Board Game Arena

MarkSteere wrote: ↑11 August 2025, 23:10 I think Backgammon and Yahtzee might get a boost from having a lot more players, many being highly experienced and talented.

I'm not a backgammon expert. But from what I've read from people who are, the use of the doubling cube significantly increases the skill edge. Despite it being a game of chance, with the doubling cube in play an inexperienced player has as little chance over the long run against a skilled backgammon player as a novice chess player has against a grandmaster.

All the stats for games with and without the doubling cubes are aggregated, so I expect it's dragging down the peak ELO that would be attained if the doubling cube were always in play.

Note the difference between Can't Stop, and Can't Stop Express. I'm not sure the difference is statistically significant, but it aligns with my experience playing those two games that Can't Stop Express has a little bit more under the hood.

Wow, excellent point about the doubling cube greatly increasing the skill to luck ratio. You offer the cube when you have at least a 75% of winning and refuse the cube when you have at least a 25% chance of losing. It takes a lot of expertise to evaluate these percentages.

Coincidentally, yesterday I was considering adding a doubling cube to the Jokerball program, but not for the reason of increasing the skill to luck ratio. Backgammon often ends in an inane dice rolling contest, an elaborate coin toss, once the armies have slipped past each other. It's especially excruciating when it starts early on and is protracted. The doubling cube can be used to nip a race in the bud, or at least make it more worth your while by earning you double the money or double the points in a match. Jokerball can have a similar problem, though not nearly as drawn out. Most or all of the men can be gone, and the ball can bounce around for a few turns before jumping off. This is virtually guaranteed to take only a single digit number of turns, so not nearly as soul sucking as Backgammon races (although, theoretically, there's a miniscule chance of the ball bouncing around for a lot of turns before exiting).

I decided a doubling cube would not be necessary because 1. It's not that big of a deal, and 2. it'll be a lot of work for me, an amateur programmer. There might be a bug...

But now, I'm strongly inclined to add the doubling cube. Might even start on it today.

Thanks for enlightening me about this.

After some pondering, maybe I will not add a doubling cube after all.

1. The double should be offered before the dice roll. At least one of the players will always have to begin their turn by pressing a button to offer a double or pressing a button to not offer a double, in order to get their dice roll. This will be an annoying extra step.

2. The doubling cube would genuinely increase the skill required, but I can't shake the feeling that it would be a gimmick or a cheap stunt solely designed to jack up the top ELO.

I could add a doubling cube as an option... but I think I'll just let it ride, as is. See how it fares against Can't Stop Express and the others, without a doubling cube.

I ended up adding a doubling cube to Jokerball after all. It's turned off by default.