PC games
FERRANTE
Get Jellyfish.
Mark Ferrante
On Sun, 05 Jul 1998 15:19:06 GMT, va...@netcomuk.co.uk (Blakpawn)
wrote:
>Does anyone know of a really good backgammon game for my PC (windows
>95/pentium p2)?
>I have one, but I'm just too good for it!
>Elaine :-)
Home of THE SHEIK
Jason Berg
I work for Wyvern Studios, a game company in Utah. They are working on a
really cool backgammon game that will be playable over LANs, the
Internet, and modems. They are working on the AI phase now and would
love some expert help with roll-outs and the theory behind them. If
anyone would like to be a technical consultant or beta tester for this
game they should write to Russ Blau at bl...@wyvern.com. He is the
Quality Assurance lead there. We want to make a game that will have
great graphics and still appeal to the backgammon truists out there.
Thanks,
Jason
Murat Kalinyaprak
In article <35a0dbc3...@news.primenet.com> FERRANTE wrote:
>va...@netcomuk.co.uk (Blakpawn) wrote:
>>Does anyone know of a really good backgammon
>>game for my PC (windows 95/pentium p2)?
>>I have one, but I'm just too good for it!
>>Elaine :-)
>Get Jellyfish.
>
>Mark Ferrante
I would say don't. Especially to someone who
mentions she is already too good for another
game. If the downloadable trial version is a
measure of things, anyone good at backgammon
would probably get tired of Jellyfish pretty
fast. After a few matches, its cheating gets
so obvious that you may get a few smiles out
of it and even have a little more fun trying
to predict (quite successfully) what it will
roll next but that's about the extent of it.
After that, it ends up in the "recycle bin".
It might entertain beginners or intermediate
players long enough that it might be worth a
try though (at least as a learning tool)...
MK
Michael J. Zehr
> I would say don't [buy jellyfish]. Especially to someone who
> mentions she is already too good for another
> game. If the downloadable trial version is a
> measure of things, anyone good at backgammon
> would probably get tired of Jellyfish pretty
> fast. After a few matches, its cheating gets
> so obvious that you may get a few smiles out
> of it and even have a little more fun trying
> to predict (quite successfully) what it will
> roll next but that's about the extent of it.
> After that, it ends up in the "recycle bin".
> It might entertain beginners or intermediate
> players long enough that it might be worth a
> try though (at least as a learning tool)...
It's possible to predict Jellyfish rolls 100% of the time, not just
predict them "quite successfully." The mechanism to do this is the same
as the way to show that Jellyfish doesn't cheat, so it's not surprising
that anyone who can't predict the rolls 100% of the time might also
think Jellyfish cheats.
Here's how to accurately predict rolls (and also show that it doesn't
cheat) (and please, DON'T take my word for it -- try this yourself.
This works for jellyfish 3.0. You can test it on 2.0 to see if it works
for that too.):
Set up a position where Jellyfish has two checkers on your ace point and
six and seven checkers on its own 1 and 2 points. Give yourself a
5-point board with blots on your 7, 13, 16, 17 and 18. Go to "settings,
seed" and enter 15273 as the seed and 117 as the counter. Put Jellyfish
on roll holding a 2-cube. Start playing. It will roll a miracle 66,
hitting twice, and then you will roll a disaster 12, dancing on its
2-point board. It will then double you out -- obviously a cheat.
Now set up another position. Give Jellyfish a closed board and three
checkers on the bar. Put 6 checkers on your own 6pt and 5 checkers on
your own bar point. Put blots on your 1, 3, 4, and 5. Give yourself a
2-cube and have Jellyfish on roll. Go to "settings, seed" again and
enter numbers as above. Start playing. Jellyfish will roll a disaster
66, then you will roll a 12, which you can play 5-4 3-1. After the next
roll you can double Jellyfish out.
The sequence 66, 12 will happen 100% of the time when the seed and
counter start at 15273 and 117 respectively. This will happen whether
it's a miracle sequence for jellyfish or a miracle sequence for you.
-Michael J. Zehr
Dean Kezan
> Now set up another position. Give Jellyfish a closed board and three
> checkers on the bar. Put 6 checkers on your own 6pt and 5 checkers on
> your own bar point. Put blots on your 1, 3, 4, and 5. Give yourself a
> 2-cube and have Jellyfish on roll. Go to "settings, seed" again and
> enter numbers as above. Start playing. Jellyfish will roll a disaster
> 66, then you will roll a 12, which you can play 5-4 3-1. After the next
> roll you can double Jellyfish out.
>
> The sequence 66, 12 will happen 100% of the time when the seed and
> counter start at 15273 and 117 respectively. This will happen whether
> it's a miracle sequence for jellyfish or a miracle sequence for you.
>
> -Michael J. Zehr
That because Jelly Fish use fixed dices.
You can try to write any seed and any counter and you will find out that
not
only few dices are repeating but all.
Well this is only bad made dice generator,if you could proof that Jelly
Fish
use this forward dices,that would be really something.Until than try to
find
external dice generator or roll it by hand's.
P.S. If you are really interested for JF dices try in some really though
sitution (exp. JF need only 4-X to come in from bar and it get it
4-5)try to use second button from master dice,to repeat the rolls.
Some times it can be really unbelievable ( 4-4 , 4-5, 4-6 etc.)
Best regards -Dean Kezan
Rodrigo Andrade
No. The random number generator used isn't fixed. You seem to get many
repeated rolls because there are only 36 possible combinations from rolling
a pair of 6-faced dice. It's very likely that you'll see, say, the roll 64
more than once in a single game.
I'll do an experiment, run Jellyfish and check w/ me what you get. Open JF,
pull down the File Menu and click on New. Then Double click on Single game
in the window that pops up. Now pull down the Settings menu and choose
Seed... Set the values equal to the values I give below.
Seed: 26316
Counter: 0 --> note: the counter is incremented by 1 every time one of
the players roll the dice.
ME JF
61
61 64
63 62
43 21
See how you get the same values??? Now go back the File/New... and double
click on Single Game again (you can even close JF and re-run it). Now enter
the following values:
Seed: 58951
Counter: 0
ME JF
64
41 66
63 42
61 51
Again, you've got the same rolls. Try it one more time. This time the
counter is not zero:
Seed: 888
Counter: 45
ME JF
21
44 62
32 52
65 55
Still rolling the same numbers?? Sure you are. Also notice a couple of
things: on all 3 examples JF won the opening roll, and it'll keep winning it
for as long as you input these same values. Also, given that JF is always
playing on the same level (I mean, you didn't play with the Level menu...),
and you're always making the same moves, JF will always make the same moves
too.
That's what it's called a pseudo random number generator. It's not 100%
random (it's actually close to that), but it's the best we can get from
computers.
