Game 2, move 3, 4: roadkillbooks 6-3 NEXT, team 1-1 NEXT, rkb 3-1

[Zorba]

s5zBASSwc8YBAw:cAmvAAAACAAA

Click on the diagram to enlarge it, and you''ll see the blue arrow at the bottom homeboard. So, it's Blue's turn. Then look below the board, and you'll see White is the FIBSBoard Forum with 0 points (5-away from winning), and Blue is roadkillbooks with 1 point (4-away from winning), next to that, it says match:5 for the matchlength. Below all this, are both players pipcounts. The number in brackets shows the difference (minus = less pips to go, so ahead in the race).

Hope this helps!

[Zorba]

13/7 10/7 is obvious, back to the team!

[Zorba]

sNuJAQOznMEBJA:MIGkAAAACAAA

Team 1-1, again obvious enough: 24/21 22/21

Then, rkb NO DOUBLE, rolls 3-1:

s5zBAQaw24kBAw:cImsAAAACAAA

[socksey]

What's this?   

s5zBASSwc8YBAw:cAmvAAAACAAA

and this? 

s5zBAQaw24kBAw:cImsAAAACAAA

and why am I the only one asking?

socksey



"Laughter is the shortest thing between two people"--Victor Borge  (I could interject something here but I bite my tongue!)

[Zorba]

The codes are GnuBG ID's, you can enter them in GnuBG and it will know the position, score, cube etc. Very handy for the bot geeks like me who like to analyze this with the computer 

[diane]

What's this?    and this?     and why am I the only one asking?

Hmm, I am seeing that too - I assumed it wasn't anything much - just a filename or something.  But given that I can't see any of the info like match score, pip colour, pip count or anything we previously included with each play...I now wonder if it is that - in some weird code that isn't doing so well on firefox?

Please enlighten me - and can we have the match details with each play, I am really struggling with who is what colour and which way we are playing - given all the swapping that is going on  

[diane]

The codes are GnuBG ID's, you can enter them in GnuBG and it will know the position, score, cube etc. Very handy for the bot geeks like me who like to analyze this with the computer 

How on earth would I do that 

[socksey]

I'm not a computer geek and am totally lost.  I don't know which way the board is facing and am hesitant to respond lest I look stupid again.  

socksey



"The greatest of all faults is to be conscious of none."--Thomas Carlyle

[socksey]

Ah, thank you, diane!     Now I don't feel so bad.     Apparently, you were posting at the same time I was. 

socksey



"You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else." - Albert Einstein

[stog]

zorba has moved our runners up with the 11 - no poll and he has called it 24 something but it isn't those numbers!on the diagram -it's 1/4,3/4
we r white going anti clockwise btw (thx diane

[ah_clem]

I'm completely confused here.  I'm not seeing the moves as obvious, and I'm having a real hard time even frguriing out what's going on.  Good thing Zorba is playing for us, 'cause I'm completely lost.

[diane]

we r white going clockwise btw

Only sometimes, well we are always white, but which way we are going is not so cut and dried   

[diane]

I'm completely confused here.  I'm not seeing the moves as obvious, and I'm having a real hard time even frguriing out what's going on.  Good thing Zorba is playing for us, 'cause I'm completely lost.

that sums it up perfectly 

[vikingblood80]

We are white and which of the possible 4 directions we are playing doesn't matter to me. The only thing I have to look whose (which color) turn it is.

OK the codes with the GNUBG-ID's were also obvious to me..always thought that these were HEXADECIMAL but then no Y could appear.Whats behind is some kind of sum were the checkers are placed..so this is a unique value...already the inventor of that Gary Wong (I guess) was a bit criticised for that unreadability of this code.

Well with the 6-3 the only good thing rbk was to make the bar point and with the 1-1 we should go for the highest possible anchor.With a calm look on the board I see this moves also quite quickly but I agree with the others that it was too fast. I'm also a quite impatient player who cant await to see the next move but with that OlineMatch I think you should not go that fast. The players want to consider about the best moves on themselves so that it has some kind of entertaining character.

Cheers Viking

[roadkillbooks]

OK.  Wow.  How things change in several hours.  Before I move if people are confused about how the board is...dont switch it for me.  It easy enough for me to set up a board here.  I just need to look at my moves from my side.  If I play chouette I have to be right next to the captain or I cant follow whats going on..  I will always say my moves from my perspective w/o importance to what is on the image if the image is the forums perspective.  That is standard notation now ( i think).

