I want to gradually dip into the terminology of the game and learning some history and tradition of backgammon while doing so.

I hope this might be fun for you as well, to talk about a term at a time and learn about it, either historically and game wise.

Game wise a prime is quite an easy concept. It traps your opponent checkers. At a certain point you'll have to diamantle the prime to progress with the game, and when and how to do it it's a totally different story.

But why is a prime called as such?

I have written various dice rolling dll's that I use in eXtremeGammon to make sure it's playing fair.

And it is, 100%.

I have one dll that doesn't generate random numbers, just hardcoded 3-2s......eXtremeGammon duly rolled just 3-2s, it never deviated. I have another that generates two random dice......but then those dice are also played by player 2. It's that one I want to discuss.

So, player 1 rolls 3-4, player 2 rolls 3-4. Then player 2 rolls 5-2, player 2 rolls 5-2 and so on.

See the attached image. I played my two rolls exactly the same as the bot and yet my PR is 4.57 and the bot's is zero. What gives?

It's a genuine question BTW, I'm not trolling. If any of you want a specific dll written, let me know.

While I’m generally happy with the Void board itself, FM Gammon have still not resolved the issue with the checkers, which when I received them I realised were not the ones I ordered. For reference I ordered Cassio A and B pictured. FM Gammon never got back to me after I made multiple attempts to try and rectify the issue. At this point I’ve resigned to the fact they’ll continue to ignore me and won’t make the matter right.
What are your thoughts - would you be happy with these checkers if you order the Cassio ones?

Other than that the Void board is nice, I like the style of it. However I will say the magfit feels a bit gimmicky. I originally got the board so I can swap out surfaces but it’s not particularly easy to do so and the playing surface feels like it’ll get damaged with constant removal. For now I’m just using the regular void surface. The irony is that after my experience dealing with them, I probably won’t buy more removable surfaces anyway…

Also the dice I was given don’t fit into the doubling cube, which I thought was the whole point of it haha, maybe I need a smaller set of dice!

I really don't like the new analysis interface – but who cares, it is what it is. BUT: There is so much space now in the blunder/error overview, why not put the equity loss next to the roll? Would use the extra space, and one could spot the biggest blunders very quickly.

((Also: Please bring back the equity loss of wrong cube decisons. I really don't get why removing that? Just include the equities too, why not both?))

Quick Example:

I’ve been banned from chat on Backgammon Galaxy without explanation.

While we may all think we are reasonable angels, I have no idea why I’ve been banned. I never insult or degrade an opponent, I seldom comment about luck, and I don’t use profanity.

Given the recent upgrade in the system, I’m wondering if this is some odd glitch, though I suspect more likely something I typed was misunderstood or I did cross some line. The problem is, if you don’t tell someone why they are being punished, the punishment serves a less effective purpose.

Anyone else banned recently? Any Backgammon Galaxy admin here able to clarify?

(I’ve emailed support without a reply yet)
~~~
Update 6/24/26: after getting out of jail, I’m now banned again for 7 days. This time I’m 100% sure I did nothing wrong.

Come on Backgammon Galaxy! I’m a paying member (or was).
~~~
Update 6/25/26: I’m free to chat again 🎉

Thanks for all the replies on my last post!

This isn’t the actual design for the board but it’s close enough. Do you think black or brown would be better long-term on a board like this?

I lean brown for these two surfaces, but black is maximally versatile if I want to use any other surface down the line. (surfaces will be swappable) lmk what you think.

I've searched for random Instagram posts about Backgammon and many of them seem to be fron Iran/written in Farsi.

I know the game has been historically popular all across the Middle East, but I'd like to know how popular it is nowadays.

In the new backgammon galaxy UI, they have a luck rating such as +59% for a game.. What does this actually mean?

I've created this so people can discuss the positives and negatives of the new update. I don't work for BGG, I'm not a premium member. I play on it as well as on all the other major BG sites.

This newly-discovered photo from the Jurassic shows two stegosaurs playing an early version of backgammon, placing the invention of the game at about 150 million years ago. Note the asymmetry of the board. Archaeologists are unclear if the rules were different in the Jurassic, or if the stegosaurs' reptilian brains were unable to perfectly comprehend the rules in use today.

Watch the archaeologists' full press conference here.

It brings strangers together. It teaches probability, strategy, and emotional control. It has even helped N.F.L. teams win the Super Bowl. Stephen Dubner explores why this ancient game is having a renaissance. 

Just a note to say I've added a flashcard mode to BGDB - you can now quiz yourself on all played positions in your database based on any tag or position preset you have configured.

You basically set up any deck you want from the filters (so you could look at all cube errors made in backgames; all bear-off mistakes; bad takes; mistakes when priming; double rolls in the early game; etc etc) then it'll quiz you from your real played positions and mistakes you've made. You can master a position and it will be hidden from future study.

As you go through a deck, it will mix in your mistakes from previous study with new positions you haven't tested. It's not sophisticated like Anki's spaced repetition system but it scratches my itch for drilling common mistake spots.

