G
Guest
I'm looking to play against the computer--not over the internet.
Thanks,
Norm Strong
Thanks,
Norm Strong
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B
badgolferman
I'm looking to play against the computer--not over the internet.
Thanks,
Norm Strong
Jellyfish Lite
http://www.jellyfish-backgammon.com/
M
mike555
=== Quick Backgammon .... http://www.geocities.com/geertsbg/index2.htm
=====
=====
G
George
I have tried just about all of the freeware Backgammon games. I agree
that Jellyfish is the best. It has 8 playing levels and the program
plays an inteligent game. But if you are looking for sound effects, it
has none.
that Jellyfish is the best. It has 8 playing levels and the program
plays an inteligent game. But if you are looking for sound effects, it
has none.
J
Joe
I'm looking to play against the computer--not over the internet.
Thanks,
Norm Strong
GNU Backgammon
http://www.gnubg.org/
V
Vegard Krog Petersen
I have tried just about all of the freeware Backgammon games. I agree
that Jellyfish is the best. It has 8 playing levels and the program
plays an inteligent game. But if you are looking for sound effects, it
has none.
Could you tell more about the games you have tried? Strong and weak sides?
Here is the backgammon games currently listed on caimen:
WoodyGammon - http://www.caiman.us/scripts/fw/f1389.html
Quick Backgammon - http://www.caiman.us/scripts/fw/f636.html
JellyFish - http://www.caiman.us/scripts/fw/f914.html
regards from
--
Vegard Krog Petersen - Norway
http://vegard2.no -
Solitaire MahJongg guide, Sarah Michelle Gellar Solitaire,
Freeware Logo & symbol, Halma & Chinese Checkers,
Pachisi & Ludo, Freeware Solitaire, My fishy site (fishing
games), a.c.f.g information, Fredrikshald Havfiskeklubb
18+ sites: Firefoxy, Adult Solitaire, Fishy Pictures,
Sexy Chess, Sexy Librarians, Sexy Football
---------------------------------------------------------
P
pixturesk
GNU Backgammon is, by far, the superior free Backgammon game, much more
complex than Jellyfish, with complete analysis of every move, game,
match. Requires some initial setup configuration to optimize the
program functionality.
complex than Jellyfish, with complete analysis of every move, game,
match. Requires some initial setup configuration to optimize the
program functionality.
B
badgolferman
GNU Backgammon is, by far, the superior free Backgammon game, much
more complex than Jellyfish, with complete analysis of every move,
game, match. Requires some initial setup configuration to optimize the
program functionality.
How did you come to this analysis?
B
badgolferman
I have tried just about all of the freeware Backgammon games. I agree
that Jellyfish is the best. It has 8 playing levels and the program
plays an inteligent game. But if you are looking for sound effects,
it has none.
I am an experienced backgammon player and have been at it for 35 years.
I freely admit that at expert levels the game is probably 95% luck and
5% skill. I am not one of those who complains about how lucky you are
or how unlucky I am. I know the roll eventually goes both ways.
Just to learn something I decided to try out the Gnu Backgammon. It
has a much fancier interface than Jellyfish. It highlights available
moves of whichever piece you pick up, sort of like Yahoo! backgammon.
It seems to have a myriad of options, but how they affect the actual
game is debatable. The program claims to have a huge database of
possible moves for the computer or you can let it build its own while
learning how you play -- or something to that effect.
I played several matches against the computer and noticed it receives
its share of "perfect" rolls dispropotionally than other games or
players. You know those rolls, the only roll that will get it out of
jail, the only one that will kill you from long distance, the
successive doubles that defeat or gammon you.
By contrast, Jellyfish plays a strong game and doesn't have several
"perfect" rolls every game. It's still difficult to defeat it at Level
7, but it can be done. Even though the graphics are not as beautiful
as Gnu, it's a much more realistic opponent in my experience.
A
Aaron
Yes but the lack of analysis or hints makes it useless unless you just want
to play. For beginners like myself gnubddg provides both a hint option and
mentor option where you can set it to tell you that you are making a
doubtful, bad ,very bad move ( in increasing order of severity).
This is a god send. It even advises you of bad doubling decisions (accept
or reject). I can say for sure that by watching what types of plays the
hint gave (for example when to hit a blot, when not to! When to split), and
the way Mentor kept warning me about my typical mistakes, I got a much
better sense of how to play.
Be the end of it, while i was hardly making any brillant plays, i reduced
the number of horrible and doubtful plays by a lot.
I can't really stress this enough, I really think it improved my play just
after a few sessions of using hint and mostly mentor.
