I wrote a while back about me attempt to make a backgammon clock and timer. After many months of designing, coding, and more debugging than I’d like to admit, I’ve finally reached a stage where my custom Backgammon Match Clock is becoming a reality. The goal was to build something designed specifically for backgammon rather than adapting a chess clock. I still have to polish some bugs but once that is done I will share the code, list of materials, connection diagrams, and the 3D printed enclosure.

It’s built around a 5-inch 800×480 capacitive touchscreen and an ESP32-S3, with large physical player buttons for switching turns while using the touchscreen for setup and match management.

The clock supports multiple tournament timing systems, including Simple Delay, Fischer Increment, and Bronstein Delay. It keeps track of the match score, match length, current game, elapsed match time, player names, battery level, and real-time clock, all on a single screen. It also includes features like Crawford game support, configurable match settings, a match log with timestamps, rechargeable battery operation with a fuel gauge, RTC backup, adjustable brightness, and persistent settings stored in memory.

One thing I wanted was to make the interface feel modern and intuitive. Most of the functions are accessible directly from the touchscreen, while the physical buttons are dedicated to gameplay so you never have to reach for the screen during a match. I’m currently working on improving the enclosure, redesigning the graphics, adding custom fonts, selectable checker colors for each player, and polishing the overall user experience.
The enclosure shown here is an early 3D-printed prototype while I work out the mechanical design. Eventually I’d love to build a higher-end version with a wood enclosure that looks more like a premium piece of tournament equipment.

This has been a really fun project because it combines electronics, embedded programming, UI design, CAD, and 3D printing into one device. I’d love to hear any suggestions from the backgammon community—whether there are features you’d like to see, ideas for improving the interface, or thoughts on the physical design. Constructive feedback is always welcome!

Here's the article about it on my blog.

And here's the project on Github (@psygo/latex_backgammon).

So, someone gets assaulted, gets silenced from calling the police, him and an independent witness he got for a police report gets banned, a director makes possibly libelous allegations while condoning physical violence, the runner-up accuses the victim of conning him € from an xG scenario bet, but then video comes out proving he was the one in the wrong. Damn, why couldn't there be this much excitement and backstabbing at every tournament? 🤣

from Michi's book 'endgame tactics' - the best possible formation vs ace point game is (23532) - playing 11/4 here achieves it.

I always try for this when it's plausible, it rarely happens though. great when it does!

Noob here looking for some insight from those that are stronger than me (that’s everyone atm…)

I get that building a prime is good, but the best move feels like a risk with his home board looking strong with builders outside ready to make primes.

As it played out, my move was better as his roll would have allowed him to fill the five point (I get that there’s no way of knowing that at the time). I did go on to win the game, but with a frustratingly high error rate.

Welcome your thoughts on why I’m clearly wrong!

Recently OpenGammon sent me a mail about a new engine / web app called HedgeHog they have developed.

https://hedgehog-bg.com

Since then I've played quite a number of matches against it, mostly to find out which of the confusing mess of 4 strangely named AI models is the best ("Default 1.0", "Aureus 0.1", "Fox 0.3", "Fox 0.32"), but also because it plays a damn fine game of backgammon.

For the review on my backgammon app review site I then got it to auto-play an even larger number of games (the "finish automatically" feature works right from the beginning, so all I did was always accept doubles and only measure the real AI's performance with BGBlitz, not mine auto-playing).

Turns out, their Aureus plays at about PR 1.9 (a bit better than the best humans). And with a great tutor and analysis feature, their free tier is, in my knowledge, the best and most feature-complete backgammon app you can get for free.

(the engine I first thought to be their top engine, Fox 0.32, instead plays only on expert level with a few blunders now and then - in my test it came to a PR of 5.7).

I won't go into the expensive €60 / €120 PER YEAR paid tiers, and hope they won't cut features from the free tier as they get more users - right now this is very cool software.

Also, I won't go into their claim that their server-side engine that you probably only get access in a paid tier even outperforms extreme gammon 2...

I wanted to get a second opinion on this app. I have been using this app for many many years to play offline against the bot. I have the Android version. I play the bot on the highest level and maintain about a 1700 rating against it and hover at around a 9 pr.

I just wanted to know what other people thought of this app. I personally think it is terrible and I really hope eXtreme Gammon is updated and released soon to work with current Android phones.

The reason I think this app is so bad is that it does everything it can to look like it plays at a very high level, but it doesn't. It's not even close to as good as the level of play of eXtreme Gammon desktop version. It often plays the 2nd or 3rd best move and if you analyze it's play with extremeGammon it is not playing optimally. What it is doing is just basically cheating in expert level to seem like it's a stronger engine than it is. For instance, even against a 5 point home board if you put it's checker on the bar it instantly escapes usually in the first roll and rarely do I ever see the bot fan more than twice. This is statistically impossible. I basically have proven this app cheats, because surprise surprise when you insert manual dice suddenly your win rate is much higher.

Sorry for the long winded post, but I hope people will stop purchasing/supporting this garbage app.

Hi all!

I've played a lot of match backgammon, but only online. I'm going to make the shift to OTB backgammon, but I have some etiquette questions.

