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[CaractacusPots]

It's not. Jest Phulin is correct. There are two combinations out of thirty six. The odds are 1 in 18.

No. What I mean is that where it says 6-1 in the post above it's referring to the dice roll 6-1, it's not saying the odds are 6 to 1.

The dice roll 6-1 is indeed a 1 in 18 chance

My post stands. At the specific time needed in the game to give underdog any chance of winning from such a bad and behind position I was given a 1 in 36 throw followed by a 1 in 9 roll at the specific points needed, 2 consecutive throws. Collectively a 1 in 324 miracle. It's just laughable.

[N_Faker]

backgammon is a game with a large amount of luck and even the best players don't win consistantly.

Sorry but that's is patently nonsense. The one truth in all of this is that the best players DO win matches consistently. Anyone can win a single match but over many matches the best players will always come out on top and very significantly so.

That is if you consider 60% to be consistent. Keep in mind that BGA ONLY has cubeless single point games of Backgammon.

Your error rate is also fairly high.

[Giordano Bruno 1974]

A quick google reveals that backgammon is a game so dominated by luck that players evaluate how strong other players are by looking at their error rate (as judged by a computer) rather than their win-loss ratio or Elo rating. Why anyone should expect to win consistantly is a mystery.

[CaractacusPots]

A quick google reveals that backgammon is a game so dominated by luck that players evaluate how strong other players are by looking at their error rate (as judged by a computer) rather than their win-loss ratio or Elo rating. Why anyone should expect to win consistantly is a mystery.

You Googled badly imo.

BG is a game with a high degree of skill and winning strategies are deep and complex. There does exist an element of luck which allows a complete novice to beat a master in an occasional game but teh levels of skill involved are such that a master will consistently beat a novice over a decent number of games.

[Giordano Bruno 1974]

A quick google reveals that backgammon is a game so dominated by luck that players evaluate how strong other players are by looking at their error rate (as judged by a computer) rather than their win-loss ratio or Elo rating. Why anyone should expect to win consistantly is a mystery.

You Googled badly imo.

BG is a game with a high degree of skill and winning strategies are deep and complex. There does exist an element of luck which allows a complete novice to beat a master in an occasional game but teh levels of skill involved are such that a master will consistently beat a novice over a decent number of games.

A quick google reveals that backgammon is a game so dominated by luck that players evaluate how strong other players are by looking at their error rate (as judged by a computer) rather than their win-loss ratio or Elo rating. Why anyone should expect to win consistantly is a mystery.

You Googled badly imo.

BG is a game with a high degree of skill and winning strategies are deep and complex. There does exist an element of luck which allows a complete novice to beat a master in an occasional game but teh levels of skill involved are such that a master will consistently beat a novice over a decent number of games.

BGA

Complexity: 1
Strategy: 2
Luck: 4
Interaction: 0

I'd say I googled correctly.

Your expectations are out of whack with reality.

Good players will beat weaker players over a long run of games but every description I come against says that the kind of things you complain about are to be expected. Weaker players can win games with lucky dice rolls, even strong players will not dominate weaker ones.

[CaractacusPots]

Sorry to say you are massively wrong and obviously have never studied the game

There are books and books written on BG strategy and optimum move play

Books on back games,mid games,early plays.

There are world championships

No point debating further on this. You need to have some degree of knowledge of what you're taking about to be meaningful.

[CaractacusPots]

https://www.worthview.com/backgammon-amazing-game/

"Strategy and Complexity

Unlike popular card and table games that rely more on luck than skill, the game of backgammon can only be played effectively if you construct a good strategy. You will still have to hope for the dice to go your way, but even if you’re unlucky on that end, the set of right moves can put you in the advantage over your opponent.

While it looks simple on the surface, backgammon is actually a very complex game. Mathematicians calculated that the total number of possible positions is 1019. Just for comparison, it is estimated that the total number of grains of sand on all sandy beaches combined amounts to around1021.

If you thought chess was unique, think again. People are still trying to figure out the full math behind backgammon. In fact, the game is so complex, that the AI bots still haven’t figured out how to solve it."

