Two Plus Two Older Archives - Looking for a book on backgammon

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- - Looking for a book on backgammon (http://archives2.twoplustwo.com/showthread.php?t=369937)

Re: Backgammon resources

Heh. I'm not a bridge player but I have heard that Woolsey is very good. If he writes about Bridge as well as he does about backgammon I'm sure it's good stuff.

I forgot to mention the strong backgammon playing programs. Snowie is considered very strong but the pro version is about $350. Gnu Backgammon is just as strong a player and it's free. Both will kick a new players butt and, no, they don't cheat with the dice rolls.

I use Gnu Backgammon to practice against and to analyze my matches. I play for free on Fibs and then use the free Gnu Backgammon to point out my foulups. Can't beat that price for a good way to learn.

Expert settings on gnubg will be good enough for a newer player and it plays super fast on thsoe settings. I use the world class settings to get stronger play and analysis but it's a bit slow on my ancient machine. On a modern machine it would still be pretty quick.

Re: Backgammon resources

[ QUOTE ]
Heh. I'm not a bridge player but I have heard that Woolsey is very good. If he writes about Bridge as well as he does about backgammon I'm sure it's good stuff.

[/ QUOTE ]
He wrote what I consider to be the best non-humor bridge book ever (Matchpoints). He is still one of the moderators for The Bridge World's Master Solver's Club. I would have considered him a bridge player/theorist first and a backgammon player/theorist second. (Not sure how others feel about it.) I would have said the same for Jacoby and Crawford (the folks with the rules named after them).

[ QUOTE ]
I forgot to mention the strong backgammon playing programs. Snowie is considered very strong but the pro version is about $350. Gnu Backgammon is just as strong a player and it's free. Both will kick a new players butt and, no, they don't cheat with the dice rolls.

[/ QUOTE ]
Jellfish doesn't even rate a mention anymore? Also free (at least it used to be).

Re: Backgammon resources

Jellyfish is very good. It was the first that I know of of the neural net programs to go commercial after TD-gammon showed the way. Some players much stronger then I prefer it as they say it is fast. Top players tell me that all the neural net players have strengths and weaknesses in different types of positions so many of them own several different ones. I think Snowie and Gnubg have been shown to be slightly stonger then Jellyfish by a program that had them play thousands of matches against each other but the difference is small.

Jellyfish Player is still free and gives a good game. It's what I used when I learned the game 6-7 years ago. The professional version is $220 and the other versions range from free to $100. I don't know the capabilities of the versions but there is a website.

Another one I've heard good things about is BGblitz. It's java based and so runs on a variety of systems. I think the pro version is $46. The programmer seems like a good guy who gives good service although I've not owned it, just seen his posts and posts from satisfied customers.

Anyway. I'll drop out of the thread, didn't mean to hog it.

I'll just note again that I like Magriel's book 'Backgammon' and Trice's 'Backgammon Boot Camp' as my recomendations to aspiring players. (Robertie's Backgammon for Winners is ok but I quickly needed something more comprehensive. I think his 'Advanced Backgammon' series is great. His 501 book is very good also and I hear his 'Modern Backgammon' is excellent but it's for more advanced players. I intend to buy it shortly) Also, that one should get a neural net player to analyze and practice with, and if you don't want to spend money there are free versions.

Ok. Done. Gonna go play some poker.

Re: Earlier thread

you might want to look at an earlier thread;

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...6112&page=

Re: Earlier thread

That's a good thread.

I only take exception to Robertie's comments about Gnu BG. Robertie is a far superior bg player to what I am, and I think anything he writes on bg is terrific. I learned mostly from his 'advanced' books on my way from 1600 up to 1800.

But to call Gnu BG buggy and say that Snowie is far superior is just way, way, off the mark.

I've seen so many threads about bugs in Snowie that the programmers seem to take forever to fix. I have both programs. Snowie crashes a lot more on my old Windows 98 system then Gnu Bg does.

In fairness, Gnu USED to be quite buggy. But like many open source programs with solid developers behind it, that has changed. Since I upgraded about a year ago I can't recall a single crash or bug on my system. It uses GTK so you need to get that installed properly and working correctly for Gnu to work without bugs. Once I got the kinks in GTK worked out for my system then Gnu BG has been virtually flawless.

I also don't own the latest Snowie, so it may also be far less buggy then it used to be. But I didn't buy the upgrades since I heard of horror stories of speed with the newer versions.

If you can't stand unix style multiple window interfaces then you won't be as comfortable with Gnu, and Snowie would be better. If you can't stand learning things from communities on the internet, then Snowie is also better as it has decent documentation.

However, if you can think for yourself and learn new things then Gnu is worth a try. I think it is superior to Snowie, but each has their fans.

I heard that Snowie's latest version was re-implementing checker play according to match score. Not sure why it was ever removed as that ability seems important to me and Gnu has always had it.

I think Snowie appears more polished then Gnu, but in reality they are just different, not better or worse.