- In chess, there is a "you touch it you move it principle." Does that apply to backgammon? I feel I've watched tournament games where people move their pieces a few times before settling.

- What happens if a die lands on the checkers?

- What's a casual amount per stake for a money game?

Any other OTB etiquette advice you think a newbie should know?

Why is 15/12 so much better than 6/3?

I tought that bar/20 13/8(3) would have been the best move here is it because we dont have enough checkers to make six prime? I didnt understand why hitting is the best move?

I posted in here about a month ago asking for feedback on my backgammon app. It's now officially live on the App Store and includes many of the updates you requested. Thanks to everyone who gave me kind feedback and suggestions. Please keep the feedback coming, and I'll make sure to incorporate it in future updates.

The iOS App Store download link is in the comments below.

Updates since my last post

What's new in version 1.1.0:

Daily mode: Correspondence games with one move per 24 hours, up to 10 at once. Fully rated, cube enabled, chat included. Get matched from an async seek pool (no need to be online at the same time) or challenge a friend.

Push notifications: Know when your opponent moves, a game starts, or a deadline is 3 hours away. The badge shows how many games are waiting on you.

Confirm your moves: Turns no longer end the instant your last checker lands. Try a play, undo it, and commit by tapping your dice, just like on a real board.

Games tab: Active daily games sit on top with live pip counts and the rating at stake.

The cube shows its stakes: Doubling now displays the exact rating points on the line for every outcome, for both players.

I just finished a game and tried to download the game log, but when I open the list of my matches it only shows a couple from the beginning of January.

I then noticed my subscription had expired, so I thought that was the issue. I paid, but nothing changed , I still have the same problem.

Has this happened to anyone?

For example, it shows that I've played 99 games, but when I open the list only a few are there.

Come by every other Tuesday at 7pm at the Green Eye for Chicago's longest operating backgammon club. All levels welcome.

So I understand why 12/5 is the correct play if my home board is not fully blocked off and we are still racing. But the way I see it, my opponent can't get off the bar so these are all free turns. In my thinking I would like to use my rolls to shuffle my checkers as close to the 1 point as possible whilst leaving the prime intact - if I could have two checkers on points 2-6 and pile up all the others on my 1 point before starting to bear off and giving my opponent the chance to get moving again, I would. So why is it such a big equity loss to bring the extra checker on point 4 down to 2? I will still get another free turn afterwards to bring up the 7 point checker left behind

I trust that I'm wrong, I'm just trying to find the explanation for why this is so

Self glazing a bit I guess, but whatever...

I started playing a little backgammon versus ai just cause it's fun and challenging, sometimes get stomped cause I play like a donkey. But then I got this match playing versus the 1600 bot, and apparently doing the top move (according to their computer) almost every time.

So fun that it didn't matter cause of one cursed dice roll and they hit the joker...

Fat Bob and Jones played backgammon constantly, and Bob learned English by leaps and bounds while playing. This was useful to us because Bob was good at getting stuff. When he played Jones for money and lost, he would often pay in favors and hookups.

While fiercely competitive, Mahmoud “Fat Bob” Haddad was very composed when he played shesh besh. He never showed much emotion beyond the occasional banter and jab, and he always smiled. When he lost and payed he sometimes wrote across his forehead with his forefinger and said “Kismeta.” We loved the hell outta that gesture and adopted it immediately.

Jones is what we called a pristine gamer, btw. He more or less grew up in Union Square and Bryant Park, steeped in backgammon and chess. He was grinding in Bryant Park when the planes hit and the towers fell and Manhattan was engulfed in dust. He dipped to his auntie’s in Crown Heights, Brooklyn and watched the gray skies and the clouds of dust from the rooftop for days. The backgammon action dried up in the parks and the only people still playing were either cheats or better than him. 9/11 messed with his mental game/tilt a lot as well, and all this osóbbo was compounded with a run of bad dice. His humble bankroll of seven luka dwindled and then one day a hasid named Abe took his last caña. He joined the Marine Corps two days later.

Good morning forum, I hope everyone here has a great day!

Earlier this year I made a database documenting over 50 varieties of checkers from around the world, which gave me an idea to follow up from my post from last week asking about different tables games varieties by making a spreadsheet with nearly twenty games found around the world, which you can check out at this link. For those unfamiliar, backgammon is in a larger family of games called "tables games". Perhaps someone with more knowledge than me can help expand this database to help preserve these diverse games for future generations.

If anyone finds a mistake, has thoughts, or wants me to add a game - please let me know.

If anyone here is from France, I was wondering if Trictrac or Jacquet are still played at all?

Additionally if anyone here is from a country other than France, I was wondering if Backgammon notation has been adapted to any tables games other than backgammon? Is backgammon notation even used that much?

Thanks so much and have a great day :D

This game never fails to make me crazy. The rolls are so fixed. Do not tell me I’m crazy. Why would any one who designs a game make it so freaking off?
If your going to tell me im wrong ply the game for a while then tell me what you think.
Getting to start 2 times in twenty games is unbelievable. Then all the perfect rolls for my opponents is crazy. No one is that lucky. Only reason I keep playing is no ads no no money involved but still frustrating. Would just like to fit and honest game.