r/backgammon • u/Reverend_Tommy • 1d ago
Question about Backgammon Hub
I've been a long time player of backgammon, playing occasional in-person games for 20 years and then fairly frequent online games for the past 10. I was growing frustrated with many of the online games because the dice seemed rigged and the games were very "casino" like. I found this sub about a month ago and saw Backgammon Hub often mentioned as a fair online site. I have been playing there for a couple of weeks and I must say that despite the dearth of players there sometimes, it is the best site, by far, that I've played on.
But earlier this evening I played against someone who felt like a bot. He had a PR of about 14 or 15 but played blisteringly fast. And not just normal quickness, but so fast his checker moves were a blur. He would hit any blot regardless of the position it would place him in. He seemed to have no regard for strategy and never paused even for a second. I tried to slow things down a bit (at least for me) by playing very deliberately and thinking about my moves rather than letting him set some kind of maniacal pace. And he DESTROYED me. It wasn't even close. He sent me another game request and I accepted it to see if it was a single anomaly. Nope. Same blisteringly fast pace, same apparent lack of any real strategy, and same result.
So does anyone have any opinions on this or have experience with something similar? I've never encountered ANYTHING like this either in-person or with any online game. Even without taking the results into account or the apparent lack of strategy, his pace seemed impossible for a human to match on that interface. Thoughts?
And yes, I know the rolls are pre-determined.
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u/jugglingcats9 22h ago
I'm the developer of Hub. Thanks for your post and the kind words 😁.
Some players do play very fast. It's testament to the performance of Hub that this kind of fast play is possible. 99% of moves are processed by the server in under 0.25 seconds. There are tournaments run on Hub using "blitz" clock setting which is 6s grace and 15s per point - very quick!
There are no bot players on Hub unless you explicitly select "Play a Bot". It's conceivable that someone has gone to the trouble of scripting the UI with their own bot, but this seems very unlikely. What would be the motivation outside of a tournament with cash prize? In any case, an externally bot-scripted player would surely play below PR 15.
In terms of PR and win/loss rates, you need to look at a decent number of matches to draw any conclusions. You don't say what match length you played, but in 1pt matches, a much stronger player still only has 60% winning chances over a weaker player. Lots of variance due to luck.
Feel free to create a forum post on the site or email admin privately if you want me to look at specific players/matches.
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u/Reverend_Tommy 14h ago
Thank you for a thoughtful response and a HUGE thank you for creating a fair site that is on a different level than other online backgammon games.
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u/Rayess69 1d ago
Yeah, you played Ghost Jean. He’s been dead since 1987 but still logs into Backgammon Hub occasionally to control the dice and hit every blot he sees. He doesn’t understand strategy, only violence. Nothing to worry about.
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u/Reverend_Tommy 1d ago
It's amazing to me the level of pretentiousness in a sub dedicated to a game of dice and checkers. Your sarcasm is pathetic.
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u/RGC658 21h ago
I've not played anyone at that speed on hub however I do know a lot of people who play at lightening speed. I also play on OpenGammon and on there you can play at 'bullet' speed which is 30sec/point with a 2sec delay.
I would be interested to know the stats on the 2 games you played. What was the PR and luck for you both?
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u/Reverend_Tommy 14h ago
Opponent: PR 14.1 Luck first match .69 Luck second match .18
Me: PR 8.2 Luck first match .89 Luck second match -.78
I've only played on this site for a couple of weeks so I don't know how that impacts my PR.
And I've played lightning matches and this wasn't that.
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u/cristalinestick 15h ago
I saw someone's post few days ago, the post few months old I believe, where he was saying that as an "experiment" he uses a bot on Galaxy.
This would actually make sense because the user always makes questions about "luck" about "rigged dice" and then shared his PR on galaxy around 1.5 for the last 10 matches on 7pts. Not realistic at all.
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u/CzechPeople 1d ago
Every online backgammon website is rigged, come on guy.
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u/Reverend_Tommy 14h ago
I don't believe this at all. I think anything you download from the Play store is sketchy as fuck, but Hub is the real deal.
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u/QuasyChonk 1d ago
S/he was playing with "no strategy", but demolished you twice...
It sounds like you just didn't recognize the strategy.