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Is GnuBG cheating with the dice?

Started by RaughMachine, June 02, 2009, 03:14:31 PM

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RaughMachine

GNUBG cheats and its previous sure, cause he gets almost impossible roles at the beginning of the game and in very weird situations. It was very interesting, it happens really often. For an example. I get good role and then in that role i have hit out a two men of gnubg. My two men was completely alone on position 12 (position 17 of gnubg) and position 13 (position 14 of gnubg), and other my ten men was blocking gnubg Home Board except on the position 4 (position 21 if we look from the direction of gnubg). What happens? It's Gnubg 's turn. Gnubg immediately gets double 4. So it has hit mine two men on my positions . Now I was out trying to get good role to come back again in the game, but i couldn't, cause only position 2 on my Home Board was free to go. I need double 2 to get out. So GNUBG won. That happens 5 to 6 time to me in 100 games i played against GNUBG, vice verse it happens only once to gnubg (it was in same bad position I have described in this post). Analysis: GNUBG won 5 or 6  times of 100 games with only possibility 1/36 to win, it had lost the game only once when it was same bad position (it has 1/36 possibility to lose).

Possible programmers conclusion  of GNUBG: "That was not cheating, it was a luck"
Definitely mine conclusion/question: "Very nice luck. Why I am not so lucky? Hmmmmmmm" :)))))))))))))))))))

P.S: I suggest that we should start to create database of BackGammon cheats . We should post moves of the whole particular game, picture snapshots of weird situations where bots has low possibility to win and at the end win cause of incredible joker and so many other things. What do you think? I think its worth while. Please make suggestions if you are interested in that.

removed duplicate post and split from old topic - Z

ah_clem

#1
gnubg does not cheat with the dice.  You can verify this by simply setting it to "manual dice", and playing a few matches by rolling a real pair of dice and entering the rolls yourself.  You'll still get clobbered.


This is a very old tired topic, as every newbie has the impression that gnubg cheats because it wins almost all the time, when the real reason it wins almost all the time is that it's just a much better player than the newbie.

BTW, if you're frustrated with gnubg winning too much, you can dial down it's playing level to "beginner" or "casual player".  This definitely makes it more fun for newbies.  Once you start beating it on a regular basis you can increase its level accordingly.


playBunny

Quote from: ah_clem on June 02, 2009, 04:12:42 PM
gnubg does not cheat with the dice.  You can verify this by simply setting it to "manual dice", and playing a few matches by rolling a real pair of dice and entering the rolls yourself.  You'll still get clobbered.

Do it for more than just a few and you'll see GnuBg get amazingly lucky dice from your own hands. ;O)

vikingblood80

Choose the " manipulate dice" option from gnubg and set getting it the best rolls while you will get the worst ones then you will see how cheating will look like..you are going to loose every game in about may be 10-20 rolls.
Vikings had more fun at work

FrankBerger

Hm.... if you look in other newsgroups you will find a lot of complaints that bot x, y or z is undoubtedly cheating. All this complaints have several things in common:

  • the one complaining is a beginner, a casual player or a player who thinks is much better as he is in reality
  • a handful examples are presented that prove this, as if life play the dice are never crazy

Why world class player don't complain? Do they have a worse understanding of the game?

On my website I offer $1000 for one who proves that BGBlitz cheats. I get complaints about the dice regulary but.... it's somehow funny.... no one ever tried to earn the "easy money"...

So as a practical advice: reduce the playing strength or use weaker software. When you win constantly give it a try again. Would I recommend this? No, not at all. Get a kick in the butt and try to understand why you are loosing. Then you will get better and have better results against no bot opponents....

ciao
Frank

RaughMachine

Quote from: ah_clem on June 02, 2009, 04:12:42 PM
gnubg does not cheat with the dice.  You can verify this by simply setting it to "manual dice", and playing a few matches by rolling a real pair of dice and entering the rolls yourself.  You'll still get clobbered.


This is a very old tired topic, as every newbie has the impression that gnubg cheats because it wins almost all the time, when the real reason it wins almost all the time is that it's just a much better player than the newbie.