RODRIGO
Gary Wong
> JF's seed and counter scheme is in no way a proof of
> its not cheating. In fact, its knowing ahead of time
> all rolls to come is the problem itself. If one knew
> his opponent's every next roll, even average players
> could cream world champs. The question is whether JF
> makes use of this "pre-knowledge". Without access to
> its programmed code, one may not be able to prove it
> technically but may be able to offer arguments which
> could be proof to some extent practically.
If you are interested in this matter, I suggest you read question 10 of
Daniel Murphy's Mini-FAQ at http://www.cityraccoon.com/minifaq.html and
check up the references it contains. It would be quite simple to prove
that Jellyfish does cheat in the manner you suggest for a particular
position; all you would need to do is post an article like the
following:
"In the following board position [include a diagram here -- include cube
position, and score if a match game], Jellyfish [specify version and
level] makes [some particular move] when the seed and counter are
[whatever], but [a different move] when the seed and counter are
[something else]."
Given that nobody has found and published such an occurrence as long as
Jellyfish has been available, can you forgive my suspicions that perhaps
it _doesn't_ cheat like this -- maybe the reason that it frequently wins
is simply that it's just a better player?
If you are correct, and Jellyfish genuinely is a weak player with manual
dice, then I recommend you attend a tournament and announce that you
are willing to play against Jellyfish with manual dice for $10 a point
(or whatever). I'm sure there will be plenty of bystanders willing to
back Jellyfish at those stakes. If you are right, you could come away
very rich. Whether you are right or not, somebody would come away
very much wiser.
Cheers,
Gary.
--
Gary Wong, Department of Computer Science, University of Arizona
ga...@cs.arizona.edu http://www.cs.arizona.edu/~gary/
Murat Kalinyaprak
> Murat Kalinyaprak wrote:
>> ..... After a few matches, its cheating gets
>> so obvious that you may get a few smiles out
>> of it and even have a little more fun trying
>> to predict (quite successfully) what it will
>> roll next but that's about the extent of it.
>It's possible to predict Jellyfish rolls 100% of the time, not
>just predict them "quite successfully." The mechanism to do
>this is the same as the way to show that Jellyfish doesn't
>cheat, so it's not surprising that anyone who can't predict
>the rolls 100% of the time might also think Jellyfish cheats.
It looks like we understand "predicting" differently
and what I meant may become more clear to you and to
other readers a little further down.
I started reading this newsgroup recently and I have
already read some past articles, including a few old
ones about Jellyfish's cheating, etc. At this point,
I feel that people defending JF on this subject must
be either taking a cut from its revenues, or must be
a little naive.
JF's seed and counter scheme is in no way a proof of
its not cheating. In fact, its knowing ahead of time
all rolls to come is the problem itself. If one knew
his opponent's every next roll, even average players
could cream world champs. The question is whether JF
makes use of this "pre-knowledge". Without access to
its programmed code, one may not be able to prove it
technically but may be able to offer arguments which
could be proof to some extent practically.
I have read articles where some writers were arguing
that JF's seeming luck is due to its positioning its
pieces in such a way to make better usage out of the
next roll (no matter what it rolls). Of course, this
is a naive argument in that it assumes the other guy
is picking berries in the hills, while JF is placing
its pieces in optimum spots as it wishes. It totally
ignores the fact that, the other player is trying to
do the very same thing also.
The difference in playing against JF letting it roll
the dice vs. rolling one's own dice is as obvious as
day and night. Some days ago I had posted an article
on this subject (which didn't seem to appear on this
newsgroup), relating the results of the very first 3
matches I played against JF (level 7-100) rolling my
own dice. I'll repost it here:
ME JF
-- --
25 6 (from 13-6)
40 6 (from 8-6)
20 0 (from 4-0)
Had I all of a sudden become a much better player or
was it pure luck 3 times in a row...? The day before
I won 2 matches against JF only hours apart, both of
which ended as 32-0 single game matches. Can anybody
in this newsgroup tell me when was it the last time
they beat JF like this when JF was rolling the dice?
I doubt anybody could. I don't think it would happen
while JF is rolling the dice. Today I beat JF 72-4,
from 8-4. The last one was a 32 point game and I did
gammon. Notice that JF lost by a gammon after having
doubled me all the way to 32! It was so obvious that
I couldn't help doubling back each time. How could a
smart player like JF not know that it was being very
badly gammoned but kept doubling instead? Perhaps it
is not refined enough to know the difference between
who is rolling the dice and keeps positioning itself
and waiting in vain for that "next" roll...?
Obviously once the cube got passed the 15-4 mark, it
didn't matter how high it went and JF kept doubling.
Is this the computer program that's supposed to be a
good tutor? It may be good gambling teacher, but I'm
not sure if it could teach graceful backgammon... Or
is it that backgammon is seen as no more than a tool
for gambling anymore?
>...[shortened]... The sequence 66, 12 will happen 100% of
>the time when the seed and counter start at 15273 and 117
>respectively. This will happen whether it's a miracle
>sequence for jellyfish or a miracle sequence for you.
The simple question is whether such sequences occur
more often than the odds. I don't care about seeds,
counters, etc. Since I can't possibly know/memorize
all those millions of seed/counter combinations, my
chances of guessing whether the next roll will have
a certain number per dice is 1 in 6. If I'm able to
guess better than that, either I must be psychic or
I must be observing something tangible, which helps
me accomplish this.
Here is a simple and practical challence that may be
put to people who think or argue JF does not cheat:
(I'm not much of a gambler and "I" will be used here
only figuratively to mean anyone who shares my view)
both put their money on the table, and I will start
playing against JF while the other watches. Whenever
I feel like it (before any roll) I'll say "Look Joe,
JF will now roll a 5 (or a 4-3, or not a 2, etc.)".
With my odds of being right 1 out of 6/being wrong 5
out of 6 (per dice), I will bet 1 dollar against the
other's 5 dollar (per dice). Enough games/rolls will
be played to let it even out (as it's supposed to do
so at least in theory). If JF indeed does not cheat,
neither one will get hurt (i.e. loose or win money).
But if I see JF playing in certain ways to give me a
hint that it might be relying on the next roll, then
whoever is betting against me may be in trouble. And
I get the impression that many other people have the
same observation as I do and perhaps they could also
do just as good at guessing JF's next roll.
Furthermore, I read all kinds of baloney about neural
and fuzzy logic stuff, as explanations for why JF not
always makes the "best" moves. Perhaps a much simpler
explanation may be that a "not so perfect" move suits
the "next roll" better...?
Let's keep in mind that JF can play at various levels
and that means it knows how to not make the best move
all the time (i.e. negative cheating to play at lower
levels) and let its opponent to win "proportionately"
also. Now, imagine JF can play at level 8, and at the
highest level of 7 that is currently selectable, it's
just "allowing" you to win enough to make you believe
that it's one notch above you and to keep you going.
Of course, this in itself may be argued to be a great
accomplishment on the part of JF. But, like I said at
the beginning of this article, JF itself may not have
a prayer against even a beginner, if that player knew
every next roll while JF didn't...