[Jest Phulin]

backgammon is a game with a large amount of luck and even the best players don't win consistantly.

Sorry but that's is patently nonsense. The one truth in all of this is that the best players DO win matches consistently. Anyone can win a single match but over many matches the best players will always come out on top and very significantly so.

Please don't put words in my mouth. That is not my quote, but Giordano Bruno 1974.


Also, hasn't your stance been that the best players will not come out on top consistently because of a conspiracy leveling algorithm? And the games you have lost were due to that algorithm, and not because anyone can win a single match?
And you have now defined a "miracle throw" to be an event that happens more than 10% of the time (4 rolls out of 36).

[dschingis27]

A really good source for luck vs. skill in Backgammon is this one:
http://freerangestats.info/blog/2016/03/19/elo-pr-luck

Some highlights:
"a master playing a beginner - the master will win about 75% of one point matches"
"It seems I most frequently get 4 or 5 really lucky rolls per match"

A really good source for BG on BGA is the source code of the game, which is more or less openly available if you create a free BGA dev account. So if you think that something is rigged, you can try point to it.

[Tisaac]

Here is the part about rolling dice :

Code: Select all

    /**
     * Roll new dice and notify players that dice has been rolled
     * @param bool $forbidDouble
     */
    private function rollDice($forbidDouble = false)
    {
        self::incStat( 1, "turns_number");

        // Roll dices
        $dice1_value = bga_rand(1, 6);
        $dice2_value = bga_rand(1, 6);

        // if it is first turn, fordib double
        if ($forbidDouble) {
            $nbtry = 0;
            while ($dice1_value == $dice2_value && $nbtry < 1000) {
                $dice2_value = bga_rand(1, 6);
                $nbtry++;
            }
        }

        $dice3_value = 0;
        $dice4_value = 0;

        $additional_greatings_text = false;
        if ($dice1_value == $dice2_value) {
            $dice3_value = $dice1_value;
            $dice4_value = $dice1_value;
            $additional_greatings_text = true;
            self::incStat(1, "double_number", self::getActivePlayerId());
        }

        self::incStat(1, "number_of_dice", self::getActivePlayerId());

        // Notify all players about dice rolling
        self::notifyAllPlayers(
            "rollDiceDone",
            clienttranslate( '${player_name} roll dice and get ${dice1_value} and ${dice2_value} ${newline} ${additional}' ),
            array(
				'i18n' => array( 'additional' ),
                'player_name' => self::getActivePlayerName(),
                'dice1_value' => $dice1_value,
                'dice2_value' => $dice2_value,
                'dice3_value' => $dice3_value,
                'dice4_value' => $dice4_value,
				'newline' => $additional_greatings_text ? '<br/>' : '',
				'additional' => $additional_greatings_text ? clienttranslate("It's a double !") : '',
		)
        );

        if ($dice1_value == $dice2_value) {
            $sql_double = ",dice3 = $dice1_value, dice4= $dice1_value";
            $sql_double_usable_init = ", dice3_usable=1, dice4_usable=1";
        } else {
            $sql_double = ',dice3=0, dice4=0';
            $sql_double_usable_init = ", dice3_usable=0, dice4_usable=0";
        }

        // save dice roll in database
        $sql = "UPDATE dice_result
                SET dice1 = $dice1_value,
                    dice2 = $dice2_value
                    $sql_double ,
                    dice1_usable=1,
                    dice2_usable=1
                    $sql_double_usable_init
                    WHERE 1";
        self::DbQuery( $sql );
        self::reloadPlayersBasicInfos();

        return array($dice1_value, $dice2_value);
    }

And the only call is made there :

Code: Select all

    function stPlayerTurn()
    {

        self::incStat( 1, "turns_number");

        self::notifyAllPlayers("selectPlayer", clienttranslate("Next player"), array());

        // Roll dices
        // if it is first turn, fordib double
        if (self::getStat("turns_number") == 1) {
            $forbidDouble = true;
        } else {
            $forbidDouble = false;
        }

        list($dice1, $dice2) = self::rollDice($forbidDouble);
        ...