Backgammon Studio 3.7! Tournament edition!

[PillowFighter]

Hi!

Backgammon Studio keeps improving and today I have updated the version number to 3.7 with these fine improvements:

Backgammon Studio 3.7

Improvements since 3.6:

• Tournaments!
  
• You can now join in on online tournaments on Backgammon Studio! 4, 8, 16 and 32 player tournaments supported. 64 is a bit too optimistic!
  
• Speed gammon tournaments and PR tournaments in addition to normal tournaments.
  
• Hourly tournaments are automatically created. Currently 4 player and 8 player dmp and 5pt tournaments are created.
  
• Observe matches! You can now observe matches between other players. Suggested by ericg.
  
• Match clocks! You now have match clocks when playing online matches. Standard 2*matchlength+bronstein 12sec add. Suggested by Tore.
  
• Poke tournament opponents! If your tournament opponent you can send an email notification that you're ready to play. Once per day only.
  
• You can now create notes on opponents. Did you uncover a weakness in your opponent? Write it down and try to exploit it the next time you play! Suggested by Aistis.
  
• Graph your online match PR performance.
  
• My matches: lowest average PR after 20 matches.
  
• Check your PR for the last 5, 10, 20, 50 or 100 matches.
  
• Idle! You can now see users who have been idle for a while. Suggested by torkel.
  
• New actiontags:
  
  
  
  • Split or blot: Should you split your back checkers (24p) or create a homeboard blot? Suggested by Aurélien Bonnet.
    
  • Split and blot or not: Should you split and create a homeboard blot at the same time? The big play! Suggested by Aurélien Bonnet.
    
  • Step under the gun or not: Should you place a checker in harms way of 3 or more builders? Suggested by Aurélien Bonnet.
    
  • Slot the 18 point or not: Slotting the 18 point and putting it in harms way can be just what the position calls for as a way to disrupt some of your opponent choices.
    
  • Bearin or not: Should you bear in a checker from your outfield or are there better options available?
    
  • Bearin one or two: Sometimes you will have the choice of bearing in one or two checkers.
    
  • Make 5 point or 3 point: The 5 point is very tempting to make but perhaps there are exceptions where the 3 point is the better choice. Surprisingly often a double 3 is involved...
    
  • Make 4 point or bar: Making the 4 point or bar point typically with a small double can sometimes be tricky to choose between.
    
• New training tracks:
  
  
  
  • Gun range! Step under the gun and let your opponent blast away? Scary!
    
  • Safety first! Play it safe with no blots or opt for more flexibility?
    
  • Race cube! It is a race! But is it a cube? Suggested by Dániel Kocsis.
    
• New timed training tracks:
  
  
  
  • Firepower 2! Timed tdding a spare to a point can give you extra firepower for attack or more point making numbers. Or are there more clever options available?
    
  • Pickup artist 2! Timed pick&pass with a checker is a nifty way to get an advantage but sometimes it might be worth just hitting and possibly make the point in the next turn.
    
  • Double whammy 2! Timed hitting two checkers can be very effective if you aren't hit back. Worth the risk?
    
  • Trapped 2! Timed create a blocking point in front of an opponent anchor? Possibly trapping your opponent behind a prime? Could be worth a try!
    
  • All you need is 6 2! Timed the 6pt is such a sweet point to keep and it is easy to overlook when you should give it up for tactical (or other) reasons. Is now the right time?
    
  • Deep stacker 2! Timed creating deep stacks on the 2 or 3 point can often look pretty ugly but perhaps the alternatives are worse?
    
  • Great barrier bearoff 2! Timed the deuce point can act as a great barrier against bearoff. How to safely get your men across?
    
  • No hitter 2! Timed you are far behind in the race (>40) and now you can hit! Surely you must hit! Or?
    
  • Backfire 2! Timed the stakes (cube) just got raised even more! Perhaps not part of the plan but what to do?
    
  • Race cube 2! Timed it is a race! But is it a cube?
    
• Added incorrect drop to cube handling player statistics. Thanks Daniel!
  
• Week in review: cube action only option.
  
• New desktop shortcuts: ctrl-l to go directly to the lobby. ctrl-d to switch databases.
  
• You can now have separate settings in your private database and public database. Nice if you want different layout when you are viewing your private db and when you view the public db.
  
• Reset settings! You can now reset your settings to default values if you have made a mess of them. Suggested by Rin-zing.
  
• Bugfixes:
  
  
  
  • If you had disabled 'enable manual input' playing matches broke down rather quickly. Thanks ThomasK!
    
  • The double dialogs that show up when you click on a user now show up beside each other and not on top of each other. Thanks ThomasK!
    
  • Fixed problem with displaying reversed position when reviewing positions after an online match was completed.
    
  • Winning/Gammon estimation had started to always default to hard level (within 2% of correct answer) which is just cruel...
    
  • Playing as white and clicking on past moves then last move would display the next move incorrectly.
    
  • 'More action tags' section was missing from search if using horizontal menu. Thanks Artur!
    
  • 
    
• Known issues:
  
  
  
  • Blinking board issue when using Firefox. Using Chrome "solves" it. The root cause of this problem is still unknown.
    
  • Sometimes unresponsive page in Internet Explorer. Using Chrome "solves" it. Google ad network can trigger an avalanche of browser errors/warnings (press F12 to check).
    

Some images



Backgammon Studio now supports the creation and running of tournaments. I have added support for 4,8,16 and 32 player tournaments. You will receive a notification in the chat when a tournament is ready to start and you will also receive an email when this happen.

There is an option for normal, speedgammon and PR tournaments. A PR tournament requires you to play on the lowest PR to advance (stuff I need to create a Dual duel tournament later...).



Some tournaments are manually created while others are automatically created every hour.



You get points for tournament wins and reaching the final. The longer matches and/or the more players join a tournament the more points you get. Join as many tournaments as you can! You don't have to stick around for the tournament to start but will be notified when it starts (tournament matches can be played at any time).



If your opponent isn't present you can send an email notification to the opponent letting your opponent know you are ready to play. You can only do this once per day so make it count! Depending on which timezone your oponent lives in you can try at different times if your first attempt doesn't succeede.

You should see the pending tournament matches dialog when you log in and when you return to the home screen.



You can observe matches between other players and there is also an observer chat channel to chat with other observers. The players playing the match can also use this which will send the message to the observers and also to your opponent.



You can now take a look at your online PR performance progress as a graph.



Always sweet with new action tags! Each can potentially become a trainingtrack and all of them end up in the action training section.



New training tracks! Sweet! Can you become the new champion? Give it your best shot!



Discovered a weakness in an opponent? Write it down and exploit it the next time you play this opponent!



I still have work to do before I'm back to my past lowest average. Work in progress!

In other news

Over 2000 online matches have been played on Backgammon Studio so far! Pretty sweet!

I see there are still users who try to register with an invalid email address or for other reasons fail to validate their email address. If you have tried to register but were never able to validate your email please email me and I'll help you out! terjepe@gmail.com

https://www.backgammonstudio.com The swiss army knife of backgammon!

Best regards,
TP