MK
Murat Kalinyaprak
>P.S. If you are really interested for JF dices try in some
>really though sitution (exp. JF need only 4-X to come in
>from bar and it get it 4-5)try to use second button from
>master dice,to repeat the rolls. Some times it can be
>really unbelievable ( 4-4 , 4-5, 4-6 etc.)
Just in case it was misunderstood, I wasn't proposing
that JF gets itself out of "tough positions", etc. by
rolling what it needs. JF's seed/counter scheme takes
care of any such claims already. What I was proposing
was that, it "leads" the game (and also the opponent)
to that position.
I have a feeling that JF also relies on its opponents
to make the moves expected from them, at the selected
difficulty level. When JF is rolling the dice, it may
perhaps be thrown off by a purposefully made bad move
temporarily but the effect may not last long since it
may/will make its following move based on to the next
roll to come again.
Speculating and experimenting with such things is fun
and perhaps the developers of JF may be having a ball
reading what's written on this subject in this group.
What seems to be sufficiently clear to a lot of us is
that, JF plays much better when it rolls the dice and
not all that good when the dice is rolled manually...
MK
John Goodwin
Kalinyaprak) wrote:
>Just in case it was misunderstood, I wasn't proposing
>that JF gets itself out of "tough positions", etc. by
>rolling what it needs. JF's seed/counter scheme takes
>care of any such claims already. What I was proposing
>was that, it "leads" the game (and also the opponent)
>to that position.
>
>I have a feeling that JF also relies on its opponents
>to make the moves expected from them, at the selected
>difficulty level. When JF is rolling the dice, it may
>perhaps be thrown off by a purposefully made bad move
>temporarily but the effect may not last long since it
>may/will make its following move based on to the next
>roll to come again.
>
>Speculating and experimenting with such things is fun
>and perhaps the developers of JF may be having a ball
>reading what's written on this subject in this group.
>
>What seems to be sufficiently clear to a lot of us is
>that, JF plays much better when it rolls the dice and
>not all that good when the dice is rolled manually...
This seems to be a good time to re-post the instructions for proving
that JF does not cheat, either by fixing the throws, or using
foreknowledge of the dice.
Repost
------------------------------------------------------------
It is fairly common for someone to post a question here
(rec.games.backgammon), querying the apparent good luck Jellyfish (JF)
has with its dice.
I have prepared this step by step guide for anyone who is not
convinced by the simple reassurances of those who have used and trust
it.
Section A
This is for those of a seriously pedantic disposition
You cannot *prove* that JF *never* manipulates the dice (at least
not in any feasible time span).
You cannot prove absolutely, that JF did not manipulate the dice
for a certain game, because there is an absurdly small possibility
that it is designed to win some specific games.
Neither of these caveats should concern anyone who does not work for
the security services of a disturbingly paranoid government
Section B
To satisfy yourself that JF has not manipulated the dice in any
particular game.
At the end of the game you wish to examine, note down the seed and
counter. They are to be found in the status bar, at the bottom right
of the JF window.
Print out the moves of the game. These can be found in the file
GAME.GAM, in the directory from which JF is run.
Count the total number of moves for each player, and subtract this
from the count that you have noted.
XX:
Start a new game, and, at some point, go to Settings|Seed, and set
the seed and counter to the values they were at the start of the
match you are checking.
Continue to play. You will note that the dice that are generated are
exactly the same as those from the match that you have printed.
You may repeat the steps from XX as many times as you like, and you
will see that no matter what the state of the board, JF always
generates the same sequence from the given seed and counter.
Section C
To satisfy yourself that JF is not using foreknowledge of the dice it
is about to generate.
Play a game, and produce a listing of GAME.GAM.
Check Settings|Manual Dice, so that you can feed in the dice
throws yourself.
Now, JF will have no way of knowing what dice are about to be
thrown.
Play the game, feeding in the dice values from the game you have
listed.
You will see that it proceeds in exactly the same way as it did when
JF was generating the dice.
This demonstrates that JF will play the same board, the same way,
even when it is not generating the dice, and thus can have no idea
what throws will be made.
Section D
It has been pointed out that JF could (in theory) be cheating, and
keeping a record of its activities so that if you try to catch it out
if would behave as if it was innocent of any wrong doing.
If you are *that* paranoid, then you might care to run the tests on a
different machine to that on which the initial games were played.
Make sure that you disconnect both machines from any kind of network
first (before running the initial game).
That might convince you, but some good quality psychiatric treatment
would probably be more beneficial.
---------
Do not take the contents of section D to imply any suggestion that you
are being unreasonable in questioning JF in the first instance.
If you have never played intermediate to strong players before, and
are unaware of the solid reputation that JF has amongst the many good
players who use it regularly (and the not so good ones such as
myself), you would need to be somewhat gullible not to seek some
reassurance.
JG
my_...@hotmail.com
of the revenues from jellyfish.
In article <6ojm06$nbr$1...@news.chatlink.com>,
mu...@cyberport.net (Murat Kalinyaprak) wrote:
> JF's seed and counter scheme is in no way a proof of
> its not cheating.
It is impossible to prove that Jellyfish does NOT cheat.
It is possible to prove that Jellyfish DOES cheat, however
no one has ever done so, though many have tried, hence the
widely held view that Jellyfish doesn't cheat.
Two things you should know, for your interest, not that
these facts "prove" anything. One, Jellyfish (ver. 3) playing
under a completely different random number generator on FIBS
(first internet backgammon server), attained a higher
average rating than any human player. And there are lots
of strong players on the server.
Two, (to my knowledge) no reputible or highly ranked player has
ever accused Jellyfish of cheating. Many reputible/ highly
ranked players use jellyfish as an analysis tool.
But yes, there are a lot of doubters out there.
> ME JF
> -- --
> 25 6 (from 13-6)
> 40 6 (from 8-6)
> 20 0 (from 4-0)
>
It would be more useful if you mentioned the length of
the match.
>
> I doubt anybody could. I don't think it would happen
> while JF is rolling the dice. Today I beat JF 72-4,
> from 8-4. The last one was a 32 point game and I did
> gammon. Notice that JF lost by a gammon after having
> doubled me all the way to 32!
That's interesting. I imagine it's possible (though very
unlikely) that your jellyfish is buggy. You didn't mention,
did you buy the game or download the free trial version?
At any rate, we can figure out the problem if you record
your matches (jellyfish can save the match to a text file)
and post them to this newsgroup. That way: other jellyfish
users can enter the same rolls to see if their copy of the
program makes the same moves, and we can see these positions
in which jellyfish is apparently erroneously running up
the cube. These kinds of posts are appreciated in this newsgroup
because they can be very enlightening and help to de-mystify
your arguments.
