This forum is in permanent archive mode. Our new active community can be found here.

Grand Prix Round 2 - Backgammon - UPDATED

13468921

Comments

  • edited March 2013
    How is it easy to cheat at chess? It's a complete information game, which makes spotting an irregularity trivial.
    Post edited by Linkigi(Link-ee-jee) on
  • How is it easy to cheat at chess? It's a complete information game, which makes spotting an irregularity trivial.
    Rules cheating, pretty hard, but with a bit of sleight of hand, you can give yourself a pretty decent advantage.

  • Oh yeah, and chess/go would not be a good pick. I feel it would test more of "how long have you been playing that game" rather than "how good you are at games." Also, it is too easy to cheat at chess.

    Can't cheat in backgammon due to dice rolls.
    Cheat at chess? What?

  • How is it easy to cheat at chess? It's a complete information game, which makes spotting an irregularity trivial.
    Rules cheating, pretty hard, but with a bit of sleight of hand, you can give yourself a pretty decent advantage.

    I think he means using a good computer chess program to decide his moves for him.

    Won't work IRL, but online... You may be playing Deep Blue for all you know.

  • If you think the randomness factor prevents you from cheating at optimal backgammon play you do not know enough about randomness.
  • Can't cheat in backgammon due to dice rolls.
    I was playing single player on my phone yesterday. After we both doubled I am pretty sure the program cheated by giving itself 3 double 6's before the end and not any doubles to me. Not often I tell my phone "fuck you".
  • People cheat at backgammon all the time. There are simulators you can use to play perfectly based on die rolls. For opening and closing runs, there are charts that tell you what to do based on your die roll.
  • Can't cheat in backgammon due to dice rolls.
    To the contrary, that's the BEST method of cheating at backgammon, and certainly the most common. Dice Manipulation takes a little practice, but it's SUPER easy once you get the hang of it.
  • Can't cheat in backgammon due to dice rolls.
    To the contrary, that's the BEST method of cheating at backgammon, and certainly the most common. Dice Manipulation takes a little practice, but it's SUPER easy once you get the hang of it.
    Jiggaboo Jones!

  • I didn't even know that was a thing until you said it, so I looked it up - what the fuck did I even just see.
  • I didn't even know that was a thing until you said it, so I looked it up - what the fuck did I even just see.
  • This is why Backgammon sets come with cups to shake the dice in.
  • edited March 2013
    That's not what I saw originally, but yeah, that's a few ways of doing it. I've seen dudes who can even cheat using dice cups, just with a bit of technique. It's harder than doing it by hand or just using gaffed die, but you can do it.
    Post edited by Churba on
  • I practiced cheating with dice cups as a kid. I'm OK at doing it with five dice.
  • Don't play Yahtzee with Rym.
  • Don't play Yahtzee with Rym.
    Don't play Yahtzee.
  • edited March 2013
    What about Roll Through the Ages?
    Post edited by Rochelle on
  • What about Roll Through the Ages?
    Only slightly better.
  • Oh mans, I look forward to bringing Skyline to PAX. That's just DICE EVERYWHERE!
  • That was the first 5 dice game that came to mind.
  • edited March 2013
    I practiced cheating with dice cups as a kid. I'm OK at doing it with five dice.
    Actually, one of the guys I knew who did that used to roll his 40K dice with a dice cup, four at a time. Have a guess why.
    Post edited by Churba on
  • Candyland?
    I've never heard of a game called Candyland...
  • People cheat at backgammon all the time. There are simulators you can use to play perfectly based on die rolls.
    Nope, not perfectly.
    For opening and closing runs, there are charts that tell you what to do based on your die roll.
    There wouldn't be full charts for pure race positions given the number of possibilities, especially not human-readable ones, but there do seem to be databases covering a small fraction of pure race positions.
  • No, not mathematically perfect, but one could use one of the AIs to figure out what move to make in a given board situation.

    More to the point, at the level of play we're looking at here, following the standard charts for the very beginning and for any of the common races that occur near the end is likely to be highly effective.
  • Well, you can pretty much just memorize the openings, although the opening moves can mostly be summed up by a couple of heuristics anyway.

    I can't really see how there would be charts for the races, but again there do seem to be decent heuristics.


    In any case, as far as people using AIs or visual aids is concerned, we'll just have to rely on the honor system, although to some extent I expect we could analyze games after the fact by running the AIs on them to see if the play was too much like the bot's own.
  • With a group capable enough, not-cheating is essentially honor-pride system.
  • edited March 2013
    How is it easy to cheat at chess? It's a complete information game, which makes spotting an irregularity trivial.
    Rules cheating, pretty hard, but with a bit of sleight of hand, you can give yourself a pretty decent advantage.

    I think he means using a good computer chess program to decide his moves for him.

    Won't work IRL, but online... You may be playing Deep Blue for all you know.

    Yeah, that's what I meant. I didn't know there were backgammon simulators, so I guess you can cheat in that as well. How about we play words with friends, no way to cheat at that.
    For opening and closing runs, there are charts that tell you what to do based on your die roll.
    Is that considered cheating? Same thing for chess, people know good opening moves. Also for poker, there are general guidelines on how to play each starting hand depending on seating position, stack size, etc. Also with black jack, and the opening turn of Puerto Rico, and the list goes on.

    Post edited by iruul on
  • Is there a difference if I memorize an opening, versus following a chart?
  • edited March 2013
    What if you memorize the chart? What if you follow a list of openings?

    The only difference is that a chart has more information and is harder to memorize, neither of which is relevant to determining if something is considered cheating.
    Post edited by iruul on
  • Is there a difference if I memorize an opening, versus following a chart?
    You can't bring a chart to a table IRL, it's not part of the game.

    If you can memorize the chart, you deserve to win.

Sign In or Register to comment.