BTW, if you're frustrated with gnubg winning too much, you can dial down it's playing level to "beginner" or "casual player".  This definitely makes it more fun for newbies.  Once you start beating it on a regular basis you can increase its level accordingly.


If I play manual dice, Gnubg or any backgammon bot doesn't have any chance against me (neither 1% game and I can play it 10.000). Cause I can always manipulate my roles as I wish and be "very lucky" vs bot. When I play usual game and if I am in a bad position cause of gnubg "cheating" I pick a manual dice just for one role and then I won a game. Just one good role can decide the result of the game even if the opponent is in terrible position. Gnubg has many such roles, so its not so weird it win all the time. ;). Yes, its probably cheat. I play that game for 4 years now and I'm not an amateur, and gnubg very probably cheats.

Tom

Quote from: RaughMachine on December 10, 2011, 03:01:49 AM
If I play manual dice, Gnubg or any backgammon bot doesn't have any chance against me (neither 1% game and I can play it 10.000). Cause I can always manipulate my roles as I wish and be "very lucky" vs bot. When I play usual game and if I am in a bad position cause of gnubg "cheating" I pick a manual dice just for one role and then I won a game. Just one good role can decide the result of the game even if the opponent is in terrible position. Gnubg has many such roles, so its not so weird it win all the time. ;). Yes, its probably cheat. I play that game for 4 years now and I'm not an amateur, and gnubg very probably cheats.

I think what ah_clem was suggesting is to use "Manual Dice" and actually ROLL dice and enter them without cheating!

Besides, what would the developers have to gain is making the gnubg program to cheat?
Like what would I have to gain in making the GammonBots and BlunderBots cheat?
(If there was a way I could tell FIBS what does to use)

I have a full time job, 4 kids, 3 grandchildren, I coach baseball and I even like to play backgammon from time to time.

Making gnubg or a bot cheat os a lot of work and I for one have much BETTER things to do!

Tom

FrankBerger

Quote from: RaughMachine on December 10, 2011, 03:01:49 AM
I play that game for 4 years now and I'm not an amateur, and gnubg very probably cheats.

Being not an amateur means your are a Pro? :cool: Do you have earned some tournament wins already?

But funny, all other Pros I know don't believe that any current leading bot cheats. Whom I should believe now? :( I'm really unsure.

But maybe this http://www.bkgm.com/articles/Robertie/MasteringBackgammon-06/ might help you and naturally you
should fill out this form ( http://www.bkgm.com/articles/Wong/ComplaintForm.html )

ciao
Frank
p.s. if you think this is a little too much undeserved irony: Think about how often this complaint is heard in the last 15 years. Garys form from above is from 1998, btw before he started GnuBG

moonshadow

Quote from: FrankBerger on December 14, 2011, 09:57:07 PMyou should fill out this form ( http://www.bkgm.com/articles/Wong/ComplaintForm.html )

ciao
Frank
p.s. if you think this is a little too much undeserved irony: Think about how often this complaint is heard in the last 15 years. Garys form from above is from 1998, btw before he started GnuBG

Wong's 1998 "complaint form" is a must read. It really is a classic.

I had just re-read it again several weeks ago after having forgotten about it for several years and it once again brought me much amusement, especially as nothing has really changed in 15 years and I don't anticipate it changing that much in the next 15 either.

I didn't realize Gary had put that form together before he worked on GnuBG as I had never thought about it, but that makes it even more entertaining and relevant. Thanks for pointing that out.








stog

agreed m'shadow
worthy of a front page link that form
thx frank

socksey

It's all a comspiracy as explained very clearly here:  http://www.alef.co.uk/fibs/archive/dysfunction.html

:lol:

socksey



"I've got a great ambition to die of exhaustion rather than boredom." ~ Thomas Carlyle

ayran

Quote from: ah_clem on June 02, 2009, 04:12:42 PM
gnubg does not cheat with the dice.  You can verify this by simply setting it to "manual dice", and playing a few matches by rolling a real pair of dice and entering the rolls yourself.  You'll still get clobbered. ......