Also, if it is your belief that jellyfish cheats, you must
also think that it is making incorrect moves. Can you post
examples of what you consider a Jellyfish error? (and include
the match length and score at the time)
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Patti Beadles
Murat Kalinyaprak <mu...@cyberport.net> wrote:
>I have read articles where some writers were arguing
>that JF's seeming luck is due to its positioning its
>pieces in such a way to make better usage out of the
>next roll (no matter what it rolls). Of course, this
>is a naive argument in that it assumes the other guy
>is picking berries in the hills, while JF is placing
>its pieces in optimum spots as it wishes. It totally
>ignores the fact that, the other player is trying to
>do the very same thing also.
And the fact is, Jellyfish is *much* better at it than
anybody who's been complaining here.
Jellyfish is better than (pulling a number out of the air) 99%
of the backgammon players in the world. And I've not yet seen
a single world-class player complain that JF cheats. In fact,
every strong player I've heard speak about the subject has
defended the program's honesty.
-Patti
--
Patti Beadles |
pat...@netcom.com/pat...@gammon.com |
http://www.gammon.com/ | If it wasn't for the last minute
or just yell, "Hey, Patti!" | I'd never get anything done!
Vince Mounts
and got lucky 3 times. Would be curious to see long-term results with this
method.
And as another poster wrote. If you are that good at beating J/F then you
should find someone to back it for money. I would be more that happy to back
J/F at $10/point. Perhaps playing through FIBS and me entering the rolls to
J/F at level 7-100. Let me know if you are interested.
-----
Vince Mounts (a.k.a einniv)
E-Mail: vmo...@mindspring.com
Home Page URL: http://vmounts.home.mindspring.com
Murat Kalinyaprak wrote in message <6ojm06$nbr$1...@news.chatlink.com>...
Robert-Jan Veldhuizen
JE> On Thu, 16 Jul 1998 02:13:11 GMT, mu...@cyberport.net (Murat
JE> Kalinyaprak) wrote:
>>Just in case it was misunderstood, I wasn't proposing
>>that JF gets itself out of "tough positions", etc. by
>>rolling what it needs. JF's seed/counter scheme takes
>>care of any such claims already. What I was proposing
>>was that, it "leads" the game (and also the opponent)
>>to that position.
JE> <----------------- perfectly blocked ---------------->
JE> Murat does it again! It must be deliberate, surely?
Quite an achievement, I'd say.
It's not so easy to do, as I'm
finding out myself at this ver
y moment! Maybe his articles a
re computer-generated? Or mayb
e it is a subtle indication of
the troll-value of his posts??
(:--------------------------:)
--
Zorba/Robert-Jan
Rew Francis
jeib...@revolver.nomed.co.uk (James Eibisch) wrote:
>On Thu, 16 Jul 1998 01:51:41 GMT, mu...@cyberport.net (Murat
>Kalinyaprak) wrote:
>
>>I started reading this newsgroup recently and I have
>>already read some past articles, including a few old
>>ones about Jellyfish's cheating, etc. At this point,
>>I feel that people defending JF on this subject must
>>be either taking a cut from its revenues, or must be
>>a little naive.
>
>[snip]
>
>I'll leave it to others to argue the case for fairness in JF's dice.
>My interest is more typographical.
>
>In Murat's post there are 90 mid-paragraph, non-terminating lines
>(e.g. five in the above paragraph). Only four of them don't left- and
>right-align perfectly within the paragraph, and those four are off by
>only a single character. Nearly the whole post is perfectly blocked
>(using any fixed-width typeface), without the use of extra padding
>with spaces (remember character-based wp programs and their ugly text
>justification?).
>
>Is this by design, or by rather freaky coincidence? Perhaps there's
>something magical about a 52-character column width, but when I set
>some text of my own to 52 columns it was highly ragged, as is this
>reply I'm writing here. I'm intrigued, if not also rather sad for
>noticing this!
>
>Now what else can I do to put off starting this work I've got to
>finish before tomorrow? :-)
>
>Apologies for the off-topicality.
>
>--
>James _ To mail me, spell "nomed" in my address backwards
>Eibisch, ('v')
>'Ivan' (,_,) N : E : T : A : D : E : L : I : C : A
>on FIBS. ======= http://www.revolver.demon.co.uk
James, I think you could be on to something here.
The chances of something like this occurring in a
post of reasonable length which has been composed
without any thought being given to the phenomenon
you mention have to be truly astronomical, around
7.88860905221*10^69 to 1 according to my estimate
which I reached with a bit of back-of-an-envelope
scribbling. Assuming that there's an average word
length of five letters in the article (this comes
from the the usual way of calculating your typing
speed in words per minute given that your rate of
keystrokes is known - a reasonable assumption for
getting a ball-park figure) then one would expect
a line to end exactly on a given character length
about one-fifth of the time. Now, Murat's article
is about a hundred lines long. Given that the top
line is 52 (or whatever) characters in length, it
seems to me that the chances of a particular line
elsewhere sharing this identical length are going
to be about 1/5. And the chances of all the other
one hundred lines having that same length will be
1/5 to the power 100, i.e. the number I mentioned
above. Still, strange things happen. For instance
I saw recently reported in the English press that
a woman in West London had sliced a tomato in two
only to discover that it had an important passage
from the Koran visible in the pattern of the pips.
Rew
Rodrigo Andrade
>a single world-class player complain that JF cheats. In fact,
>every strong player I've heard speak about the subject has
>defended the program's honesty.
We never will. These guys have a lot of credibility and they could take a
company out of business if they started saying that a program cheats. What
would happen to Nike if Michael Jordan said their shoes are uncomfortable,
and just plain suck???
RODRIGO
bj...@lehigh.edu
Rodrigo, please give it up.
Several things I've noticed -- 1.) You cannot possibly advocate buying Snowie
or Jellyfish because it costs too much. Yet, you wholly endorse GG. Not
playing GG for 4 years is an equitable exchange for one of these programs.
2.) Someone posted a "lessons from the board" problem, stating something to
the effect that this newsgroup should try to return to its backgammon roots.
You posted another message in response, agreeing, stating "That's what this
newsgroup is all about...", yet you continue to post repetitive, useless
drivel.
3.) You refute the experts' endorsement of the neural nets. Your rating on
FIBS is in the mid-1300's. I know nothing about your rating on GG, so this
isn't the strongest argument.
4.) You frequently skip over any challenges of your arguments, and continue to
post, as if they've never existed.
5.) You respond without reposting the original message, obfuscating the
r.g.b. audience.
You have every right to post. However, your continual, fragmented, redundant
cries against FIBS, neural nets, and the pricing of backgammon products had
lost its novelty a long time back. Either say something that benefits the
group, or let others have a try at it.
Go to www.dejanews.com, and run a search on Kit Woolsey and r.g.b.. Read some
of his posts. Try running your own name and r.g.b., and compare the two.
Brad Mampe
bj...@lehigh.edu
Rodrigo Andrade
>or Jellyfish because it costs too much. Yet, you wholly endorse GG. Not
>playing GG for 4 years is an equitable exchange for one of these programs.
Just because I complain about the pricing, doesn't mean that I cannot buy
it. I'll not buy anything I think is overpriced just because I've got the
money.
