By Robert Wachtel
Today’s leading backgammon sites offer both the casual and serious player a number of useful features including efficient ways to analyze and improve the play, satellite tournaments and free entrances for live events, protection from "sharks" and players who misuse bots, backgammon bonuses, and other freebies.
For the real student of the game, the most enjoyable and efficient way to improve is through the computer analysis of your games and matches. This is a process which the better online sites greatly facilitate by recording all of your online play in an easily down-loadable form. Then it is a matter of just a few keystrokes to transfer this data to your computer, where your bot of choice can pick it apart to reveal the strengths and weaknesses of your game.
By contrast, recording a live match or money session is an arduous business indeed. I have seen only one or two people who can do so while playing. The rest of us mortals, need to hire someone to sit next to us for a few hours and write down the moves, which even then must be manually input to a computer before they can be analyzed. True, there are a few intrepid souls who bring a tripod-mounted video camera to their tournament matches and spend hours afterwards reviewing the video and extracting the sequence of moves from it; but this technique, though it may save some money, is not for the faint of heart.
Play65 sponsors the 21st Nordic Open backgammon tournament
And the bot police are out. There are still sites which are caveat emptor, allowing automatic bots and bot assisted players free reign; but prevailing opinion now seems to be that the extra action which concealed bots create (by acting as “shills”) is not worth the money they extract from a site’s clientele. If you have a suspicion that you have been matched with a bot, on such a patrolled site, you can report the alleged crime. The cops will investigate, and if they decide that you were unknowingly beaten by a bot, your money will be refunded. That, at least, is the theory.
Today’s leading backgammon sites offer both the casual and serious player a number of useful features including efficient ways to analyze and improve the play, satellite tournaments and free entrances for live events, protection from "sharks" and players who misuse bots, backgammon bonuses, and other freebies.
For the real student of the game, the most enjoyable and efficient way to improve is through the computer analysis of your games and matches. This is a process which the better online sites greatly facilitate by recording all of your online play in an easily down-loadable form. Then it is a matter of just a few keystrokes to transfer this data to your computer, where your bot of choice can pick it apart to reveal the strengths and weaknesses of your game.
By contrast, recording a live match or money session is an arduous business indeed. I have seen only one or two people who can do so while playing. The rest of us mortals, need to hire someone to sit next to us for a few hours and write down the moves, which even then must be manually input to a computer before they can be analyzed. True, there are a few intrepid souls who bring a tripod-mounted video camera to their tournament matches and spend hours afterwards reviewing the video and extracting the sequence of moves from it; but this technique, though it may save some money, is not for the faint of heart.
Backgammon Tournaments Sponsored by Online Sites
The most exciting development of the last few years is the integration of the online game with live backgammon tournaments. The more ambitious sites are now either sponsors of the live tournaments (exclusively, so far, in Europe) or offer satellites to them, a trend we can expect only to accelerate once the competing live organizers and sponsors have sorted themselves out and established a seasonal tournament circuit with reliable prizes.Play65 sponsors the 21st Nordic Open backgammon tournament
Anti Sharks Policy and Bots Police
Most online backgammon sites nowadays are pro-actively player-protective. A color-coded performance-based rating system identifies the better players, saddling them with a dangerous-looking red hue to warn their weaker brothers away. And the sites which employ such rating systems further discourage the predators by doubling or even tripling the rake on the game according to the rating differential between the opponents. These rules naturally tempt the sharks to lower their ratings by losing a number of low-stakes games; but at least some of the sites are vigilant against this kind of “dumping,” punishing it by confiscating part or all of the wolf-in-sheep’s clothing’s account balance!And the bot police are out. There are still sites which are caveat emptor, allowing automatic bots and bot assisted players free reign; but prevailing opinion now seems to be that the extra action which concealed bots create (by acting as “shills”) is not worth the money they extract from a site’s clientele. If you have a suspicion that you have been matched with a bot, on such a patrolled site, you can report the alleged crime. The cops will investigate, and if they decide that you were unknowingly beaten by a bot, your money will be refunded. That, at least, is the theory.