If you want to use a phone and there isn't a decent FIBS client, then Masters of Backgammon may work OK; it has iOS and Android clients.
The problem is finding one that has proper invites and turn based play. I think Masters of Backgammon was one where you can start a game but your opponent needs to accept and play in real time, or once you exit the request screen, it stops requesting!
Ideally, you want to invite, start a game, take your turn, then wait for Game Center to notify opponent and they can take their turn at leisure.
Backgammon Premium ($2) seems to have proper turn-based online play, using Game Center. I'm going to test it with Sail soonish.
You can sign in without an account, then enter the "Bulgaria" room (Only one available), and make a sub-room. It seems inactive enough to where you shouldn't have random people pop in, even without a password.
I was out of town for business the entire last week. I am ready to play now but... there's a deadline? Also, are we suppose to PM our opponent to setup a way to play? I wasn't able to play, but I wasn't PMed either so would me and my opponent both lose points?
You hand to email Scott to indicate you're still active, and whether you want to be matched up against someone specific. After that, he emails you with the name of your partner.
I did email him, and I have a partner assigned on the document. Am I suppose to contact that person?
Can you clarify the deadline? Is it over as soon as it stops being Tuesday in New York?
Yes. If a lot of people need more time and are actually going to submit in a day or two, we can extend it. If everyone who is going to submit has submitted, then we'll move on.
Can you clarify the deadline? Is it over as soon as it stops being Tuesday in New York?
Yes. If a lot of people need more time and are actually going to submit in a day or two, we can extend it. If everyone who is going to submit has submitted, then we'll move on.
Yes please my match with cheese is being delayed due to car dealership not getting their shit together sooner.
Can you clarify the deadline? Is it over as soon as it stops being Tuesday in New York?
Yes. If a lot of people need more time and are actually going to submit in a day or two, we can extend it. If everyone who is going to submit has submitted, then we'll move on.
Yes please. I was previously too busy PAXing to read this.
Ok, let's move the deadline to Fridays at midnight. In other words, before Saturday New York time. Then I can easily score when I wake up on Saturday.
Good. Ren and I have a tricky timezone difference and only last night figured out a method of not having to play in real time.
With a bit of luck we may be done soon, this app we are using seems good so far. I'm free all day Sail, so hope to bounce those moves back when you get going, probably your evening or night time.
Timo wins, 6-1. We actually hit Crawford Rule in the first game, and I thought for the barest moments I might be able to pull a second win out, but the dice did not favor me. I wish him the best of luck in the next round of play.
OK, playing Backgammon is like riding a bike. It is also fucking exciting! Thanks to Yuyuke for a great couple of games.
EDIT: we used the Kongregate client and I didn't manage to create a user account even though it sent the activation mail and everything. I suspect a less than stellar server backend is to blame. The problem is that without signing in you only get the default settings, i.e. fixed timeouts and no doubling cube (we took care of it manually via Skype).
I beat Coldguy 5-0 (two gammons, followed by a normal win for the Crawford game). We played on FIBS, and it worked well. If anyone wants to see it, here's a record of the match, in text form: http://pastebin.com/MbN4dhas I guess that technically it's not in my best interests to post the match history, but I figure no one - not even my arch-nemesis Dromaro - will bother looking at it.
I think it would have been quicker if I'd remembered to use the doubling cube - there were a couple of times I should probably have doubled.
It looks like Coldguy only just started playing backgammon, but I gave him a few basic pointers - only after I beat him, of course. In fact, it's probably in my best interests to do so, based on standard tie-breaking approaches for Swiss tournaments, which tend to depend on how well your opponents did.
That said, I also made some pretty bad mistakes in that game myself.
Also, although I will continue to announce my results here, Scott wants us to email him, so I have done that as well.
So, let's discuss how tie-breaking should work in this tournament. There's a good article on tie-breaking in Swiss system tournaments on Wikipedia, but further discussion is warranted for our specific case.
As I understand it, the primary scoring method in this tournament is simply the number of wins / losses - this would also be the main factor in determining who plays against whom.
However, the secondary scoring (a.k.a. tie-breaking) warrants further discussion. What Scott has said so far implies this will be based on the individual scores in the matches. While this is a reasonable source of extra information, I have a couple of major caveats.
Firstly, such scoring is too insensitive to the quality of your opponents - if you play against weaker opponents than someone else in the early rounds of the tournament, you have an opportunity to rack up a significant number of points that is not available to other players of similar skill. Consequently, I would argue that in one way or another, the results of one's opponents ought to be used in tie-breaking.