>2.) Someone posted a "lessons from the board" problem, stating something
>to
>the effect that this newsgroup should try to return to its backgammon
roots.
>You posted another message in response, agreeing, stating "That's what this
>newsgroup is all about...", yet you continue to post repetitive, useless
>drivel.
That was Michael Zher. I support that idea, but I don't think we should be
strictly limited to that.
>3.) You refute the experts' endorsement of the neural nets. Your rating on
>FIBS is in the mid-1300's. I know nothing about your rating on GG, so this
>isn't the strongest argument.
Actually it's in the high-1300 :-) If you're smart enough to find my whois
info, you must also be smart enough to find out when the last time I logged
in there was. Also look at my ridiculously low experience. I haven't
actually played a game there in ages. Last time I logged in was about a week
ago, just to try to meet my friend on-line and get him started.
>4.) You frequently skip over any challenges of your arguments, and continue
to
>post, as if they've never existed.
Why am I replying this post, then??
>5.) You respond without reposting the original message, obfuscating the
>r.g.b. audience.
Do you know what the sign > mean on a newsgroup???
>Go to www.dejanews.com, and run a search on Kit Woolsey and r.g.b.. Read
some
>of his posts. Try running your own name and r.g.b., and compare the two.
Better yet: I ran "Brad Mampe" and look what I found: 8 out of 18 matches to
rec.games.backgammon (the other 10 to rec.games.bridge, if anyone's
wondering...). Also some of these posts actually belong to people who quoted
him. Now, let's examine some of these 8 bites of wisdom:
Subject: Cheats (was Re:my last word)
From: bj...@Lehigh.EDU
Date: 1998/06/30
Message-ID: <6namum$n...@ns4-1.CC.Lehigh.EDU>
Newsgroups: rec.games.backgammon
[Subscribe to rec.games.backgammon]
JG wrote:
[snip long unnecessary quote]
I know exactly how you feel. And I've got proof that JF cheats.
Last night, I opened 6/5, 24/21 off of 3-1. JF rolled 4-4. I danced, JF made
the five point, and I danced again. JF then rolled 5-5, pointed the 1, and
went on to win a backgammon.
After my opening roll, I never got to move!!!! And every time the opening
rolls go 3-1, 4-4, I can't ever win!!!!! JF cheat$ !
Brad Mampe
bj...@lehigh.edu
HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It seems like I'm not the only one
questioning the opinion that JF cheats, eh??? Let's move on:
Subject: Re: Cheats (was Re:my last word)
From: "Harold Evenson" <Harold....@v-wave.com>
Date: 1998/06/30
Message-ID: <6nbhkd$q3...@crash.videotron.ab.ca>
Newsgroups: rec.games.backgammon
[More Headers]
[Subscribe to rec.games.backgammon]
bj...@Lehigh.EDU wrote in message <6namum$n...@ns4-1.CC.Lehigh.EDU>...
>JG wrote:
>
>
>Last night, I opened 6/5, 24/21 off of 3-1.
Interesting play. I would play 6/2. It is important to start crowding your
opponents pieces on the ace point so they feel uncomfortable. :)
> JF rolled 4-4. I danced, JF made
>the five point, and I danced again. JF then rolled 5-5, pointed the 1, and
>went on to win a backgammon.
>
>After my opening roll, I never got to move!!!! And every time the opening
>rolls go 3-1, 4-4, I can't ever win!!!!! JF cheat$ !
To beat JF, you have to be willing to cheat yourself. After JF has taken
off a few of his pieces, save the game and edit the match file. Put all of
his extra pieces back on the 13 point. That'll teach him for cheating. :)
>
>Brad Mampe
>bj...@lehigh.edu
How instructing and enlightening is the last paragraph?? That's exactly the
kind of comments the Internet backgammon community needs...
As for the Kit Woolsey comparison, are your posts as good as his?? Except
for your "Early 33" I don't think so... You just can't compare anyone here
to him.
RODRIGO
Gary Wong
> >And I've not yet seen
> >a single world-class player complain that JF cheats. In fact,
> >every strong player I've heard speak about the subject has
> >defended the program's honesty.
>
> We never will. These guys have a lot of credibility and they could take a
> company out of business if they started saying that a program cheats. What
> would happen to Nike if Michael Jordan said their shoes are uncomfortable,
> and just plain suck???
I doubt that's much of an influence. Strong players do not
necessarily mince their words -- I've heard strong players criticise
books (eg. Becker's _Backgammon for Blood_) and software (eg. _Windows
BG_). It is instructive to note that these strong players do _not_
claim that the books/programs "just plain suck"; they tend to describe
the book/program subjectively and point out areas they believe are
weaknesses. I believe the rest of us would do very well to try to
emulate the same approach.
It is practically impossible to prove that Jellyfish does not cheat at
all. But we already have plenty of evidence to suggest that the
difference in its ability between playing with its own dice and with
manual dice (if indeed there is a difference) is very small -- too
small to be detected without a powerful statistical test. Playing 200
1-point matches with computer-generated and manual dice and inspecting
the results is a relatively powerful statistical test. Posting an
article to this group reading "The difference in playing against JF
letting it roll the dice vs. rolling one's own dice is as obvious as
day and night" is not.
There are some records of reasonably statistically significant
experiments -- somebody (I can't find the reference sorry, but I
believe it was in response to an experiment proposed by Kees van den
Doel in article <68okin$k...@cascade.cs.ubc.ca> in the thread
"Jellyfish" around the new year) played an equal number of matches
against Jellyfish with and without manual dice and posted the logs to
the newsgroup. I think the total number of games played came to
around 50 points, and the result in this case was that Jellyfish
performed marginally worse with manual dice. The conclusion was that
(for some significance level -- 95%, probably) no evidence was found
to support the hypothesis that Jellyfish's ability differed depending
on the type of dice generation in use.
Around the same time, Kit Woolsey also noted in article
<kwoolseyE...@netcom.com> that:
Well, last summer Mike Senkiewicz and Nack Ballard (who would certainly
rate as two of the best players in the world by anybody's standards) each
played Jellyfish 300 games for some pretty high stakes. The dice were
rolled manually for both sides. The final result was that Jellyfish
broke even (+58 vs. Senk, - 58 vs. Nack). This appears to be about as
good a test as one could want, and does demonstrate that with manually
rolled dice Jellyfish was able to hold its own against the best.
And yet _nobody_ has provided significant reputable data suggesting
any contrary conclusion. This ought to be a persuasive indication
that in all likelihood, Jellyfish does not cheat at all. If you feel
happier rolling manual dice, then by all means play that way! But
unless you have sufficient data from a fair experiment providing
evidence Jellyfish may cheat, it does not seem fair to ignore every
other test in which no such evidence has been found.
Murat Kalinyaprak
> Murat Kalinyaprak wrote:
>>Just in case it was misunderstood, I wasn't proposing
>>that JF gets itself out of "tough positions", etc. by
>>rolling what it needs. JF's seed/counter scheme takes
>>care of any such claims already. What I was proposing
>>was that, it "leads" the game (and also the opponent)
>>to that position.