13/10, 8/7 is my move.

There are two options here "playing safe" with something like 10/7, 6/5 and its variants or 13/10, 8/7 or 6/5

Of the two options..if i "play safe"  i will be stuck in a  classical mutual holding game.  Im behind in the race but I have a better position. Victory will proablly came down to whoever hits a shot.  Ill probally have slightly better chances to do that because forum is behind the 4 prime and will have to break earlier.  Victory is many rolls away.  I also fell like a sitting duck trying to get all my pieces around before my opponents throw a big double. or hit me.  
The 13/10 varieties give me a broken 5 prime.  Forums escape numbers are no that ESPCAPE numbers.  Even some of the worst following combinations (except 55) leave me in a solid position.  Ill even feel good about 1-2 hit/cover.  Several numbers will play pretty bad.  I mean it gets down to....

I have a prime so BUILD IT..

the one is about even.  I prefer to leave a piece on the 6 point because Im used to having it there so it plays more natural for me.

Dont roll for me next turn before I make my double decision.....unless the forum rolls 5-5 in which Im going to whine about "fibs dice".

[vikingblood80]

That is standard notation now ( i think).

Yes it is...I agree on that. That's why FIBS pointing a move as 10/19 looks a bit awkward to me. 

Spoiler

NEXT lol..at some appropriate level  players do see this as a next but may be a beginner would not

OK whats the position here? rbk is behind in the race, has the better anchor and the weaker board..this all tends to a blocking play..making the 10 is essential here since from now our only number to escape a back checker is a 5..its rather a big difference then with escaping with 5 or 6..in case we must leave then he has more checkers placed (on the 10) for POH also with 6es. The ace doesn't seem to make a big difference but 8/7 looks smoother and gives more builders in future.

But what about leaving a blot one might ask? Look at the position..its really no big deal if he got hit here. He got the best anchor and we even have a blot in our home...

so 13/10 8/7

[close]

One suggestion...in our OLM (on-line match) at Hardy's board we use the convention that the final decision of the move is printed in bold faced letters, this really makes it easier to read. Could we please use this here as well? Would appreciate this very much...thx so far.

[stog]

we r white going anti clockwise btw

thx diane 

[diane]

I have a prime so BUILD IT..

the one is about even.  I prefer to leave a piece on the 6 point because Im used to having it there so it plays more natural for me.

Dont roll for me next turn before I make my double decision.....unless the forum rolls 5-5 in which Im going to whine about "fibs dice".

Spoiler

That was pretty much where I got to with this move [once I worked out which way you were going  ] with the odd 1 being the only ponder moment - was there any advatage to moving one piece or another - so you answered that   

[close]

It only remains for me to say....COME ON 55 

[playBunny]

s5zBASSwc8YBAw:cAmvAAAACAAA

Hmm, I am seeing that too - I assumed it wasn't anything much - just a filename or something.  But given that I can't see any of the info like match score, pip colour, pip count or anything we previously included with each play...I now wonder if it is that - in some weird code that isn't doing so well on firefox?

OK the codes with the GNUBG-ID's were also obvious to me..always thought that these were HEXADECIMAL but then no Y could appear.Whats behind is some kind of sum were the checkers are placed..so this is a unique value...already the inventor of that Gary Wong (I guess) was a bit criticised for that unreadability of this code.

The GnuBg Id does indeed encode the match score, cube state, whose move, piece placement, etc. The encoding is pretty compact. It's in Base 64, which is why it can includes 'Y' (and '+' and ''/', which makes looks even wierder).

There are two major criticisms that I'd make about the GnuBg Id format:

One is that the two parts on either side of the ':' are the Position Id and the Match Id. Unfiortunately you can't take a Position Id in isolation and recreate the position! The pieces are encoded according to whose turn it is, not who the top and bottom players are, and the turn information is stored in the Match Id. That makes it awkward when coding because, for instance, you have to construct a complete match scenario in order to display a position. :-/

The other is that the Id consists of a bit stream with defined field lengths but the Base64 encoding is done in locks of 8 bits. Encoding an Id on a Windows machine requires reversing the individual values' binary values to store them in the fields and then taking the full bitstream, chopping it up into 8-bit blocks and then reversing each of these to get the character code. (Or something like that, it boggles my mind and I have to look at the code to remember which way to do it). I guess it's something to do with the bit-order differences between Gary Wong's hardware (some University mainframe/mini?) and Unix versus Intel and Windows. Whatever the reason it's one of those issues that Computing could live without.

