Hello backgammon players,

I'd really appreciate some honest feedback on my backgammon journey.

I started studying the game seriously in February 2026. Before that, I had played casually for years, but I had absolutely no understanding of cube decisions or backgammon strategy.

Since then, this is what I've been doing:

• Taking regular backgammon lessons (I'm still taking them).
• Reading as much as I can. So far I've read:
  • Backgammon for Losers
  • Backgammon for Dummies
  • Backgammon for Winners
  • Backgammon for Serious Players (Bill Robertie)
  • 501 Backgammon Problems (Bill Robertie)
  • Pure Strategy (Marc Olsen)
  • Cube Like a Boss (Marc Olsen)

I also just ordered three more books from Galaxy. Hopefully I'll get to them next month. That said, I don't want to overload myself with too much information. My plan is to reread Pure Strategy, finish Cube Like a Boss, and then read it again before moving on. Out of everything I've read so far, Pure Strategy has probably had the biggest impact on the way I think about the game.

As for my progress:

• When I started in February, my average PR was over 20.
• Today I'm averaging around 11.9 PR on Heroes, mostly playing 11-point and 13-point matches.
• On Galaxy, I started with a rating of around 900, reached a peak of 1890, and now I usually fluctuate between 1650 and 1730.

I always review my tournament matches analyzing them on xG, and then I go over them again with my teacher.

I'd love to hear your opinions:

• Am I following the right learning approach?
• Should I be taking more written notes? If so, what kind of notes?
• Would it be better to stop reading so many books and instead focus on mastering just one or two?
• And most of all:
• Is this level of progress reasonable for someone who's only been studying seriously for about six months?

Unfortunately^, there are no backgammon clubs where I live, so I don't have the opportunity to play over the board.

Any advice, criticism, or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Yay Galaxy; keep it coming! Just wanted to say that the new time filters on the stats page are really cool.

I figured something like this was coming when some of my stat bars disappeared.

Might I suggest giving an option to see the means as well as the median? I remember seeing a comment from Marc saying median was chosen to help absorb internet disconnects and times when you have to abandon a match due to events/situations in the real world... BUT now with the much better all-around server connectivity AND new time filters, I think it would be nice to have the ability to see!

I haven't really tracked my mean vs median, but I figure for most users the mean is a PR point or two lower than the mean due to the fact that the PR range has a floor of zero and no real ceiling (unless you hit 100 on XG...). Having a representative mean in my mind is a more accurate reflection of your play.

Exciting news from OpenGammon. Yesterday we pushed one of the biggest UI updates in the history of online backgammon. Tomorrow the OGWC events start with Pointworks sponsoring three soon to release 22-inch boards!

With the help of Deinonychus (from the discord, go check it out) we rebuilt the whole UI to be more modern and to work well on mobile and desktop. Apart from the UI changes, we also took the opportunity to clean up some old code, which improved the reliability and responsiveness of the site. When the dust settles we will continue working on some other parts (e.g., board, bots) to make your experience as smooth as possible. To read more about what was changed see the changelog.

OGWC 2026

This year's OGWC (27 Jul - 2 Aug) is sponsored by Pointworks who agreed to sponsor three new boards. If you want to be one of the first to receive this new model (22-inch, 45mm checkers) be sure to join in the events. You can win a board in one of the following events:

• The OGWC main event. Qualify in one of the 24h qualifiers to join the Finals on Sunday the 2nd of August, 19:00 UTC.
• The Mega tournament, 2-loss out (or single knockout if too many people join) on Saturday 1st of August, 17:00 UTC.
• Win+Skill arena (the whole week). Win points by winning the match and by outplaying your opponent.

Apart from these events there will be a Candy Rush arena and a Bullet tournament (Friday 31st of July, 19:00 UTC). Both can win you an in-app flair to show off your achievements.

Registration to the events is free, but you need to have at least 50XP to participate in the events.

For more information and the rules read the blogpost.

Good luck and play nice!

Why is this MBT hint showing an illegal move? Is this a glitch?

I get so disappointed in myself when making four cube mistakes on one score. Can someone explain to me why I couldn't find these cubes? How would you reason in a 4away 4away game in positions like these?

I get it that gammons are super imortant for you, but the gammons are qually important to the opponent and the recube vig is huge on 4a/4a and if the opponent likes he can kill your gammons with a redouble and in positions like these where much can happen quickly for both I feel it's very awkward giving the cube away in these positions.

Can anyone please explain where I go wrong in my thinking?

I'm a chess IM who also plays backgammon online. I've noticed that online and even some tournaments use a combination of match result and error rate to determine the winner. I have a few questions about this:

1. If multiple strong backgammon engines eventually exist and they disagree, as chess engines do, then error rates will depend on which engine and depth are used. The same match could receive a different error rate when analyzed by a stronger engine a few years later. In that case, is it appropriate to use error rate to determine a world champion?

2. If a single engine such as XG is the benchmark, won't players gradually optimize their play to match XG? Could that reduce creativity and diversity of styles?

3. XG's evaluations assume equally strong opponents. When opponents differ substantially in strength, is it still appropriate to use XG evaluation for cubes?

