD? - Acey-Deucy - TricTrac - Jacquet - Moultezim - Plakoto (Portas) - Fevka (spelling?) - Narde - Gioul (Turkish variation) - Three Checker Hyper-Backgammon - Nackgammon - Cubeless, one point backgammon games. - Many versions of 'diceless' backgammon. - Hyper-Backgammon - On some boards, you can flip it over, and play checkers or chess. :-) _________________________________________________________________ Hyper-Backgammon Newsgroups: 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. _________________________________________________________________ Nackgammon From: kleef@cs.utwente.nl (Rolf Kleef) at SMTP-Post-Office 10/15/93 Nackgammon: 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?] _________________________________________________________________ Tapa From: vladimir@cs.ualberta.ca 1/24/95 Subject: 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: Blots (single men) are not taken out when hit. Rather, the opponent's man rests on top of the blot and thus forms a point. Points can also be formed in the usual way, by placing two or more of your men at the same slot. 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. _________________________________________________________________ Narde From: 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 Backgammon From: 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 beauty In 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: -both players go same direction ( namely counterclockwise ) -starting position is different -you're not allowed to hit ( which changes strategy a lot). And, as far as I know, there are tournaments, where people play this version without dices, i.e. calling their rolls. Consequently, there exist time control in this tournaments. _________________________________________________________________ Acey-deucy In 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. Credit: The Backgammon Book, Oswald Jacoby/John Crawford 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 (nickless@ccs.carleton.ca) _________________________________________________________________ One Point Matches This 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. _________________________________________________________________ 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.] [...] WT: What do you have to say to the up-and-coming intermediate who has decided that he is absolutely determined to win the 1996 World Cup? What would he have to do? 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@netcom.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. The rule is: In case of any cube action - Any player has the option of demanding the other player to accept a proposition to be played five times. For instance: Peter doubles me. I drop. Peter thinks that I should have accepted. Now he can demand to be paid one point five times, each time setting up the same position with him accepting i.e. he owns the cube on 2. 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 _________________________________________________________________ E3. MISC. -- Apparantly it is possable 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 _________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________