I'm a chessplayer and i can't stress how uncanny this is. It's like by
watching the hints , i pick up loose patterns on how to play better. In
comparision hints in chess programs dont seem to be as useful sure they
point out when i'm going to blunder, but it isnt really applicable except
for that position.
This statement is surprising in light of what you say later about gnubdg.
I hardly claim to be an "experienced" player, and the number of options
might look overwhelming, but if you read the website's faq and the
document, it explains most of the things there. In most cases, i agree if
you arent an old hand at such things, you probably won't change much of the
settings, but having them doesn't hurt.
There are variants, options, appearances changes, playing levels, technical
data about how lucky you were, how well you played etc. You can ignore all
that if you want, but i personally enjoyed learning all the terminology.
I'm not sure how the self play learning works which i did not use, but when
you install gnubdg it offers to download 'bearoff' tables which are about 8
meg or so. They supposedly improve play but obviously i'm not at the level
to judge.
Interesting. I may be fairly new to this field, but even I know complains
about computer backgammon programs cheating are as old as backgammon
programs. And they are ignored for equally good reasons.
My own experience was different. In fact I got far better throws then the
computer when I settled down to play a 'serious' 7 point match , I managed
to get a 6-5 lead before the computer won the last game after doubling in a
close game.
It was really surprising to me because I have very little experience with
backgammon playing other than a few sessions playing around with the
program learning from the mentor and hint features.
Still the following factors must be considered
1) GNUBDG was set by default to expert level (0 ply) , this is not the
highest level. There are 3 more higher levels and 4 below expert.
Grandmaster level 3 ply is highest level. I'm sure those levels would blow
me off the board.
2)I had a lot of help with Mentor (which itself was analyzing at the
highest level), which warned me whenever I was making a /dubious/horrible
move. I limited it to 3 times per game (not match) before i shut it off. It
was a great help, believe me, i'm pretty sure my play improved a ton just
by these prompts. In fact, i managed to get by with only a dubious ?! move
in some games. My cube play was much worse. LOL
3) I was really lucky with lots of good throws. Double sixes and all that.
The analysis of the match showed that my luck rolls were extremely high -it
was ranked "good dice man!" while bdg's luck rating was "better luck next
time". No doubt that explained a lot why the match was pretty close.
My checker control was "immediate", but my cube control was "Awkful". You
can actually get more involved then this looking into what the numbers
mean, how they are calulcated so you know exactly how they quantify luck,
skill etc.
And of course I havent gone into analysis features yet. It marks moves as
dubious ?! , bad ? , horrible ?? , much like chess annotations (if you know
it). Then there is some more involved analysis with numerical features,
which i haven't borthered to figure out yet.
All in all I'm very pleased with GNUbdg. It is feature rich, while offering
important and useful features like Hint and Mentor that any improving
player needs. I started off with jellyfish but now I'm hooked on GNUBDG
because of hint and mentor.
Experienced and serious players will definitely want it GNUBDG for features
like databases of games, ability to do rollouts, etc etc
I just tried the lowest novice level not surprisingly i killed the novice
level. Certainly it is weak enough for even the rankest newbie such that
they will have a chance to win.
I'm marshalling up courage to crank it up to the highest level and play it.
No doubt i won't even win a single point.
That said, some people might be turned off because the interface looks
complicated. But really, all you need is to use the options in the file
menu and the game menu. That's it.
to play. For beginners like myself gnubddg provides both a hint option and
mentor option where you can set it to tell you that you are making a
doubtful, bad ,very bad move ( in increasing order of severity).
This is a god send. It even advises you of bad doubling decisions (accept
or reject). I can say for sure that by watching what types of plays the
hint gave (for example when to hit a blot, when not to! When to split), and
the way Mentor kept warning me about my typical mistakes, I got a much
better sense of how to play.
Be the end of it, while i was hardly making any brillant plays, i reduced
the number of horrible and doubtful plays by a lot.
I can't really stress this enough, I really think it improved my play just
after a few sessions of using hint and mostly mentor.
I'm a chessplayer and i can't stress how uncanny this is. It's like by
watching the hints , i pick up loose patterns on how to play better. In
comparision hints in chess programs dont seem to be as useful sure they
point out when i'm going to blunder, but it isnt really applicable except
for that position.
I am an experienced backgammon player and have been at it for 35 years.
I freely admit that at expert levels the game is probably 95% luck and
5% skill. I am not one of those who complains about how lucky you are
or how unlucky I am. I know the roll eventually goes both ways.