Well, rolling  the dice for my own moves won't prove anything. Obviously - when you think about it for more than two seconds. The question is whether there is some very cleverly built in bias for GnuBG's rolls !

You know that when one plays in any and every casino, there is a bias in favour of the House; the odds are always stacked against the dear customer. Subtly, and as inconspicuously as possible. But always there. Sure, one can at times beat the odds and win against the casino. Great !! Marvellous play ! Amazing win !   .... but the bias in favour of the House is always still there.

I cannot go into the GnuBG programming language and check it out for myself. I wish someone, truly independent and unbiased, who has that skill will go in there, check it out and verify the situation for all the remainig - (99.999%) - of us -- who continue to wonder just what's actually the case, and have great suspicions that something is rotten in the state of Denmark !

Cheers from 'down under' !



dorbel

You can play Gnubg rolling a set of dice and entering the rolls for both sides. Gnu will still slaughter you, just as it slaughters every other human. Look for ever in the code, the dice generator is independent and impartially gives both players random dice that over time sum to zero as near as makes no difference.
We get beat by Gnu because comparatively we suck. If you can get to the stage where you win more than 40% of your matches with gnu, you are playing very well indeed. Good luck with it!

ayran

Quote from: RaughMachine on June 02, 2009, 03:14:31 PM
GNUBG cheats and its previous sure, cause he gets almost impossible roles at the beginning of the game and in very weird situations. It was very interesting, it happens really often. For an example. I get good role and then in that role i have hit out a two men of gnubg. My two men was completely alone on position 12 (position 17 of gnubg) and position 13 (position 14 of gnubg), and other my ten men was blocking gnubg Home Board except on the position 4 (position 21 if we look from the direction of gnubg). What happens? It's Gnubg 's turn. Gnubg immediately gets double 4. So it has hit mine two men on my positions . Now I was out trying to get good role to come back again in the game, but i couldn't, cause only position 2 on my Home Board was free to go. I need double 2 to get out. So GNUBG won. That happens 5 to 6 time to me in 100 games i played against GNUBG, vice verse it happens only once to gnubg (it was in same bad position I have described in this post). Analysis: GNUBG won 5 or 6  times of 100 games with only possibility 1/36 to win, it had lost the game only once when it was same bad position (it has 1/36 possibility to lose).

Possible programmers conclusion  of GNUBG: "That was not cheating, it was a luck"
Definitely mine conclusion/question: "Very nice luck. Why I am not so lucky? Hmmmmmmm" :)))))))))))))))))))

P.S: I suggest that we should start to create database of BackGammon cheats . We should post moves of the whole particular game, picture snapshots of weird situations where bots has low possibility to win and at the end win cause of incredible joker and so many other things. What do you think? I think its worth while. Please make suggestions if you are interested in that.

removed duplicate post and split from old topic - Z

Yep, I completely agree. It will be really nice though, when somebody who's got the skill to read the technical stuff, will find the little sneaks that have been programmed into GnuBG to give it that little edge against the human player -- just when it's needed .... 

Subtle, you know. Like the bias that always there when you playing games in a casino. Just those little advantages in favour of the House ..... not that it can't be beat, sometimes, otherwise the players wouldn't stay hooked into the game ..... thinking that they can win .....

You know what really gives it away ?  It's those curly curls that GnuBG's token make when the move from spot to spot ..... "Look'it me, boy ! I'm the greatest !!!"  What a hoot !!!  :cool:

Tom

Please do the following:

start gnubg and go to SETTINGS -> OPTIONS -> DICE

Then click the radio button for MANUAL

Click OK and then play a match.

At each point the program will ask you for the dice.

roll some real dice and enter those numbers.

Play 10 matches of say 5 pts.

Then close the program and reload it (the settings will revert to the build-in random number generator.

Play 10 matches of 5 pts.

How did you do with each set of matches?
How many matches did you win?

If you are still doubtful, try it again with 25 matches.