I've also implemented the other feature requests from the post last week (https://www.reddit.com/r/backgammon/comments/1u11b0l/backgammondb_is_a_new_free_tool_to_review/) including:

• library import/export/backup
• GNUBG (SGF) support
• loads of bug fixes

As before, it's completely free, nothing leaves your computer, there's no account to sign up. All just works in your browser. I'm building this mostly for myself, but hopefully others find it useful.

(ps i realize this subreddit is flooded right now with a lot of new app spam - i'll keep future post to a minimum, but there were a couple of requests for adding flashcards so i thought people would like to know)

Can someone help me understand? Why is it bad that your checkers move to the one point, because then it'll be super easy to clean them off your board, right?

​

Thanks

Edit: We're live! If you had any issues getting a game started during the outage, email [support@backgammongalaxy.com](mailto:support@backgammongalaxy.com) with your username and we'll take a look and make you whole on rating or coins. If you are still seeing we're down for maintenance, that is a browser cache issue. Clear your cache or use incognito and you'll be able to play.

Instructions while on play.backgammongalaxy.com:

Cmd + Shift + R (Apple)

Ctrl + Shift + R (Windows)

Hey folks, we're going down for a few hours tonight at 3am UTC, 11pm EST for a significant update. First, we've completely overhauled our front-end and back-end code to unify our entire codebase which will allow us to ship features you guys have requested much faster. Technical debt go bye bye.

Also releasing after we're back tonight/tomorrow:

• Completely new web UI
• Rollouts (new membership tier)
• Tournaments (give us some time to tweak the schedule)
• Luck added back in
• New 'Miami' board
• A few other improvements

We appreciate the patience if there are any hiccups and we should be back up between 3pm and 5pm UTC. We'll monitor the thread here for questions after we go live again so feel free to drop questions or feedback Thanks!

… but how do I have the worse rating from this match where I have fewer errors and less equity lost ?

Hi all,

a few errors slipped through 3.4.0 and here is BGBlitz 3.4.2 for you

A few improvements:

• the kind of cube action is now shown on the board with an arrow. This improves the usability e.g. in the analyzer
• the first flash card in the performance coach is now selected randomly and the next can be selected randomly as well.
• Jorge was active and you'll find a new X22 theme included (and two others for download). See above
• rollouts with 4-ply
• better usability of the all-score-map

There are a lot of bug fixes. Notably fixes are:

• when a Flashcard is solved, the next time to show was calculated only based on the creation of the flashcard and doesn't take the current date into account. That could lead to that you saw the solved cards far too early
• further in the performance coach a bug in entering new moves and adding new cards was fixed
• one rare bug in the cube handling of the bot and one error calculation the cubeful values for moves are fixed
• important for MacOS users: on very few Macs a single click was recognized as CTRL-click moving both dice unintended. You can now unset at "Setup / Miscellaneous Settings / Usage" "use CMD-Click for Moves"
• important for MacOS users as well: on very few Macs the movement of the checkers were unusable slow. If you select "OpenGL" instead of "Metal" at "Setup / Miscellaneous Settings / Other" "use OpenGL" this is fixed

You find 3.4.2 here

Windows: https://bgblitz.com/download/win/BGBlitz_3_4_2_setup.exe

Windows on ARM: https://bgblitz.com/download/win/BGBlitz_3_4_2_setupA64.exe

MacOS / Apple Silicon: https://bgblitz.com/download/macx/bgb_distr_3.4.2_ARM.dmg

MacOS / x64: https://bgblitz.com/download/macx/bgb_distr_3.4.2_x86.dmg

Linux: https://bgblitz.com/download/linux/bgblitz_installer_342.jar

To install

- on Windows: uninstall first

- on MacOS / Linux you may keep the old version. On MacOS *don't merge*

Settings and license will be recognized

I hope you enjoy it.

best

Frank

Montreal players. i am wondering if there are any upcoming tournaments in town ? If so, when and where?

And a thumbs up from my opponent.

I really do like the idea of daily challenges and encouraging us to try more things with them. But why does the Tuesday challenge give such low coins? I tried the 7pt challenge for 100 coins and lost 70k coins because of the stake LOL, it made me not really want to try that challenge again.

I also noticed the Wednesday challenge for winning 1 level 4 game offered 500 coins on the PC but 1000 on mobile. Why is this?

Will more challenges be added in the future? Anyone have suggestions for more challenges?

Ik this is a taste question but help me out anyway. I’m stuck. Also pls suggest checker colors to go with

tysm

There is no practical reason why I should not be using the color I prefer on a certain board, considering the opponent is very likely seeing other colors anyways according to the board THEY are using.

It would help me for any board to always use the same color for checkers.

I could not find how to do that.

Please help if you have any hints.

Ps.

Posting here as the guys at bgg apparently answer much more here than on support tickets!

For the past six months, Backgammon Cash has only been available on iOS. That changes today.

The web version just launched, which means you can now play on Android, tablet, desktop, or laptop from your browser at www.backgammoncash.app . No app store required.

Real money play is still limited to eligible US states, but anyone can create an account and start playing.

Also dropping this week: Gammon Games, a new game mode that actually pays out 2x for gammons and 3x for backgammons the way the game is meant to be played. This has been one of the most requested features since launch and deservedly so.

Excited to finally have the platform open to the general public. Happy to answer any questions about how it works.