This statement is surprising in light of what you say later about gnubdg.
Just to learn something I decided to try out the Gnu Backgammon. It
has a much fancier interface than Jellyfish. It highlights available
moves of whichever piece you pick up, sort of like Yahoo! backgammon.
It seems to have a myriad of options, but how they affect the actual
game is debatable.
I hardly claim to be an "experienced" player, and the number of options
might look overwhelming, but if you read the website's faq and the
document, it explains most of the things there. In most cases, i agree if
you arent an old hand at such things, you probably won't change much of the
settings, but having them doesn't hurt.
There are variants, options, appearances changes, playing levels, technical
data about how lucky you were, how well you played etc. You can ignore all
that if you want, but i personally enjoyed learning all the terminology.
The program claims to have a huge database of
possible moves for the computer or you can let it build its own while
learning how you play -- or something to that effect.
I'm not sure how the self play learning works which i did not use, but when
you install gnubdg it offers to download 'bearoff' tables which are about 8
meg or so. They supposedly improve play but obviously i'm not at the level
to judge.
I played several matches against the computer and noticed it receives
its share of "perfect" rolls dispropotionally than other games or
players. You know those rolls, the only roll that will get it out of
jail, the only one that will kill you from long distance, the
successive doubles that defeat or gammon you.
Interesting. I may be fairly new to this field, but even I know complains
about computer backgammon programs cheating are as old as backgammon
programs. And they are ignored for equally good reasons.
My own experience was different. In fact I got far better throws then the
computer when I settled down to play a 'serious' 7 point match , I managed
to get a 6-5 lead before the computer won the last game after doubling in a
close game.
It was really surprising to me because I have very little experience with
backgammon playing other than a few sessions playing around with the
program learning from the mentor and hint features.
Still the following factors must be considered
1) GNUBDG was set by default to expert level (0 ply) , this is not the
highest level. There are 3 more higher levels and 4 below expert.
Grandmaster level 3 ply is highest level. I'm sure those levels would blow
me off the board.
2)I had a lot of help with Mentor (which itself was analyzing at the
highest level), which warned me whenever I was making a /dubious/horrible
move. I limited it to 3 times per game (not match) before i shut it off. It
was a great help, believe me, i'm pretty sure my play improved a ton just
by these prompts. In fact, i managed to get by with only a dubious ?! move
in some games. My cube play was much worse. LOL
3) I was really lucky with lots of good throws. Double sixes and all that.
The analysis of the match showed that my luck rolls were extremely high -it
was ranked "good dice man!" while bdg's luck rating was "better luck next
time". No doubt that explained a lot why the match was pretty close.
My checker control was "immediate", but my cube control was "Awkful". You
can actually get more involved then this looking into what the numbers
mean, how they are calulcated so you know exactly how they quantify luck,
skill etc.
And of course I havent gone into analysis features yet. It marks moves as
dubious ?! , bad ? , horrible ?? , much like chess annotations (if you know
it). Then there is some more involved analysis with numerical features,
which i haven't borthered to figure out yet.
All in all I'm very pleased with GNUbdg. It is feature rich, while offering
important and useful features like Hint and Mentor that any improving
player needs. I started off with jellyfish but now I'm hooked on GNUBDG
because of hint and mentor.
Experienced and serious players will definitely want it GNUBDG for features
like databases of games, ability to do rollouts, etc etc
I just tried the lowest novice level not surprisingly i killed the novice
level. Certainly it is weak enough for even the rankest newbie such that
they will have a chance to win.
I'm marshalling up courage to crank it up to the highest level and play it.
No doubt i won't even win a single point.
That said, some people might be turned off because the interface looks
complicated. But really, all you need is to use the options in the file
menu and the game menu. That's it.
B
badgolferman
That said, some people might be turned off because the interface
looks complicated. But really, all you need is to use the options in
the file menu and the game menu. That's it.
Well, you obviously put more effort and time into analyzing the game
than I did. I didn't bother messing with all the advanced options or
playing hints as you did. I merely played several matches and tested
its main purpose and found it to be unrealistic as far as an opponent
would be. Your review will be very helpful for many I'm sure.
L
Lou
Jellyfish will not permit you to make normal backgammon moves in every case.
I ran into two instances where I was forced by the program to make unnatural
moves.
I ran into two instances where I was forced by the program to make unnatural
moves.