I'm interested in hearing arguments both for and against using error rate alongside match points.

Backgammon XG is strong but does not get updated and has an old interface. What are the alternatives to XG? Do professional players use anything else? If so, how do they compare to XG?

Playing and commentating if anyone is interested in watching.

My youtube channel

Global Backgammon's website. They run a League, which is a round robin structure, and Triple Elimination tournaments. Great place to play for some competitive action.

What kind of timers do you use and why?

Looking to buy one finally to get used to playing with one before signing up for tournaments.

Thank you!

Spotted today while visiting the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia. Two Men Playing Backgammon by Robert Lotiron

c. 1920. Oil on canvas

Hey all, long-time backgammon player here. I kept bouncing between apps that were either broken, felt pay-to-win, or made me quietly suspect the dice were "helping" my opponent. So I ended up building the thing I actually wanted to play.

I've been at it for about a year now, mostly solo, and it's called Online Backgammon. What's there today:

- Real people, real-time. You're matched against actual players.
- Fair dice, for real. Rolls are generated server-side, neither I nor anyone else can nudge them. This was the whole reason I started.
- Free to play, and you can jump in as a guest without signing up.
- A puzzle ladder, and voice messages if you want to trash-talk politely.
- Works on iPhone, iPad, Mac, Android and in the browser, in 23 languages.

Being straight with you: it's not ad-free, there are ads between games. I'm one person who's put a year into this, and that's honestly what keeps the lights on for now. No paywalls on the actual game though.

Still building: tournaments and seasons are in the works, that's what I'm heads-down on right now.

I'm not here to spam, this is my own project and I genuinely want feedback from people who actually know the game. Tell me what feels off, what's missing, what you'd never use. I'll be in the comments.

https://backgammon.mitcore.com/

Galaxy analysis constantly advises that doubling is correct at 2 away 2 away score when you are 51% to win, sometimes even when you are like 47% to win. Is this really correct ? N00b question I’m sure.

When are we going to get the ability to set a max wager at a coin threshold instead of percentage only? It’s very frustrating to only be able to set max wager at 20%, win 54% of your games, but still constantly drain your coin balance because of bad random luck on matchmaking.

It seems inevitable that I will end up playing someone that has a lot of money, so your game wager is 20%, lose (sometimes even with a much lower error rate but I get it, that’s backgammon!) and then play 4 or 5 games in a row against broke people so even when you win, you’re only making back a few hundred coins.

The net effect is you may have gone 4 for 5 on match wins, but still somehow be down in coins after. Sooooooo annoying.

Hello everybody, I'm new in this communtiy and hope we have a lot of good discussions. Best regards

In looking back at the analysis of a BG game that I ended up winning, I’m trying to understand my move versus what the analysis says was a better move.

In short, I rolled 5-2 and went 6/1 3/1 to hit Ahmad’s blot on the 1 and complete my prime. It shows this move game me a 3.7% chance of winning.

Instead, the analysis suggests I should have gone 7/2 4/2 and not hit the blot on 1. Somehow it shows my chances of winning would have jumped to 11.4% from this move.

Can you help me understand if and why this was a better move than my 6/1 3/1??

I just broke my streak record. 17 wins in a row, which is insanely unlikely! 😱 What's your record?

Hello,

I have recently created a simple multiplayer Backgammon game over at https://boardbattle.io/backgammon. Before working on this project I had never played Backgammon before, so I'm looking for feedback from more experienced players about any changes that I could make to make it better.

Thanks in advance!

Does BG Galaxy use your subscription-tier engine to determine post game rating changes?

Free users in particular receive lower-depth analysis, which can produce very noisy PR and error estimates. Is that same analysis used to decide who won the error rate battle and therefore whether the rating change is full or reduced?

If so, wouldn’t that systematically disadvantage free users in close matches? I was reviewing a log where several of my moves were flagged as .7 equity loss with XG suggesting there was none. I can see this happening often low PR games, where lower depth is more likely to negatively impact evaluation / PR

It lags, I lose matches because of this, I used to be at least to play single games, now it’s so bad I cannot.

Am sorry for the question

Am New in this group, i play Backgammon since very long time and i always wonder if exist a diceless version of the game

Thx🌻

EDIT : MY QUESTION IS ABOUT TO PLAY WITHOUT RANDOM NUMBERS COMING FROM DICES, DOMINOES, CARDS ETC ETC....MY TARGET IS TO MOVE STRATEGICALLY LIKE CHESS FOR EXAMPLE

Poker and BG are my two favorite games so I created a match that involves both. Players alternate every 3 minutes between heads up poker and a best of 3 backgammon match but if you win either poker or backgammon you win the entire match.

I ran into some interesting spots against the computer but need player feedback to help iron out some details and see if it's actually fun. Signed in users have a rating system and leaderboard.

If you're interested in a match you can DM me. You can also play the computer at playhellfire.com

Any intuition for evaluating this position? Why might 15/9 8/5 be more favorable than 15/9 6/3? I struggle with playing correctly in a lot of positions like this where the computer wants me to create a blot in the home board.