OK, what is the likelihood of a 1:5598 sequence occurring in 1000 games?'

Or do you find that question inadequate as well?  I understand that it's impossible to calculate, because you don't know how many rolls occur in 1000 games, but you can probably come up with a back-of-the-envelope estimate to work with.  My guess would be that an average game goes about 30 rolls.

My question was really "Do you have a basic understanding of probability and statistics?"  Thanks for the answer.

Just out of interest, the average number of moves in a game is 20 per player but 25 per player if there's no cube.

How good of you to say that. I really want to open a 'whiner hall' here. People then can post positions when their opponents, bots or humans, got a very lucky roll and then whine about the damned FIBS dice 

Then each week we will choose the 'whiner of the week' title. I guess me, vic and ZW... have a great chance to be successful here 

Regards

Copy of post to Yvon's "forum".

Yvon, what you are demonstrating here is that you don't understand the game of backgammon! In your post you have tried to show that you lost the game after a sequence with a possibility of 1 in 5598. Actually, several of the asumptions on which you base this figure are false, but let that pass. What you have ignored are all the other possible courses that this game could have taken, many of which would have also led to your defeat.
In the original position that you doubled for example, you are about 43% to win the game from there and of course the opponent's 57% wins will include some gammons, probably about 14. In other words, your double is awful and in money play should be met with a beaver! On the bar after being hit, your opponent is still about 20% to win before rolling. You then think that his best rolls are 1-1 or 3-1, but in fact 6-1 is clearly superior to either. Need I go on?
Take it on the chin buddy. Your game is still at the novice level and your allegations about fibs manipulation of dice is patently absurd. Take some friendly advice. Close this forum and go off quietly and learn to play. I suggest downloading GnuBg. No, it doesn't cheat. Enjoy the game!

Just found this incredible thread, I'm in tears. Would it be possbile to tell JokeBot about it, so we can enjoy it for years to come, quote by quote?

Very easily: For GNU Backgammon the whole source code is available. You can download the source code, analyse it's dice algorithm (and anything else) and then compile the code. It would be so easy to prove any cheating. However, there is none.

Hardy 

I would hope it that depends on the friendship. Rather than naive it could be paranoid to think that they are cheating.



The issue is very different from the example given anyway. A more realistic analogy would be someone that you both hired through an agency to do the dice rolling for you. This person is in another room and calls out the dice through a loudspeaker. They never see you, they don't know your names, they know nothiing about either of you and have been hired by a third party on both your  behalf.

Now you can ask the question about trust and the answer is the same in both cases. There needs to be an incentive for the dice provider in order for selectively biased dice to be given. The dice provider has to have some means of choosing who is to benefit and there has to be a gain, one that's worth it even if the biased dice system is exposed. The likelihood or rather the unlikelihood of that occuring would mitigate that aspect.

For a games server people suggest the incentive of better dice for the better players in order to keep them playing, other suggest that it would be better dice for the weaker players in order to keep them playing. Hmmm.

There's the possibility of the Special Lucky $50 dice for those who value money less than their integrity. But that method requires advertising in order to attract people willing to pay and sufficient people willing to pay. Needless to say the risk of exposure is immense.

There's the possibility that the dice provider does actually know one of the participants and wants to play favourites. If that's done sporadically then nobody else would know, not even the beneciary, but it's hard to imagine much satisfaction for the dice provider. If it's done with greater regularity such that it materially affects the beneficiary's rating and winning percentages then they are likely to start wondering how they can be so lucky at this site but so unlucky elsewhere. Eventually that wondering could lead to discovery of the subterfuge.

It could be done in collusion with the dice provider, of course. In that case let's hope that the dice provider remains friends with the beneficiary lest they get grassed up (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Grassed+Up)

It's difficult to come up with a suitably worthwhile incentive for a dice provider. more ideas are required......

[Bunny's coloration]


Oh my, I see it totally the other way. For me it's most people would not cheat, indeed would be proud to not cheat. And as the anonymous third party dice rollers i think that very, very few would cheat.

It's one of those things that says more about the person than about other people. Not that there's an implcation of it being self-referring, ie. to think that most others would cheat doesn't mean that the person is a cheat themselves, but there's a difference between people who see human nature as basically self-serving, and cheating is one such action, and human nature as basically good. The majority of people actually are basically good but not everyone sees that. The combination of someone thinking that most people are cheats and also that most people deserve to be cheated against .. that's definitely not a good one!!

 
I don't know, lews.  If you'll remember, when I met you in that bar in New York, we did a similar experience.  You mixed drinks behind your back and then told me what they were, but I had no way of knowing what you had mixed.  The funny thing was, regardless of what you made me ("Mookie, here's a screwdriver," "Mookie, here's a Maker's and water,"), it all tasted like squid oil.  Now, granted, I'm not a bot, but I also feel quite confident that you weren't "above that kind of thing."

MOOKIE