> <----------------- perfectly blocked ---------------->
> Murat does it again! It must be deliberate, surely?
In your newsreader program, click on preferences, set
seed=5555/counter=222 and start typing. What you type
will automatically self-justify... :)
But seriously, yes it's deliberate. It's kind of like
playing cross-word puzzles, word-games, etc. It slows
down my typing a bit but also gives me another chance
and more time to re-think what I'm saying...
MK
Murat Kalinyaprak
>James Eibisch wrote:
>>Murat Kalinyaprak wrote:
>>>was that, it "leads" the game (and also the opponent)
>>>to that position.
> JE> <----------------- perfectly blocked ---------------->
> JE> Murat does it again! It must be deliberate, surely?
> Quite an achievement, I'd say.
> It's not so easy to do, as I'm
> finding out myself at this ver
> y moment! Maybe his articles a
> re computer-generated? Or mayb
> e it is a subtle indication of
> the troll-value of his posts??
> (:--------------------------:)
I don't know about their "troll-value", but my articles
are not computer generated. Although I hadn't posted in
this newsgroup until very recently, I have been posting
in other newsgroups for many years. There must be a few
thousands (literally) of my articles stored in archives
like Dejanews. I don't recall being accused of trolling
too often, if at all, and I probably have a pretty good
credibility in newsgroups where I had been posting on a
regular basis.
MK
Murat Kalinyaprak
> I'm just guessing but it sounds like you cranked the cube up to
> a high level and got lucky 3 times. Would be curious to see
> long-term results with this method.
Why do you assume it's me who ran up the cube? In fact,
it was the other way around. I had indicated this in my
first posting where I mentioned those 3 games (although
that articles didn't seem to get distributed well, some
readers may have seen it on their servers).
Nevertheless, I'm quite pleased to hear about "my luck"
vs. "JF's luck" for a change... :)
Worse news may be that I also started getting some very
strong wins against JF even when it's rolling the dice.
Yesterday I played again 3 matches with the dice rolled
by JF. The score was:
MK JF
20 0 (from 4-0)
8 16 (from 8-8)???
29 0 (from 13-0)
I'll attach the "mat" files for the 1st and 3rd matches
for your information. Unfortunately somehow I failed to
save the very match I lost. I wouldn't blame you if you
thaught that I didn't on purpose, but I'm still getting
used to saving/reloading/replaying games/matches. Also,
I kept forgetting to keep track of the seed and counter
at the beginning of each match. However, I did remember
to note them at the end of the first match, which were:
seed=13745 counter=748
One could figure out the starting counter value for the
first match by counting back the number of moves (which
I didn't bother to do). They were all consecutive games
(without modifying seed/counter) but it would be almost
impossible to recognize the dice patterns and determine
what value the last game had started on.
Also, from what I remember, I lost the last game of the
second match by only 3 pips. So, I was not "running up"
the cube without reason and 8-16 could have easily been
16-8 for me. Now, if that had happened, that would have
been some "luck"...
> And as another poster wrote. If you are that good at beating J/F
> then you should find someone to back it for money. I would be
> more that happy to back J/F at $10/point. Perhaps playing through
> FIBS and me entering the rolls to J/F at level 7-100. Let me know
> if you are interested.
Sorry, but I'm not interested in gambling beyond buying
an occasional lottery/raffle ticket, etc. I have played
backgammon since I was a kid, but not for anything more
than a round of teas, cookies and such. However, if my
apparent "luck" persists for a few dozen matches, I may
just change my mind...:)
MK
--------------------------------------------------------------
15 point match
Game 1
JellyFish : 0 Player2 : 0
1) 53: 8/3 6/3
2) 64: 8/2 6/2 51: 13/8 6/5
3) 61: 13/7 8/7 55: 13/3 13/3
4) 42: 24/20* 13/11 52: 25/20 3/1*
5) 66: Doubles => 2
6) Takes 32: 20/17* 3/1
7) 53: 25/20 11: 17/14* 14/13
8) 21: 25/23 52: 24/17
9) 63: 64: 8/2* 6/2
10) 53: 25/20 61: 17/10
11) 63: 65: 10/4 13/8
12) 63: 33: 24/21 13/10 13/10 4/1
13) 33: 51: 21/15
14) 63: 52: 15/10 8/6
15) 22: 53: 10/2
16) 53: 25/20 13/10 63: 10/4 10/7
17) 21: 20/18* 13/12 31: 25/21
18) 54: 18/13 10/6 52: 8/3 8/6
19) 62: 20/12 51: 6/1 2/1
20) 44: 12/4* 12/4 65: 25/14
21) 53: 13/8 13/10 53: 14/6
22) 44: 20/12 7/3 7/3 66: 6/0 6/0 6/0 6/0
23) 53: 20/12 43: 4/0 3/0
24) 11: 12/11 12/11 8/6 61: 3/0 1/0
25) 62: 11/5 11/9 22: 3/0 2/0 2/0
26) 53: 10/5 9/6 54: 1/0 1/0
27) 62: 6/0 2/0 43: 1/0 1/0
Wins 2 points
Game 2
JellyFish : 0 Player2 : 2
1) 42: 8/4 6/4
2) 62: 24/18 13/11 32: 6/1*
3) 61: 25/24* 24/18 54: 25/20 24/20
4) 64: 13/7 11/7 31: 24/20
5) 62: 13/7 6/4 33: 13/10 13/10 8/5 8/5
6) 42: 7/3 6/4 63: 20/11