Secondly, if you wish to incorporate scores from individual matches as a tie-breaker, it might be prudent to ensure that the previously discussed strategy of doubling ad infinitum did not apply - some kind of capped score delta might be a good idea.
We used Backgammon Premium on iOS, it is $2 but seems quite good quality and MOST importantly, supports Game Center turn based play with full notifications when it is your turn.
We just bounced the turns back at each other over a couple of days.
For some reason, doubling cube is not supported for online play, and I have seen this in some other apps as well.. Unsure why.
iMessage works fine for announcing the doubling cube or offering a resignation.
Bring on round 2. And hopefully another iOS opponent
The doubling cube is odd in this. It only lets you double AFTER you move, and then, it doesn't offer the cube, it just doubles it?
But if you ignore the cube, I can confirm it seems to work pretty well in the couple of rounds that I tested. It would take vigilance to keep the game moving at a good pace though.
Yeah, you're right, it handles the doubling cube incorrectly.
Actually, I think a straight-up email game might be a reasonable solution. It's actually pretty easy to find servers that will handle dice rolling via email - see http://www.pbegames.com/roller/ - it will email both players and stores hashes to verify authenticity.
Notation for backgammon moves is pretty simple too.
Comments
Ideally, you want to invite, start a game, take your turn, then wait for Game Center to notify opponent and they can take their turn at leisure.
Backgammon Premium ($2) seems to have proper turn-based online play, using Game Center. I'm going to test it with Sail soonish.
You can sign in without an account, then enter the "Bulgaria" room (Only one available), and make a sub-room. It seems inactive enough to where you shouldn't have random people pop in, even without a password.
EDIT: we used the Kongregate client and I didn't manage to create a user account even though it sent the activation mail and everything. I suspect a less than stellar server backend is to blame. The problem is that without signing in you only get the default settings, i.e. fixed timeouts and no doubling cube (we took care of it manually via Skype).
http://pastebin.com/MbN4dhas
I guess that technically it's not in my best interests to post the match history, but I figure no one - not even my arch-nemesis Dromaro - will bother looking at it.
I think it would have been quicker if I'd remembered to use the doubling cube - there were a couple of times I should probably have doubled.
It looks like Coldguy only just started playing backgammon, but I gave him a few basic pointers - only after I beat him, of course. In fact, it's probably in my best interests to do so, based on standard tie-breaking approaches for Swiss tournaments, which tend to depend on how well your opponents did.
That said, I also made some pretty bad mistakes in that game myself.
Also, although I will continue to announce my results here, Scott wants us to email him, so I have done that as well.
As I understand it, the primary scoring method in this tournament is simply the number of wins / losses - this would also be the main factor in determining who plays against whom.
However, the secondary scoring (a.k.a. tie-breaking) warrants further discussion. What Scott has said so far implies this will be based on the individual scores in the matches. While this is a reasonable source of extra information, I have a couple of major caveats.
Firstly, such scoring is too insensitive to the quality of your opponents - if you play against weaker opponents than someone else in the early rounds of the tournament, you have an opportunity to rack up a significant number of points that is not available to other players of similar skill. Consequently, I would argue that in one way or another, the results of one's opponents ought to be used in tie-breaking.
Secondly, if you wish to incorporate scores from individual matches as a tie-breaker, it might be prudent to ensure that the previously discussed strategy of doubling ad infinitum did not apply - some kind of capped score delta might be a good idea.
Ro Sham Bo South Park style for the third tie breaker.
We used Backgammon Premium on iOS, it is $2 but seems quite good quality and MOST importantly, supports Game Center turn based play with full notifications when it is your turn.
We just bounced the turns back at each other over a couple of days.
For some reason, doubling cube is not supported for online play, and I have seen this in some other apps as well.. Unsure why.
iMessage works fine for announcing the doubling cube or offering a resignation.
Bring on round 2. And hopefully another iOS opponent
http://www.gamesbyemail.com/
But if you ignore the cube, I can confirm it seems to work pretty well in the couple of rounds that I tested. It would take vigilance to keep the game moving at a good pace though.
Still.. More options can't hurt.
Actually, I think a straight-up email game might be a reasonable solution. It's actually pretty easy to find servers that will handle dice rolling via email - see http://www.pbegames.com/roller/ - it will email both players and stores hashes to verify authenticity.
Notation for backgammon moves is pretty simple too.