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I had a backgammon set as a child but never had any real idea of how to play well. Recently I have been watching Gammon Night Live, a spin-off of my favourite poker show Poker Night Live. This features backgammon played at the online site www.Worldgammon.com. On Sunday evenings (UK time) they have a couple of freeroll tournaments and some of the games are shown on TV where their resident experts disect the play. I've not been on GNL yet (although I once appeared briefly on PNL) but scored £9 the other Sunday despite only being a novice player. If you just want a quick gambling fix backgammon is a good choice as games are over quite quickly. You can play against other players or computer bots of varying abilites and they have free games as well as cash games and knockout tournaments. If you are learning the game (and playing for free) I recommend always playing against probot (PROfessional roBOT). It is very strong and will thrash you alot of the time. But it is the best way to develop your talents and understand the strategy involved in the game as it always plays mathematically correctly. The beginner bot is pretty hopeless, not really much of a challenge and you may pick up some bad habits from it. If you want to start playing for cash the weaker bots will play for small stakes but will decline matches from you once you have won too much! Many US players have just started playing backgammon online, as it is not affected by the recent online gaming legislation so you should be able to find plenty of novices to play against. |
This picture shows the lobby of at Worldgammon.com. First select a game and wait for your opponent to agree to play (computer bots will agree immediately). A green button will appear in the bottom left hand corner of the window. Press this and your game will load in a separate window. Then press the start button on the right hand side of the screen and you can begin. Be warned, this site has savage penalties for not acting in time. I have been knocked out of a couple of games when my computer lagged. You can use the "Click dice to end my go" option to prevent the computer from ending your turn as soon as the second checker has moved. |
I also enjoy the gin rummy games at Worldgammon.com's sister site RedHotRummy.com |