7) 65: 13/7 13/8 32: 6/3 13/11
8) 62: 8/2 8/6 21: 6/3
9) 54: 8/3 8/4 61: 11/5 11/10
10) 63: 7/1 4/1 21: 6/3
11) 53: 7/2 7/4 53: 10/2
12) 64: 18/8 61: 13/7* 3/2
13) 44: Doubles => 2
14) Takes 32: 20/17* 10/8
15) 55: 21: 8/6 7/6
16) 65: 55: 20/15 17/7 13/8
17) 54: 61: 10/4 8/7
18) 55: 21: 15/12
19) 31: 25/24 31: 5/1*
20) 64: 11: 7/6 4/1
21) 51: 33: 12/6 7/1
22) 65: 42: 6/2 6/4
23) 43: 61: 6/0 6/5
24) 51: 21: 2/0 1/0
25) 65: 25/19 53: 5/0 4/1
26) 62: 25/17 52: 5/0 2/0
27) 66: 19/7 17/5 32: 3/0 2/0
28) 54: 7/2 4/0 44: 5/1 4/0 4/0 3/0
29) 33: 6/0 3/0 3/0 61: 1/0 1/0
30) 64: 6/0 4/0 44: 1/0 1/0
Wins 2 points
Game 3
JellyFish : 0 Player2 : 4
1) 61: 13/7 8/7 31: 8/5 6/5
2) 41: 13/9 24/23 63: 24/15
3) 43: 13/9 13/10* 43: 25/21 24/21
4) 32: 13/10 23/21 42: 8/4* 6/4
5) 65: 62: 13/5
6) 51: 25/24 6/1 54: 13/8 13/9
7) 65: 24/13 53: 9/1*
8) 63: 25/22 13/7 32: 6/3* 5/3
9) 32: 25/23 6/3 55: 13/3 13/3
10) 54: 23/14 51: 8/2
11) 31: 7/3 64: 8/2 5/1
12) 63: 14/5 64: 5/1
13) 42: 7/3 7/5 32: 6/3 6/4
14) 41: 6/2 3/2 32: 4/1 3/1
15) Doubles => 2 Takes
16) 65: 8/2 8/3 Doubles => 4
17) Takes 64: 21/11
18) Doubles => 8 Takes
19) 31: 5/4* 4/1 Doubles => 16
20) Takes 52: 25/20* 20/18
21) 21: 43: 18/11
22) 41: 22: 11/7 11/7
23) 31: 52: 7/2 3/1
24) 66: 25/7 10/4 43: 7/0
25) 61: 10/4 6/5 64: 4/0 4/0
26) 31: 9/6 7/6 42: 3/0 2/0
27) 65: 9/4 6/0 21: 2/0 1/0
28) 21: 2/0 1/0 63: 3/0 3/0
29) 61: 6/0 1/0 64: 2/0 1/0
30) 31: 3/0 2/1 21: 1/0 1/0
31) 21: 2/0 1/0 44: 1/0 1/0
Wins 16 points and the match
--------------------------------------------------------------
15 point match
Game 1
JellyFish : 0 Player2 : 0
1) 54: 13/8 24/20 65: 24/13
2) 33: 8/5 8/5 6/3 6/3 51: 13/8 24/23
3) 42: 24/20 13/11 22: 13/11 13/11 6/4 6/4
4) 22: 20/16 20/16 54: 23/14*
5) 44: Doubles => 2
6) Takes 42: 14/10 13/11
7) 51: 25/20 16/15* 21: 25/23 11/10*
8) 32: 25/20 42: 13/9* 13/11
9) 62: 25/23 8/2* 44: 25/17* 17/9
10) 52: 25/23 20/15* 21: 25/23* 11/10*
11) 64: 42: 23/17
12) 62: 25/23 51: 10/5* 6/5
13) 64: 21: 9/7 8/7
14) 63: 25/22 21: 11/9 8/7
15) 66: 51: 11/5
16) 31: 25/22 23/22 33: 17/8 7/4
17) 43: 13/9 13/10 21: 9/7 9/8
18) 62: 22/16 6/4 31: 8/5 7/6
19) 21: 16/14 9/8 33: 8/5 8/5 8/5 4/1
20) 41: 8/4 13/12 66: 7/1 7/1 6/0 6/0
21) 61: 14/7 42: 6/0
22) 61: 22/16 10/9 41: 5/1 5/4
23) 51: 12/7 9/8 63: 5/0 4/1
24) 42: 8/2 63: 5/0 4/1
25) 43: 16/9 54: 5/0 4/0
26) 31: 9/5 66: 5/0 5/0 1/0 1/0
27) 52: 23/18 22/20 42: 1/0 1/0
28) 21: 20/18 7/6 31: 1/0 1/0
Wins 6 points
Game 2
JellyFish : 0 Player2 : 6
1) 42: 8/4 6/4
2) 53: 8/3 6/3 42: 24/20 13/11
3) 31: 8/5* 6/5 41: 25/21 24/23
4) 53: 13/8 13/10 55: 23/13 21/11
5) 43: 24/20 13/10 22: 13/9 13/9
6) 65: 20/9 54: 13/4
7) 64: 10/4 8/4 66: 13/7 13/7 11/5 11/5
8) 43: 9/5 10/7 Doubles => 2
9) Drops Wins 1 point
Game 3
JellyFish : 0 Player2 : 7
1) 64: 8/2 6/2
2) 51: 13/8 6/5 61: 13/7 8/7
3) 54: 24/15 32: 13/10* 10/8
4) 66: Doubles => 2
5) Takes 42: 24/20* 24/22
6) 43: 25/21 25/22 52: 20/13
7) 62: 13/7 24/22 43: 22/18* 18/15
8) 54: 25/21 8/3 41: 13/8
9) 32: 13/10* 6/4 54: 25/21* 21/16
10) 65: 25/14 52: 16/11* 13/11
11) 21: 25/22 62: 13/7 13/11
12) 31: 8/5 6/5 63: 11/5 8/5
13) 31: 13/10 13/12 63: 11/5 11/8
14) 61: 22/16 12/11 51: 6/1 6/5
15) 32: 10/7 11/9 53: 7/2 8/5
16) 53: 8/3 7/4 52: 7/2 7/5
17) 64: 10/4 16/12 44: 5/1 5/1 5/1 5/1
18) 65: 8/2 12/7 32: 8/5 8/6
19) 31: 9/6 3/2 52: 5/0 2/0
20) 62: 21/13 21: 2/0 1/0
21) 61: 22/15 11: 1/0 1/0 1/0 1/0
22) 61: 15/9 13/12 64: 6/0 6/2
23) 64: 9/3 12/8 22: 6/4* 4/0 2/0
24) 51: 25/24 6/1 51: 5/0 5/4
25) 52: 22/15 61: 4/0
26) 21: 15/13 8/7 22: 2/0 2/0
Wins 6 points
Game 4
JellyFish : 0 Player2 : 13
1) 62: 24/16
2) 21: 24/21 51: 16/11 24/23
3) 65: 21/10 53: 23/15*
4) 42: 25/21 6/4 43: 8/4* 4/1*
5) 55: 25/10* 25/20 32: 25/22 13/11
6) 64: 10/4 20/16 51: 13/8 6/5
7) 21: 6/3* 66:
8) Doubles => 2 Takes
9) 21: 6/3 11: 25/24 11/9* 6/5
10) 22: 25/21 3/1* 3/1 43: 25/22 13/9
11) 63: 21/15 13/10 32: 13/10* 13/11
12) 62: 25/23 10/4 Doubles => 4
13) Takes 63: 22/13
14) Doubles => 8 Takes
15) 52: 23/18 8/6 Doubles => 16
16) Takes 61: 13/7* 8/7
17) 44: 25/21 13/5 13/9 22: 10/4* 6/4
18) 61: 25/24* 13/7 11:
19) 61: 13/7 6/5 62: 25/23 11/5
20) 64: 9/3 7/3 54: 23/18* 18/14
21) 62: 25/23 8/2 53: 11/6 5/2*
22) 43: 25/22 6/2 53: 6/1* 14/11
23) 51: 25/24* 6/1 21:
24) 51: 8/2 11:
25) 61: 2/1 42:
26) 41: 5/1 5/4 52: 25/20 11/9
27) 33: 4/1 4/1 4/1 4/1 65: 9/3* 20/15
28) 63: 25/22* 61: 25/18
29) 41: 24/23* 53: 25/20 15/12
30) 22: 3/1 3/1 64: 12/6 18/14
31) 42: 44: 9/5 7/3* 7/3 6/2*
32) 31: 25/24 63: 8/2 5/2
33) 64: 66: 20/2 9/3
34) 64: 54: 14/9 8/4
35) 51: 25/24 61: 9/2
36) 21: 2/1 64: 6/0 6/2
37) 52: 24/17 43: 4/0 3/0
38) 21: 17/15 2/1 41: 4/0 4/3
39) 53: 15/7 52: 5/0 5/3
40) 43: 24/20 7/4 41: 3/0 2/1
41) 31: 20/16 53: 3/0 3/0
42) 55: 16/1 4/0 42: 3/0 2/0
43) 63: 1/0 1/0 65: 2/0 2/0
44) 51: 1/0 1/0 63: 2/0 2/0
45) 66: 1/0 1/0 1/0 1/0 53: 1/0
Wins 16 points and the match
--------------------------------------------------------------
Murat Kalinyaprak
> James, I think you could be on to something here.
