REALLY?!!!

It’s not mathematically possible to roll THAT many doubles if the dice roll is, in fact, random. Obviosly, in this game, it is not. And, a preponderance of doubles come as the computer is bearing off. How nice for it. And what’s with the double 4’s? I get quite tired of seeing those. They come at a rate of nearly twice what a real dice roll would produce.

And why must there be a dice roll when one player is on the bar and the opposing player has all his inner table points covered? It’s a waste of time. In live play a turn would be forfeited until an inner table point opens up.

And speaking of wasting time; when bearing off if there is no mathematical possibility of winning why keep playing? Each player - including the computer - should have the option of resigning with the appropriate score being tallied so a new game can be started. Instead the computer keeps rolling those dice as if more than one pair may magically appear. The human player can resign but the computer wins only one point for the game notwithstanding the doubling cube having been used or a gammon or backgammon having been won. Taking advantage of this the human player can win nearly 100% of the matches providing a match consists of more than one or two games. That takes the challenge out of playing.

To add to these annoying time-wasting features the game moves too slowly. And even in the expert setting it makes some mind-numbingly stupid moves not the least of which is its steadfast insistence on leaving a blot behind enemy lines until it has no choice, even if advancing that stone will allow it to win the game. I’ve beat the machine many times as a result of this suicidal tactic.

This app does have a nice look and feel. It’s easy to play and has extras that are useful although the “Statistics” for all games played cannot be re-set. I even tried un-installing and re-installing the app but doing so did not delete the records of wins and loses. What’s up with that?

Fix this game. These problems are annoying and reason enough to delete this otherwise nicely crafted backgammon app.

butjenjopdsknfsld about Backgammon