18/02/2012

Friendle - Backgammon

Friendle gives you the option to play so many game but Backgammon is easily the most enjoyable to play. I have never played Backgammon before but like Carcassonne it took me a while to figure out.

You start off with either red or black counters & have to get your counters round the board clockwise or anticlockwise depending on your colour to your home (the bar at the bottom of the screen).

There is an element of luck in what number you get from the dices thrown so I will chalk up my first win against Lufferov down to luck.

4 comments:

  1. I disagree with the idea of luck in Backgammon, it plays a much smaller part than you may think. You could play against the best player in the world and the chances are you would never beat him regardless of what you both rolled.

    Backgammon is very much about making your own luck and knowing how to make the odds work in your favour. A good player is always thought to be "lucky" by an average player, but they never stop to think why their opponent is always the one who gets all the "luck".

    Having said that, as a new player luck does plays a huge part as you learn the game. But you'll find as you get better you get less lucky because you've put yourself in the strong position to begin with.

    In that particular game, I think you probably did get a bit lucky. But that's also down to me making bad choices early in the game. We got all our checkers clear of each other quite early on. At that point it just becomes a race to the finish and it is down to the luck of the dice. There is really nothing either player can do to influence the outcome at that point.

    So, to conclude my post... there is no such thing as luck in backgammon, but in that game you got lucky!

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  2. Also, Backgammon should really be played as a series of games for points (or money) using the doubling cube. This is a similar mechanism to raising in a game of poker - you can use it to intimidate your opponent into conceding the game if they have put themselves in a risky position with exposed counters. It's all about playing the odds and taking chances when it's worth the risk.

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  3. Yes Neil, I've asked if they can add this feature in a future update. Playing to 10 points with the doubling cube adds a whole new aspect to the game.

    I played an interesting rule when I was learning years ago. You can only have 5 chequers on a point. It sounds horrendous, but it actually teaches you not to stack and was a great way to make you think about your moves. Stacking can be useful, but it's rare that you want all your chequers on one point. Sometimes you'd be stuck with the no-stacking rule, but it was usually because you'd played a poor strategic game up to that point.

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  4. I obviously still have a lot to learn to master the game

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