GNU Backgammon

Yesterday, prompted by playing a few games while visiting my mother, I decided to install gnubg on this computer. Gnubg is a backgammon program which uses neural networking to work out the optimal move from every position in a backgammon game. It has a brutally good AI and has the ability to analyze a played match and tell you every single thing you did imperfectly over the course of the entire game. It's pretty cool! I remember playing it a few years ago on my laptop and having to wait around a bit after each match for it to analyze the game. There are a lot of moves to be me made at each step of the game, after all. On this computer? Practically instant. I'm wondering if I've got the settings set up differently than I used to or if this computer is just that much faster.

At any rate I went something like 2-8 in best of 7 matches against the computer last night. I'm pretty sure I got lucky when I won! I'm certainly making a lot of mistakes (like the wrong opening moves which I used to know) so I need a lot more practice if I'm going to be ok at the game again. Makes me wish I hadn't lost my introductory strategy book... I wonder if I can find one on the Kobo!

Desktop Tower Defence

I had a third person send me the link to this game so I finally snapped and played a few games. And by a few games I mean like 16 hours worth. I still haven't beaten the 100 level mode, only made it to 76 last try, but it's fun times.

I also tried playing on PartyGammon yesterday at the encouragement of my brother. Unfortunately I don't think I can possibly use their interface. I cannot find a way to make it display the previous moves in the match which is a huge problem for me. I guess it makes it more like 'real life', but I'm a firm believer in taking advantage of technology. I will continue my search for a gambling Backgammon site.

Quirky Backgammon Game

I was playing a match to 5 points against the computer earlier today and ran into an interesting board position. I had 11 of my checkers back in my opponent's home board, and had made my own 5 and 3 points. I was getting the program (gnubg) to tell me the optimal move, and it said the best thing to do was to play off the 5 and 3 points giving myself 4 blots in my home base with 1 enemy checker on the bar.

It didn't make a lot of sense, but I went with it, and eventually figured out what the plan was. (I ended up winning the game despite being down 230 pips at one point.) 2 points, even in my home board, are useless on their own. Even when I managed to get 3 of his checkers hit and had the rest of his guys stacked on his 4 and 5 points, there was no way I was going to get enough of my checkers forward to build a wall with those points. I had to take a long term approach to the game, and start by building a wall far back where I could easily get new guys. I had to still leave enough guys in his base to keep him stuck on 2 or 3 points (enabling easy reentry when I got hit) so I needed as many guys back as possible. Through rolling of doubles he did eventually save 2 of his 3 lost guys but I managed to build a wall back far enough to contain the last one. Then it was a simple matter of slowly moving the wall forward while he was stuck unable to move any guys.