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[Giordano Bruno 1974]

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.

I've never studied the game because it looked to me to be largely random with only a degree of skill. That's pretty much what I get from articles online written by people who do play the game and are cited by others as knowing what they are talking about.

There may be books written about it, there may be optimum plays but these can all be undone by a handful of lucky dice rolls. This is exactly what you are complaining about.

There are world championships but they play to 25 points, not a single game because not even the top players can guarantee that they would beat an average club player.

I'm not sure why someone who has studied the game in depth wouldn't be aware of these facts.

[euklid314]

No tournament player with a PR (Performance Rating) consistently lower than 5 will complain about the dice here on BGA.

[CaractacusPots]

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.

Oh come on let's not be naive. If there's any kind of rigging going on that part of the code is not going to be available is it ?!

[CaractacusPots]

I've never studied the game . . . . .

And that sir is why you are uninformed about the levels of strategy involved

[Giordano Bruno 1974]

I've never studied the game . . . . .

And that sir is why you are uninformed about the levels of strategy involved

The real question is why you are.

I can read the opinions of informed people and they have nothing like your opinion. Quite the opposite.

[CaractacusPots]

I can read the opinions of informed people and they have nothing like your opinion. Quite the opposite.

Bless you. It's a free world, believe whatever floats your boat.

I've played and studied BG for many many years. I know the game, I know the strategy.

Further debate is pointless so I will leave it there.

[Tisaac]

I can read the opinions of informed people and they have nothing like your opinion. Quite the opposite.

Bless you. It's a free world, believe whatever floats your boat.

I've played and studied BG for many many years. I know the game, I know the strategy.

Further debate is pointless so I will leave it there.

Well to be honest, that's not really a debate so far. You didn't give any argument in favor of your claim except some kind of authority argument.
Of course you can believe anything you like, but if you want to try to convince me of your claim here, you are doing it wrong. You are the one that is making the claim, you should provide proofs of that if you want to start a debate.

[CaractacusPots]

Hi Tisaac

I'm not looking to convince you or anyone else of anything. All I need to do is satisfy myself whether games are true or artificially balanced and I've seen enough to form my opinion on that. I joined the thread to simply support OP and state that my observations lead to a similar conclusion.
It is what it is. People who have played poker extensively in bricks and mortar casinos know 100% that the game online is not remotely like real life and that hands are artificially generated for "action". Forum debates about it are pointless. The long standing experienced players know the truth and stay clear of the online games as a result. Analysis of dice throws or cards doesn't highlight the issue. They are randomly generated so analysis of many thousands of hand histories or dice throws only shows the expected distribution. Yet it is the way in which the random throws/cards are used and the points in the game where they are used that make the difference.

In respect of backgammon, if there are say 30 dice throws for each player and you generate all those throws before the game starts then you can structure any outcome you want by the order in which those throws are dealt. The same set of 30 dice throws can be sequenced in many different ways and some orders will result in the player winning and some in the player losing. All depends on the specific points the throws are allocated. Like giving a player one of his available double-6s at the precise point he is knocked off the board and opponent only has the 6pt blocked.

I'm merely highlighting one way in which any site could easily tweak game outcomes whilst leaving all the dice throws completely random.

Nothing much more to say TBH.

Personally, it is my opinion that the games here are not true and are in some way tweaked for balanced results. There are simply too many instances when you have opponent totally pawned and behind and the system gives them the specific succession of dice throws needed to turn the game around.
It's no big deal. Just means I will play much less if at all.

ATB

[Giordano Bruno 1974]

If numbers were pre-rolled then "allocated" mid-game then you could prove this with analysis. A 12 should be equally likely to follow a 6 or 8 for instance if it were purely random but probably wouldn't be if the numbers were being "allocated". Anyone who really cared that much could crunch the numbers.

But conspiracy theorists don't really go in for data.

[Tisaac]

I'm not looking to convince you or anyone else of anything. All I need to do is satisfy myself whether games are true or artificially balanced and I've seen enough to form my opinion on that. I joined the thread to simply support OP and state that my observations lead to a similar conclusion.

Then what's the point of posting here ? If you're not trying to convince anyone and you're not trying to change the sourcecode to fix the game, then what ?
Same question goes to OP of course.

Sorry for believing that posting on this forum means you want to open a debate about whether your claims are true or not, my bad.