Rodney Smith does a lot of Euro game explanations, but here is his backgammon video:
Brian
That was incredibly helpful. Thank you.
BTW: Rodney Smith looks like Brian Dietzen.
That would be an “automatic double”. In money games, players usually agree to no automatic doubles, or set a reasonable limit of one or two, so that the cube never starts higher than 2 or 4.
I’ve played three games with the game I have. I lost the first two, and won the third.
The Backgammon Masters Online game I have on my desktop seems to like giving my virtual opponent doubles when it’s time to bear off the pieces. I get doubles sometimes, but my opponent seems to get at least twice as many.
The curious thing about backgammon is EVERYONE believes they get fewer doubles in the bear off than their opponent 
.
GNU Backgammon was accused of this so much that the developers gave users the random seed to any game they played where you can follow what all the rolls of the game would be, in order to rule out any hanky panky, and yet folks were still suspicious that the computer somehow cheated.
That’s a flexible rule when playing for money. In most money games I’ve played, the higher number gets the option of rerolling to allow for the possibility of doubles. Why should you be penalized for winning the beginning throw?
I used to play an opponent who constantly whined about my lucky numbers. So one game, I had a third party write down every throw of our game, which I eventually won.
Then we played again, this time we had to use each others throws. I won again… and that finally shut him up.
Ah yes, the old Bear Bryant method.
Well, in nearly all cases (I believe 2-1 is the sole exception), winning the opening roll puts you ahead already. I suspect this rule variation swings the advantage too much towards the luckier player.
Of course, the rather… deterministic nature of the reverse game would also benefit the player with the better memory, especially if that player was the one who set up the challenge in the first place, and paid rather better attention to the sequence of rolls than the other.
I mean, it’s easy to leave a blot on a (normally) vulnerable point when you can be sure your opponent won’t be able to hit it with their next roll, and your next roll means you’ll be able to double it up. Not that I’m accusing Lucas_Jackson of doing this, at least not consciously.
Ha ha, you are giving my memory skill way more credit than it deserves. Both of us knew in advance what was taking place so there was equal opportunity to memorize the entire sequence of rolls. But that’s a very tall order for anyone - even if you could memorize 95% of the rolls (virtually impossible in my mind), if you forget one roll in the sequence, that could do you in.
That’s true - one miss and you’re toast. And it’s hard to construct a memory palace on the fly.
It does bring up one question though - are there duplicate backgammon tournaments, set up like duplicate bridge? These days, you could do it with a bunch of pseudorandom number generators, all set to the same seed at the start of each game.
Yeah, I’m sure you could. But this was a one-off thing.
I know there are chess masters who can play opponents blindfolded, etc. but I claim no special skills and this was the only time I’ve done it. It was this one guy who could never bring himself to admit he lost fair and square so this was my attempt to shut him up.
I also considered playing him and not counting doubles as doubles, but in the end did it that way. And it worked, the few times I played him after that, he took his lumps.
Just because the opening roll can’t be a double doesn’t mean that player is penalized.
Player A gets a turn (which can’t be a double).
Player B gets a turn.
Player A gets a turn.
etc.
The advantage of going first is not as great as it might otherwise be, but I’d say it’s still an advantage to go first. I wouldn’t agree to a game where the winner got the option to re-roll.
The potential to roll doubles on a first re-roll isn’t that great either. I disagree that going first is a significant advantage.
Having the option to roll double on you opening roll evens the playing field. In casual and tournament play I’ll happily follow the official rules but not for money. Not that it’s a deal breaker, but I’ll certainly push for it.
But in practice it rarely alters the opening game.
I didn’t say it was a significant advantage. Removing the possibility of starting with a double keeps it to a small advantage. That’s how it should be. A game should be as fair as we can make it. The player who’s lucky enough to get the first move shouldn’t get a huge advantage; that would put too much emphasis on one lucky roll.
This does not make sense. Going first is a slight advantage. Making that advantage bigger does not level the playing field, it makes it more un-level.
Personally, I think the option to re-roll is more of an advantage than just the possibility of rolling a double. If you get a good roll, like 3-1, 4-2, or 6-5, you can take it. If you don’t like the roll, you get to try again. I wonder if this rule change was suggested for money games to make luck a bigger part of the game.
Suppose you and I were to play a game. To start, we each roll one die. If we roll the same number, we roll again. If the dice don’t match, I will use those numbers and make the first move, regardless of who rolled the higher number. Would you accept those rules?
There’s a discussion of this on Reddit:
https://www.reddit.com/r/backgammon/comments/mpgt1n/probability_of_winning_for_first_player_if/
Opening player with standard rules (no doubles) has a 51.3% win probability (that’s pretty well established elsewhere, too). Allowing opening doubles seems to get that probability up to 53.6% if the math in that thread is to be believed. Also, a 4-1 opening roll is the only one that gives the second to go a very slight advantage.
In the game I’m playing, you can’t have doubles on the first move. If you and your opponent roll the same number, neither one gets to go first. You roll until one player gets a higher number than the other player, and the player with the higher number uses the numbers on both dice as his first roll.
Those are the normal rules, yes.