Tom

ayran

Quote from: ah_clem on June 02, 2009, 04:12:42 PM
gnubg does not cheat with the dice.  You can verify this by simply setting it to "manual dice", and playing a few matches by rolling a real pair of dice and entering the rolls yourself.  You'll still get clobbered. <snip>

Well, that just isn't the case. When I roll the dice, I win as often or more frequently than that software programme.
Soooo .... what does that mean ?

1. GnuB has an inherent bias programmed into it somewhere/somehow
2. I'm a better player than that software programme
3. I'm 'somehow' able to manipulate the dice in my favour - psychic mental sort of thing-a-majig when I throw the dice
4. The GnuBG thingy is somehow able to manipulate the throws of dice in its favour by mechanical magic (???!!)

You tell me.  So I still find it wondrous and suspicious .....  :unsure:

:laugh:  :laugh:  :laugh:

Tom

How many matches did you play?

Maybe you need to play a few more...

ayran

#17

... and this so-called 'Random Number Generator' styled "Mersenne Twister" -- under 'Settings', 'Options', 'dice' -- that is supposedly providing random dice rolls, is some sort of tricky system  !!

I'm no mathematician (for sure!) but if I simply - and 'innocently; why shouldn't I ? - very slightly just change the 'number' that displays in the box beside it, I can get any dice roll I want -- like double fives or double sixes for instance. Very handy !!   B)

Tricky outfit around here, that's for sure !    :cool:

Merry Xmas !!!  :thumbsup2:

Tom

Quote from: ayran on December 26, 2012, 07:22:37 AM
... and this so-called 'Random Number Generator' styled "Mersenne Twister" -- under 'Settings', 'Options', 'dice' -- that is supposedly providing random dice rolls, is some sort of tricky system  !!

I'm no mathematician (for sure!) but if I simply - and 'innocently; why shouldn't I ? - very slightly just change the 'number' that displays in the box beside it, I can get any dice roll I want -- like double fives or double sixes for instance. Very handy !!   B)

Tricky outfit around here, that's for sure !    :cool:

Merry Xmas !!!  :thumbsup2:

So you are going to change the SEED anytime you want a specific roll?
I think that seed will be used to generate the next roll, so I think you have not tested your idea.

There is a much easier way to pick the dice.

If you want to change anything, your dice, the computer's dice or the computer's move then just click EDIT,
pick the move you want to change, change things and when done click EDIT again.

Tom

ayran

 Yes, I have tested my 'idea' - which is in fact a fact.
Wanna roll double 5's - change the 'SEED' number -whatever that is - to 207590015
Wanna roll 6 and 2 - change the 'SEED' number to 207690015
Wanna know what the 'SEED' number is to roll double sixes ? I know what it is - do you ?  :)
I haven't a clue why that's the case, but it works every time.
Which makes me - a little rank amateur of course - very suspicious about what this 'random number generator' is actually doing  :wacko:
Happy 'boxing' day  ;)

Tom

Quote from: ayran on December 26, 2012, 02:56:26 PM
Wanna know what the 'SEED' number is to roll double sixes ? I know what it is - do you ?  :)
I haven't a clue why that's the case, but it works every time.
Which makes me - a little rank amateur of course - very suspicious about what this 'random number generator' is actually doing  :wacko:

Of course, the SEED is an internal number that the random number generator uses to generate the next number.
So setting that to a specific value could return the same dice all the time.

but like I said EDIT is much easier

tom

ayran

Quote from: Tom on December 26, 2012, 04:19:14 PM
Of course, the SEED is an internal number that the random number generator uses to generate the next number.
So setting that to a specific value could return the same dice all the time.

but like I said EDIT is much easier

tom

:cool:  Ok, thanks for all that info, Tom. Much appreciated !  B)

I think I'll play chess. No possible 'cheating', 'lucky' or 'unlucky' moves in that  :hypocrite:

Happy New Year !  :)

Subusel

I am sending a picture. How can we explain? %100 cheat.
http://imgur.com/1Y5OudC

Zorba

That's a pretty freaky sequence indeed. Rolling 12 doubles or more in only 24 rolls has a chance of 1 in 6,000 roughly. Very rare, yet bound to happen to someone, somewhere, sometime. But you can always use manual dice with gnubg, it will still beat you very often.