P
pixturesk
I am no computer expert but I have been playing Backgammon for many
years. I began using the free version of Jellyfish many years ago. I
just like the variety of functionality in GNU backgammon. Both games
come up with very convenient "perfect rolls", in a match particularly,
when I am getting close to winning the match. I have beaten both games
at the highest level because Backgammon is 80% luck, so in a particular
situation, a human can beat these games. I love it when, after beating
GNU in a match, I initiate the match analysis function, that's when the
game insults my ability in all facets of the game.
years. I began using the free version of Jellyfish many years ago. I
just like the variety of functionality in GNU backgammon. Both games
come up with very convenient "perfect rolls", in a match particularly,
when I am getting close to winning the match. I have beaten both games
at the highest level because Backgammon is 80% luck, so in a particular
situation, a human can beat these games. I love it when, after beating
GNU in a match, I initiate the match analysis function, that's when the
game insults my ability in all facets of the game.
B
badgolferman
Jellyfish will not permit you to make normal backgammon moves in
every case. I ran into two instances where I was forced by the
program to make unnatural moves.
I have never run into that problem.
L
Lou
badgolferman said:I have never run into that problem.
OK! Here's what happened.
The computer has two men on my no. 1 position. I have no men on no. 4. Two
men on no. 5. Three men on no. 6. One on no. 10. The rest on 2 & 3. I roll a
6 & 5. The program will not let me move the man on 10 to no. 5 and bear one
man off no. 6, which what I would do in a real game. I was forced to move
the man on no. 10, 6 spaces which placed him alone on no. 4 and bear one off
no. 5.
This left me with one man on no. 4 and no. 5.
Guess what the computer rolled. That's right, a 3 and 4, bumping two men
off. And I lost the game.
Lou
A
Aaron
Aaron, 1/21/2006,4:54:46 AM, wrote:
Well, you obviously put more effort and time into analyzing the game
than I did. I didn't bother messing with all the advanced options or
playing hints as you did. I merely played several matches and tested
its main purpose and found it to be unrealistic as far as an opponent
would be. Your review will be very helpful for many I'm sure.
I'm still wondering how more options, can make one program "unrealistic".
Or do you mean unrealistic because you accuse the program of cheating?
B
badgolferman
I'm still wondering how more options, can make one program
"unrealistic".
Or do you mean unrealistic because you accuse the program of cheating?
I sense you are trying to start something with me, but I'm probably
wrong. My assertion of unrealistic was not related to the options. I
was describing the frequency of perfect rolls. I don't think the
program cheats whatsoever -- it's doing exactly what it was programmed
to do. Do you play backgammon against real people with a real board
and real dice? If so you will notice the odds of getting perfect rolls
as described in my previous post are much lower than GNU Backgammon
receives.
B
badgolferman
OK! Here's what happened.
The computer has two men on my no. 1 position. I have no men on no.
4. Two men on no. 5. Three men on no. 6. One on no. 10. The rest on 2
& 3. I roll a 6 & 5. The program will not let me move the man on 10
to no. 5 and bear one man off no. 6, which what I would do in a real
game. I was forced to move the man on no. 10, 6 spaces which placed
him alone on no. 4 and bear one off no. 5.
This left me with one man on no. 4 and no. 5.
Guess what the computer rolled. That's right, a 3 and 4, bumping two
men off. And I lost the game.
Lou
You are certain that was Jellyfish that you were playing? I know there
are certain games where you must play the higher die first unless you
reverse the dice. Jellyfish does not have that limitation. You may
want to submit that as a bug if it is so.
?
=?ISO-8859-1?Q?=BBQ=AB?=
Aaron, 1/22/2006,8:38:11 AM, wrote:
[about GNU backgammon]
I sense you are trying to start something with me, but I'm
probably wrong. My assertion of unrealistic was not related to
the options. I was describing the frequency of perfect rolls. I
don't think the program cheats whatsoever -- it's doing exactly
what it was programmed to do. Do you play backgammon against real
people with a real board and real dice? If so you will notice the
odds of getting perfect rolls as described in my previous post are
much lower than GNU Backgammon receives.
That's exactly what would be considered cheating in a program.
Your sample size is too small and your methods are too subjective to
reach a conlusion.
It seems very unlikely that the programmer would make the dice-rolling
routine aware in any way of the current state of the board. The source
is available, and he'd be bombarded with flames.
L
Lou
I'm sorry, but I was playing Jellyfish.badgolferman said:You are certain that was Jellyfish that you were playing? I know there
are certain games where you must play the higher die first unless you
reverse the dice. Jellyfish does not have that limitation. You may
want to submit that as a bug if it is so.
I can also provide two other instances where I was forced to make an
unnatural move.
I have since deleted the program.
Lou
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