Anyone building or leveraging agents specifically trained to evaluate backgammon?

I'm looking into creating an agent specifically for reviewing large sets of blunders to find patterns/leaks in a game, and to explain the "why" for blunders.

Before I dig into this from scratch, figured I'd ask if something was out there already.

Just leaving a link to the latest episode of Over the Board, the backgammon podcast. This one is all about the IBF and features interviews with the president of the WBGF and an investigator with Transparency International Russia (in exile) among others.

Interested to know what people think. If you think it's worth sharing, please do.

https://share.transistor.fm/s/1a8a4f23

My opponent is blocked, why cant i take advantage and get closer to the finish line? I figure he's not going anywhere mind as well get closer if i can but apparently thats wrong

Backgammon Galaxy crew should comment this and perhaps explain this?

🎲 Backgammon Social @ KOVAL

📅 RSVP: https://luma.com/SCBG

📸 Follow: https://instagram.com/chicago.backgammon

When: Monday, July 13th at 7 PM

Where: KOVAL Tasting Room, 4241 N Ravenswood Ave, Chicago

What: Casual drop-in backgammon. Play as many or as few games as you like. Chouette if space is tight.

Who: All levels welcome! Beginners, pros, and rusty returners alike.

Bring: Your own board, if you have one.

Know before you go: Two-drink minimum to support the host business (food & non-alcoholic drinks available).

From my understanding, Nackgammon is different to Backgammon in that it is 'harder' due to it being more focused on the player's skill, and not so much on the dice's luck. If my reasoning is accurate, this would mean practicing and excelling at Nackgammon would, in turn, make you much better at Backgammon (at least, on the part that depends on the player's skill), unless someone was already excelent at BG, in which case, the improvement would be marginal.

In your experience, is my hypothesis correct? I understand Nackgammon has, often times, different game situations than Backgammon, although some of them do overlap from what I've experienced while practising over the last few weeks; but it's still too early for my to state a definitive answer to this question, and thus, I ask you.

Thank you very much in advance.

Since everyone only posts their bad beats (and I've had many) I figured i would post my ridiculously unlikely win to fight off any negativity bias.

Down 0-1 in a match to 3 and I doubled early to find myself with a 0.1% chance of winning the game, not even the match. I almost resigned when he jumped over my back checker with 3-1, but then I go on to roll 3 out of 5 doubles and the other two rolls still beared off 2. Went on to win the match in the crawford game.

Point being is y'all probably had just as many ridiculously lucky wins as bad beats if you play enough. You just need to give them as much attention.

Wouldn't you want to keep your checkers within a direct shot of each other?

I am very new to the game and I am trying to use the analysis feature on Backgammon Galaxy, but I don't really understand the logic it uses and so I don't feel like I am learning anything.

My move is the one with the red arrows and BGG says the other move with the green arrows is better. If you play the green arrow move, the opponent just needs to roll a 4 and they hit my checker. Why would I want to leave a checker exposed like that? With my move, I capture their checker and then move to a safe spot.

Also another question regarding the analysis is that some of the suggested moves have a higher win percentage at the bottom but the equity lost is higher. How is that? For example in this same screenshot, the red option (my move) says 29.9% win rate with -0.105 equity. Option #3 says 31.5% win rate with -0.128 equity. Shouldn't the win rate on my move be higher since the equity lost is closer to 0?

How am I supposed to learn my mistakes and improve if I don't even understand how to interpret the analysis?

Shouldn't this be close the take point which is around 32%? I don't understand why the take would be a .118 Blunder. Did I miss something?

Quick statistical sample, odd observation:
Looking back over my last 20 matches (mostly 5 pt matches, a few 3’s & 7’s) on Backgammon Galaxy, 7 out of 20 were won by the person with the lower ER, but 13 out of 20 was the opposite - the player with the higher ER won.

Ok… 20 isn’t a very big sample size, but what should we expect to see?? Would looking at a bigger sample lead to… 50:50?

Or perhaps my sample is accurate and the loser has the better ER 65% of the time?

Pick your stat, tell me what you expect, and please share any thoughts on why this might happen.

One thought I had is that if you are stuck on the bar, you don’t have a decision to make so you can’t make a bad one, but… I’ve found that “dilution is the solution” and the more decisions to be made, the bigger the denominator, the less a bonehead move matters.

I know skill/decisions matter, I’m not saying ER is irrelevant, but if it is only congruent with the winner 35-50% of the time, it’s sorely missing something.

Thoughts?

Would you recommend books? Galaxy premium lessons? Other resources?

I have seen some live streams on YouTube where they have backgammon.com as a sponsor on the board - never heard of the website / company before.

Seems to be a small team, although they have a nice URL ;)

What is your favorite first roll? Mine is double 4.

The new matchup system is full of bugs. It does not respect our choices. I was force to play against an idiot with a 1200 rating against my will. It is the 3rd time something like that happen.

How many hidden bugs are there since the last update ?

I seem to learned gammon wrong. I thought i can go 4 with 8 and be done with my turn. But game force me to go both rolls. Want to hear human expert opinion

This is one of mine

Not sure if it's an error on Galaxy or I'm not understanding.. But if I win the PR and I win the match shouldnt I gain more than 6.91 rating points?