More interesting is: Baba's cube to 2 and the recube to 8 were both blunders, costing around 0.18 EMG points each. The pointing on the 2point right after the initial cube, was a massive triple Whopper-with-cheese play costing 0.38 EMG. The loose hit 11/3* a royal double blunder costing 0.27.

So regardless of the dice, there's a lot of room for improvement there!


Gnubg must have been playing on very low settings here, as its last cube to 16 is terrible (5 checkers on ace, versus one checker each on 1,2,3 and 4).

The fascist's feelings of insecurity run so deep that he desperately needs a classification of some things as successful or superior and other things as failed or inferior. This also underlies the fascist's embracement of concepts like mental illness and IQ tests.  - R.J.V.

Luck is my main skill

pck

#24
Quote from: Zorba on March 12, 2013, 01:56:10 AM
Rolling 12 doubles or more in only 24 rolls has a chance of 1 in 6,000 roughly.

Rolling at least 12 doubles in 24 rolls has a probability of

(24 12) * 612 * 3612 / 3624 = 0,001242272 =~ 1/805

where (24 12) is "24 choose 12", that is, 24! / (12! * 12!)

Zorba

#25
I think there's an error in your formula there somewhere, but I don't know what it is. [edit: I think the 3612 should be 2512 and then you have the p for exactly 12 doubles.]

I just use the cumulative binomial distribution, with p=1/6, n=24 and X=12, then look at P {X>=12} which I'm pretty sure is the correct method.

http://stattrek.com/online-calculator/binomial.aspx

which gives you 0.0001697
The fascist's feelings of insecurity run so deep that he desperately needs a classification of some things as successful or superior and other things as failed or inferior. This also underlies the fascist's embracement of concepts like mental illness and IQ tests.  - R.J.V.

Luck is my main skill

pck

#26
Quote from: Zorba on March 12, 2013, 06:58:11 PM
I think there's an error in your formula there somewhere, but I don't know what it is. [edit: I think the 3612 should be 2512 and then you have the p for exactly 12 doubles.]

It needs to be 3012 for exactly 12 doubles. (30 = number of non-double rolls)

And yes, my result for at least 12 doubles was wrong. Selecting 12 places out of 24 and putting doubles into them and arbitrary rolls (including doubles) into the others doesn't work. That method counts certain sequences of the 24 rolls twice or more.

What I need to do for at least 12 doubles is to calculate the

sum for n=12 to 24   of   (24 n) * 6n * 3024-n

(exactly n doubles for n from 12 to 24 -- prevents double counting of sequences)

and divide by 3624

which is what the stattrek calculator does.

boomslang

Quote from: pck on March 12, 2013, 08:21:32 PM

What I need to do for at least 12 doubles is to calculate the

sum for n=12 to 24   of   (24 n) * 6n * 30n          (exactly n doubles for n from 12 to 24)

and divide by 3624

which is what the stattrek calculator does.



It should be: sum for n=12 to 24   of   (24 n) * 6n * 3024-n

(and divide by 3624)

pck

Quote from: boomslang on March 12, 2013, 08:32:30 PM

It should be: sum for n=12 to 24   of   (24 n) * 6n * 3024-n

(and divide by 3624)

Yes, thx. (Corrected in posting above.)


ushimata

Quote from: ah_clem on June 02, 2009, 04:12:42 PM
gnubg does not cheat with the dice.  You can verify this by simply setting it to "manual dice", and playing a few matches by rolling a real pair of dice and entering the rolls yourself.  You'll still get clobbered.


This is a very old tired topic, as every newbie has the impression that gnubg cheats because it wins almost all the time, when the real reason it wins almost all the time is that it's just a much better player than the newbie.

BTW, if you're frustrated with gnubg winning too much, you can dial down it's playing level to "beginner" or "casual player".  This definitely makes it more fun for newbies.  Once you start beating it on a regular basis you can increase its level accordingly.
wrong ! i set it to manual dice and i clubbered the SOB. before that i hardly won a game since netgammon stopped.