> The chances of something like this occurring in a
> above. Still, strange things happen. For instance
> I saw recently reported in the English press that
> a woman in West London had sliced a tomato in two
> only to discover that it had an important passage
> from the Koran visible in the pattern of the pips.
Well done justifying the text, Rew. But what got into
you to add this garbage at the end...?
As my name might have provided you a hint, I was born
and raised in Turkey as a Muslim. I'm not a religious
person and I don't feel a need to mock at such things
like bleeding/weeping Jesus statues, I wonder whether
I shouldn't still ask if the tomato you mentioned was
imported from Mecca. If not, for someone who believes
in seeds and counters, wouldn't you rather think that
the odds would be much higher for some English tomato
seed to contain Biblical revelations from Jesus...?
MK
Patti Beadles
Rodrigo Andrade <candrade@_R_E_M_O_V_E_wt.net> wrote:
>We never will. These guys have a lot of credibility and they could take a
>company out of business if they started saying that a program cheats.
Oh, puhleez. I know a fair number of world-class backgammon players,
and I can't think of a single one of them who would hesitate to put
forth a legitimate criticism of Jellyfish, or any other backgammon
merchandise.
They wouldn't, however, shoot from the hip about it. Which is what
most people here are doing.
-Patti
--
Patti Beadles | Not just your average
pat...@netcom.com/pat...@gammon.com | degenerate gambling adrenaline
http://www.gammon.com/ | junkie software geek leatherbyke
or just yell, "Hey, Patti!" | nethead biker.
Rew Francis
Murat, it was not my intention to cause offence to
you or anyone else with this post - can I offer my
apologies if any was taken. Your name did not have
any bearing on my choice of this example - I chose
it simply because it was another case of extremely
unlikely coincidence, which happened to come to my
mind at the time. As for the origin of the tomato,
I am not able to comment - I don't recall it being
mentioned in the article. However, from looking at
the packaging on tomatoes I have bought, I believe
most that you can buy in England are grown locally
or else imported from Spain or the Canary Islands.
Rew
Robert-Jan Veldhuizen
MK> Robert-Jan Veldhuizen wrote:
MK>
>>James Eibisch wrote:
MK>
>>>Murat Kalinyaprak wrote:
MK>
>>>>.....................................................
>>>>was that, it "leads" the game (and also the opponent)
>>>>to that position.
>> JE> <----------------- perfectly blocked ---------------->
>> JE> Murat does it again! It must be deliberate, surely?
MK>
>> Quite an achievement, I'd say.
>> It's not so easy to do, as I'm
>> finding out myself at this ver
>> y moment! Maybe his articles a
>> re computer-generated? Or mayb
>> e it is a subtle indication of
>> the troll-value of his posts??
>> (:--------------------------:)
MK> I don't know about their "troll-value", but my articles
MK> are not computer generated. Although I hadn't posted in
MK> this newsgroup until very recently, I have been posting
MK> in other newsgroups for many years. There must be a few
MK> thousands (literally) of my articles stored in archives
MK> like Dejanews. I don't recall being accused of trolling
MK> too often, if at all, and I probably have a pretty good
MK> credibility in newsgroups where I had been posting on a
MK> regular basis.
Well it wasn't an accusation...I like trolls. :)
.....<----------------------------------------------------->
But again, what's the secret?
--
Zorba/Robert-Jan
Rodrigo Andrade
It is. Well, maybe not for famous backgammon players. But rich and famous
people always have influence over mortals like us.
>they tend to describe
>the book/program subjectively and point out areas they believe are
>weaknesses.
Yep, but it's easier to subjectively describe a book than a Nike shoe.
RODRIGO
Rodrigo Andrade
>1-point matches with computer-generated and manual dice and inspecting
>the results is a relatively powerful statistical test
That's an interesting point I've been observing over the last few months.
Playing, say, a bunch of single-point matches till you get to 5 points is
easier than playing a 5-point match. JF cube handling in the single pointers
is poorer, simply because it doesn't know (it couldn't) you're planning to
play other matches.
RODRIGO
Gary Wong
> >Playing 200
> >1-point matches with computer-generated and manual dice and inspecting
> >the results is a relatively powerful statistical test
>
> That's an interesting point I've been observing over the last few months.
> Playing, say, a bunch of single-point matches till you get to 5 points is
> easier than playing a 5-point match.
I didn't quite mean to imply anything about any score being "easier". The
reason I suggested playing one-pointers is only because the cube adds a
HUGE amount of variance to the result. The 300 money games against
Jellyfish I alluded to in another message is a good example of this -- even
though in both cases one player came out 58 points ahead, this is not
sufficient evidence that that player is better. (I can give the maths
if anybody cares, but it's fairly boring so I won't bother with it now).
This is because there is a very good chance that those 58 points came
from a few games where the cube reached 16, 32 or higher. All of the
other hundreds of games where the cube was dropped at 1 hardly count
toward the final score -- even though they probably contained nearly
as much `skill' (in an information theoretic sense, they carry nearly
as much signal about who is the better player).
On the other hand, a lead of 58 points after 300 1-pointers (ie. playing
300 one point games, and coming out leading 179 to 121) _is_ a significant
result (because the variance of a cubeless, gammonless game is far less
than an ordinary money one). That's what I mean about a large number of
one-pointers being a powerful statistical test. Unfortunately, it's
not a powerful test of cube handling (obviously) but most people would
agree that a person's skill at one-point matches corresponds reasonably
well to their overall skill in money games or longer matches.
> JF cube handling in the single pointers
> is poorer, simply because it doesn't know (it couldn't) you're planning to
> play other matches.
I'm not sure I understand you. There's NO cube handling in single pointers
(no gammons either, for that matter) -- so how can JF's cube handling be
poorer?