How good is jellyfish?

[Billy Baroo]

I've been playing against the Jellyfish backgammon bot at it's most advanced level, and with the help of Robertie's books on backgammon I have advanced to the point where I (just barely)have an advantage over it over a large number of games. When people usually talk about backgammon bots, they talk about Snowie or Gnubg, so I'm wondering A) how good is jellyfish; and B) will my success against jellyfish mean that I am likely to perform well against human opponents online.

Thanks in advance.

[Al Mirpuri]

Dude, if you are doing better than holding your own against Jellyfish then you are awesome. You could make money online but the biggest trick is to play against bad players. I cannot beat Jellyfish but I would do nearly as well as you against bad players because it is about how badly they play not about how well you do. You must be near international standard. Jellyfish is a world class program.

[Billy Baroo]

I probably need a much larger sample size, because I know I'm not world class. Guess I'll just have to befriend some bad players somehow if I want to make any money on backgammon.

[pzhon]

[ QUOTE ]
I've been playing against the Jellyfish backgammon bot at it's most advanced level, and with the help of Robertie's books on backgammon I have advanced to the point where I (just barely)have an advantage over it over a large number of games.

[/ QUOTE ]
You may be sincere, but I don't believe you.

By the way, the standard deviation of a money game is about 3. To figure out how well you are doing within .1 ppg with 95% confidence, you need to play about 3500 games.

There are some soft spots in backgames, where Jellyfish will make some large errors with the cube. Don't practice that. It doesn't work against human experts.

[ QUOTE ]
When people usually talk about backgammon bots, they talk about Snowie or Gnubg, so I'm wondering A) how good is jellyfish; and B) will my success against jellyfish mean that I am likely to perform well against human opponents online.

Thanks in advance.

[/ QUOTE ]
Jellyfish is not quite as good as Snowie or gnubg. However, it is still very strong. Though humans have improved since the bots came out, I think Jellyfish would be in the the top 100 players in the world.

Not quite a decade ago, two of the world's best players, Nack Ballard and Mike Senkiewicz, played Jellyfish in high stakes money sessions. At the time, the players were voted the #2 and #3 giants of backgammon. I think the stakes might have been a nominal $200/point, but there was a lot of side action, too. After 300 games each, Nack finished ahead 58 points while Senk finished down 58 points, i.e., Jellyfish broke even over 600 money games against two of the top human players.

If you are losing less than 0.15 ppg against Jellyfish level 7, you should do well playing for money, as long as your game selection isn't too bad.

[smoore]

I'm new to backgammon but seem to have a good grasp for a newbie. Some people on yahoo beat the snot out of me and some people don't have a chance. Which two books should I buy and read to learn this game? i.e. I want to spend <$40 on backgammon books to start and don't know what to buy.

[Billy Baroo]

According to the stats you gave, my sample size is way too small to be anywhere close to accurate. I'm still up over Jellyfish after a few hundred points since I last reset my stats, but I have been on a rush lately (which I think has inflated my ego as much as my score). I know I'm not a world class player.

[Al Mirpuri]

Advanced Backgammon by Bill Robertie (two-time backgammon world champion). It is two volumes. Order it from his website. Go to google. type in his name.

[pzhon]

I think you should be prepared to pay more than $40 if you want to own good backgammon books. If your budget is tight, ask your local library to buy these. Libraries love requests like that.

Bill Robertie has a couple of good books for novices, Backgammon For Serious Players and Backgammon For Winners, but these are just introductions. You can get them for $10-$15 each.

The classic text on backgammon is Backgammon by Magriel, $45. A few of the recommendations are wrong and outdated, but this is still a great book, telling you many of the ways to think about positions. If you are worried about what may be wrong, read Classic Backgammon Revisited by Jeremy Bagai, $35.

Other excellent books suitable for players moving up include the new Backgammon Bootcamp by Walter Trice, $40, both volumes of Advanced Backgammon by Bill Robertie, $40 each, and 501 Essential Backgammon Problems, also by Robertie, $20.

Better than any book would be to subscribe to www.GammOnLine.com or www.GammonVillage.com and read through the archive of articles. In fact, Backgammon Bootcamp is based on some of Walter Trice's columns for GammonVillage.

There are some other excellent books for those who are more advanced.