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[CaractacusPots]

Next crazy game



I've got one back man escaped and the final one has been knocked off to the bar. My stacks elsewhere are well balanced. I like my position.

Opponent only has 2 primes blocked in his home quad. I can get back on the board with and 1, 4, 5 or 6. That's a 2 in 3 chance with EACH die but sure enough the system deals me 2-3 and keeps me on the bar.

Opponent then makes his 4 point on his next move

Now I can get back on with any 1, 5 or 6. That's a 1 in 2 chance with EACH die but sure enough the system deals me 4-3 so I can't get back on.

My third attempt the system deals me 2-4 and again I'm stuck on the bar.

The game is totally turned around from those 3 rolls.

So I had a 2 in 3, plus a 2 in 3, plus a 1 in 2, plus a 1 in 2, plus a 1 in 2, plus a 1 in 2 and failed every one !

Yep, it's not hooky because . . . well . . . stuff happens and if stuff didn't happen it wouldn't be random

lols

[Giordano Bruno 1974]

Nobody is convinced. Other people have bad luck in games that have a large chance element.

You are better off playing backgammon vs a computer on an app.

That way when you lose, you'll know that you are not being "levelled down" to keep the other player happy.

[RicardoRix]

It sounds like you really don't like randomness in your games.

There are lots of 2 player strategy games. Try The Battle of LITS instead.

[Tisaac]

Or Santorini, 0 luck and 100% strategy

[CaractacusPots]

It sounds like you really don't like randomness in your games.

Quite the contrary, some good old fashioned random dice would be a refreshing change.

The unexpected events here seem to happen with a monotonous regularity. Most particularly around 2 specific areas.

1. The dice throws given when you have a man on the bar and you are way ahead in the game
Number of times you can't get back on even with just the 6 point blocked is totally awry.

2. The number of doubles featuring in games which I maintain is off until and unless I am given access to an export of
a meaningful sample size of BG games here which I can then number crunch.


How about that export chaps?

[Giordano Bruno 1974]

The dice are fine. You are just never going to be happy playing online backgammon against another human because your expectations are out of whack and you can't accept that a win percentage of around 50% is normal.

You lost your last three games against players with higher ELOs than you. Clearly "levelling" didn't help you. If you look at their win percent, it is just the same as yours, 50% plus or minus a couple of percent.

Continuing to post about your bad luck just comes across as poor sportsmanship.

[CaractacusPots]

You lost your last three games against players with higher ELOs than you.

Yep, but I lost purely because of the system RNG. I was pawning the players quite easily. The game where opp was knocked off 7 times with 5 primes blocked would have been over in minutes with real physical dice. No way he comes back on the board 5 times out of 7 in such circumstances.

Continuing to post about your bad luck just comes across as poor sportsmanship.

Instead of berating me why don't you simply run a script for me to export all the game rolls for BG played in 2020 in CSV format then I will shut up, go away and crunch the numbers.

Your sole defense here has been that :

1. Crazy stuff happens so it's all ok (regardless of how often it actually does happen)
2. No-one can talk knowledgeably about the RNG because they haven't looked at a meaningful sample of data


This is a rather convenient position is it not? People can't get hold of meaningful sample data to determine the truth so it's a stalemate.

The history data exists, in your databases. It's all there.

Cant be that difficult to export a sizable chunk of it to CSV surely?

[Giordano Bruno 1974]

Yep, but I lost purely because of the system RNG. I was pawning the players quite easily. The game where opp was knocked off 7 times with 5 primes blocked would have been over in minutes with real physical dice. No way he comes back on the board 5 times out of 7 in such circumstances.

As I said this comes off as being a poor loser.

I daresay that anyone running your games through an analyser is going to find quite a few mistakes.

These were people ranked above you.

Instead of berating me why don't you simply run a script for me to export all the game rolls for BG played in 2020 in CSV format then I will shut up, go away and crunch the numbers.

