September 4, 2006

  • I wish I knew why it is it doesn't seem to be possible for programmers to come up with a truly fair person v. computer backgammon game.

    Backgammon's my favorite board game and for ages I've attempted to locate an on-line game that doesn't cause me to shriek with frustration.  I don't get a whole lot of opportunity to play IRL, with a pair of honest-to-goodness dice, and there's no denying occasionally one side or the other has a real run of either good or bad luck, but it's for sure no one's luck's ever as ghastly as it is when playing a computerized opponent.

    Several years ago there was an online game that was so frightfully tilted toward the computer I could accurately forecast the computer's next roll at least 70 or 80 percent of the time.

    Now, folks...that's not normal.

    I don't object to a slight tilt in the computer's favor, but when it wins 80 to 90 percent of the time, that's not much fun.

    Out of curiosity, is this solely a problem for backgammon, or is it common for online board games?

Comments (5)

  • Anne, this is where Rich plays....it's one of his favs too...  You have to register and download but it is free:  http://zone.msn.com/en/root/freeonline.htm

  • Oh, and you play real people.

  • Aha! 

    Thanks for the info! 

  • I never understood this, either. How is it that the backgammon games FAVOR the computer? When I took programming in high school, I learned how to generate a set of random numbers (not that I remember now) so it's not like it's hard.

    If it was only a slight tilt, one could chalk that up to the human player's prejudice -- it might truly be random but just seem to favor the computer because it annoys us when the rolls go the computer's way. But it's not like that. The games I've played invariably cause the computer player to get multiple consecutive doubles when he's in his home board and peeling off pieces -- and the closer the human player is to catching him, the more likely it is to happen. There's no way that's happening randomly, but why does it happen at all, if it's not random? Why WOULD they design the games to be so extremely biased, if they want anyone to play them? It baffles me.

    Obviously as Eleanor says the player vs. player games don't have this problem, but sometimes I just want to play the computer. It'd be nice to have some decent (board) games you don't need the Net to play.

    Until someone figures this out, I'm sticking with Yahoo! MahJongg Solitaire for my rare single player board game indulgences. Now THAT'S addictive.

  • Yahoo!'s MahJongg is way too addictive, which is why I don't play it terribly often.  It's a great game. 

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