[Zorba]

Okay, looks like I created a bit of a mess here.  I can assure you all though, nothing irregular happened

Hmm, I am seeing that too - I assumed it wasn't anything much - just a filename or something.  But given that I can't see any of the info like match score, pip colour, pip count or anything we previously included with each play...I now wonder if it is that - in some weird code that isn't doing so well on firefox?

Please enlighten me - and can we have the match details with each play, I am really struggling with who is what colour and which way we are playing - given all the swapping that is going on  

Sorry if people missed this, but all this information is neatly put into the screenshot. If you look at the part right under the board, you'll see the players names and their colours! Also, the matchscore, matchlength and pipcounts are all included there. And if you look carefully, you'll see an arrow near the homeboard indicating the colour of the player on turn, and showing the direction of play! 

About the direction of play in general: there's basically 4 ways to play on a diagram: clockwise or anti-clockwise, and top-to-bottom or bottom-to-top. This gives 4 combinations total. It's standard that the player on roll goes from top-to-bottom, so your homeboard will be on your side (bottom). There is however not a standard for clockwise or anti-clockwise, if only for the simple reason that if one player plays clockwise, the opponent will have to move anti-clockwise and vice versa. So, at least on a real board, a player should be able to handle both directions.

On internet diagrams, some sort of standard seems to have emerged to have the player on turn play clockwise, so that's my preferred direction. If everyone here prefers the other direction, I'lll change it, but I suspect some will like this direction better, and others the other direction. And I think it would be nice to support the (supposedly) evolving standard.

roadkillbooks asked me earlier in this match if I could post the diagrams for his turn also with his homeboard at the bottom. That requires me to flip sides every time, and unfortunately GnuBG then also switches the colours of the checkers for both players, which can be quite confusing indeed. As rkb suggested, I'll stop doing this from now on.

So, it will always be the forum team at the bottom, playing clockwise with BLUE, and rkb at the top, playing anti-clockwise with WHITE (WHITE).

Then a little bit about notation: It has become standard to switch the numbers on a bg board according to who's on turn. I.e., your backcheckers always start on point 24, and your homeboard is points 6 to 1. Thus, checkers always move from higher points to lower points. An opening 3-1 is thus always played 8/5 6/5.

Most backgammon programs have adapted to this system and will flip the point numbers every turn. Unfortunately this does not seem to be the case in f.i. JavaFIBS, causing confusion. You can however simply use the numbers at the bottom for the top row, and the numbers at the top for the bottom row. I'd highly recommend getting used to this system, as it's used everywhere nowadays.

About NEXTing plays: This always leads to debate, some people want to move on faster, others want to stop at every play, etc. If anything, I think going slightly too fast is preferable to going slightly too slow, as it will likely grab people's attention better and increase participation. 

I think the two plays above are two very clear nexts. That does not mean I think everyone should find these two plays in seconds; it means I'm >99% sure what the outcome of a vote would be, and that I think there will be zero votes for any alternative. So I think it's better to move on then. It does not mean the forum can't discuss the play anymore. Actually, by NEXTing, you just get an extra decision to discuss, and one that's more interesting. The matches will move on faster too, so we can play more of them with more happening, and I think that outweighs the fact that once in a blue moon, someone might see a NEXT they would've played differently.

N.B.: The second best play was over 0.30 behind (a potential triple blunder), for both NEXTs above. That in itself is not always reason to NEXT something, but in both cases there was a straightforward standout play (make the 4-prime leaving just very few shots, and anchoring cleanly at the edge of it) and basically nothing to recommend for the alternative.

Last but least  : The GnuBG ID's posted here are just an extra service, you don't need them for anything else. I suggest discussion about how they work is held in the GnuBG subforum.

Hope this cleans up a bit of the mess here At least we got some good discussion going, which must be a good thing for a forum Keep the suggestions and questions coming!