Your sole defense here has been that :

1. Crazy stuff happens so it's all ok (regardless of how often it actually does happen)
2. No-one can talk knowledgeably about the RNG because they haven't looked at a meaningful sample of data


This is a rather convenient position is it not? People can't get hold of meaningful sample data to determine the truth so it's a stalemate.

The history data exists, in your databases. It's all there.

Cant be that difficult to export a sizable chunk of it to CSV surely?

I'm not going to do this
a) because I don't know how
b) because I don't want to, I have no doubts that the RNG function works perfectly fine
c) because it isn't going to change anything - you've already been given plenty of reasons, statistical data etc but you ignored it all so you'll do the same no matter what

It's pretty clear that despite you believing that you are being cheated, you are going to continue playing here and complaining about your inevitable losses.

Were you to behave like this in the real world, you'd likely find it difficult to get a game with anyone.

[CaractacusPots]

I'm not going to do this

b) because I don't want to, I have no doubts that the RNG function works perfectly fine

You can't possibly know that the RNG function has been implemented "fine" unless you've run or seen a proper analysis of a huge sample size of dice rolls. Your statement is as bad as mine suggesting that the RNG may be off. Without the appropriate analysis of a meaningful sample size no-one knows.

c) because it isn't going to change anything - you've already been given plenty of reasons, statistical data etc but you ignored it all so you'll do the same no matter what

Not true. If I were to crunch the numbers of a large sample and it all looked ok, right number f doubles, right number of individual dice throws etc etc then I would be pacified. There seems to be a reluctance to provide the data though.

[N_Faker]

I daresay that anyone running your games through an analyser is going to find quite a few mistakes.

I already did, though I should probably have explained the results better.

The majority of the players I have faced here are truly awful, some complete novices whose every move is only concerned with keeping every piece from being exposed as a blot. Some are good players. On balance I should be well up because poor play can not consistently stand up to sound strategic play in this game. Luck as a factor should even out and good players must then prevail very significantly. As it is well guess what, I have won a nicely balanced 50% of the games I have played.

Yes, the ELO ranges in which you have played in until now, in large part, only tries to minimize blot exposure. Which will usually result in exceptionally poor error ratings.

Yet, your own error rating isn't great either. I plotted your last 10 games into GNUBG which resulted in these overall ratings.

Error rate mEMG (MWC) __________ -37.2 ( -0.152%)
Snowie error rate _______________ -15.1 ( +0.000%)
Error based abs. FIBS rating _______________ 1666.7

GNUBG file

Error rate (per decision): The error rate per decision is the total error rate divided by the number of non-trivial decisions (i.e., the sum of unforced moves and close or actual cube decisions). Again, please note that is different from Snowie 4 that defines the error rate per decision as the total error rate divided by the total number of moves for both players. In general, your error rate per move will be lower in Snowie than in GNU Backgammon. An investigation of approximately 300 matches showed the on average the GNU Backgammon error rate with be 1.4 times higher than your Snowie 4 error rate.
Equivalent Snowie error rate: For easy comparison GNU Backgammon will also print the total error rate calculated by the same formula as Snowie 4.

Threshold for ratings:

Normalized total error rate per move Rating
0.000 - 0.002 ___________________ Supernatural
0.002 - 0.005 ___________________ World Class
0.005 - 0.008 ___________________ Expert
0.008 - 0.012 ___________________ Advanced
0.012 - 0.018 ___________________ Intermediate
0.018 - 0.026 ___________________ Casual Player
0.026 - 0.035 ___________________ Beginner
> 0.035 ________________________ Awful!

Please note: The Normalized total error rate per move is multiplied by 1000 in the default settings.

The games that were plotted in were played by CaractacusPots' on 2020-09-03 and 2020-09-04.

CaractacusPots' overall error rating within the 10 games that were plotted in is within the 'Awful!' rating.
The lowest error rate within the 10 games was -13.7 and the highest -71.7.

In relation to BGA Backgammon ranking it is probably around 200 ELO.