Forum Archive : Play Sites

Play65/GammonEmpire From:   Butch Meese Address:   indybg@comcast.net Date:   5 July 2005 Subject:   GammonEmpire Forum:   GammOnLine Hi, Who has tried GammonEmpire? Any impressions? Thanks, Butch Meese Tomawaky  writes: Nice Looking. Easy to play. I rather play on play65.com but it's exactly the same. Everything you can need, I think. What I miss? No community! But if you just want to play money, its' one of the good ways, I think. Bruce Regittko  writes: I play there for low stakes money and fun. There is no chat in the lobby so there is no community but otherwise it is a nice site. Also, I've had no problems depositing or withdrawing money from my account. After you register and get a free account, they will give you $2.00 (real, not fun money) that you can "practice" with. Bruce Tom Keith  writes: Play65.com sponsors my website (Play65 is the same as GammonEmpire), so I thought I should try it out. I quite enjoy it, and now play there daily. You can play for fun money or real money. Playing for fun costs nothing. When you play for real money, the winner is charged a rake which depends on the ratings of the players. If both players are over 1700, the rake is reduced by 50%. I enjoy playing on both the fun side and the real- money side of the game. When you play for fun money, you start with a balance of $100. If that gets used up, another $100 magically appears. Obviously, players are a little freer with their cash on the Fun side. There are many medeocre players, but there are some very good players too. Players are color- coded according to their rating, so it is easy to find good player to play with. When you sign up to play for real money, you get a $2 credit (no deposit required). I was lucky my first few games and have been living off my initial two dollars ever since. To date, I have neither deposited nor withdrawn cash, so I can't say how that goes. The client software downloaded quickly to my Windows computer (you must have Windows) and runs like a charm most of the time. Occasionally there is a glich and the program crashes. But you just restart and your game resumes automatically. If a player loses his connection and stays away more than five minutes, the system automatically arbitrates the outcome. It determines each player's equity in the match (using BGBlitz, I believe), and distributes the pot accordingly. Both players get an e-mail message explaining what happened. The user-interface is well done. It is simple, but you can see that a lot of thought went into it. The mix of players seems a little different than FIBS (the only other place I have played). Players are identified by a flag showing their country, which is kind of nice. Play65 is based in the Middle East, so you see many Middle Eastern countries and Russia. Perhaps because of the language differences there is not much conversation on the site. One gripe I have is that it seems to be standard practice for players to "underresign," that is, to resign a single game when a gammon is still possible. You just have to get used to saying "no" to these. All in all, it is a very professionally done site. Misja  writes: I have been playing on Play65 for a while, and I like it. There is more money game action than on GamesGrid, where I used to play. One thing to take notice of is that they don't use the Jacoby rule. So in money games it is possible to win an undoubled gammon. Ian Shaw  writes: I play on GammonEmpire, too, and enjoy it. I pretty much concur with everyone's comments, so I won't repeat them. I've had no trouble withdrawing money -- it takes about 3 days to arrive in my paypal account. Adjudications of a few unfinished games have always seemed fair. The support department have always responded quickly and courtiously to my comments and suggestions, and they quickly fixed a couple of problems they had with auto-bearoff in the early days. My only gripe is the amount of time spent downloading updates. This is compulsory (you can't play until you're up-to-date), and can be a pain on a dial-up modem. Hopefully this will tail-off as the system matures and stabilises.   Did you find the information in this article useful?           Do you have any comments you'd like to add?

 

Play Sites

Arkadium  (Michael Volpatt, Oct 2003) 

BG Room  (Stanley E. Richards+, Oct 2007) 

Backgammon4Money--Announcement  (Will Edison, Dec 2001) 

Best value  (Kenny Lee Smith+, June 1998) 

Club Games  (Ashton Haze, Sept 2005) 

Club Games  (Tomawaky+, May 2005) 

Comparison of rakes  (Raccoon, Dec 2006) 

Comparison of rakes  (Raccoon, July 2006) 

Comparison of rakes  (Hank Youngerman+, Oct 2005) 

Comparison of rakes  (Daniel, Aug 2005) 

DailyGammon  (Dan Wittkopp+, July 2004) 

DailyGammon  (Scott Steiner+, Apr 2004) 

DailyGammon  (Phil Vanicek, May 2001) 

FIBS vs. GamesGrid  (Bob Stringer, May 2000) 

FIBS--Financial support  (Kit Woolsey, Aug 1997) 

FIBS--Original announcement  (Andreas Schneider, July 1992) 

FIBS--Top Tournament Performers  (Osman Guner, July 2003) 

FIBS--Your worst fears  (Richard Greenberg, Nov 1995) 

Fair Backgammon  (info, May 2006) 

Free online tournaments  (Ricardo Hui+, Mar 2009) 

Friendly play site  (Ian Dunstan+, Feb 2006) 

GameDesire  (Maciej Mróz, Sept 2004) 

GameSite2000--Announcment  (GameSite 2000, Jan 2000) 

Games4Dollars  (Info Team, Apr 2004) 

GamesGrid vs FIBS  (Jim Cochrane, Jan 1999) 

GamesGrid--Announcement  (CyberArts Inc., June 1996) 

GamesGrid--Comparison to FIBS  (Ken Arnold, May 1997) 

GamesGrid--Second version  (Ken Arnold, Sept 1996) 

GamesGrid--Update  (Ken Arnold, Mar 1998) 

Gammon Empire--Announcement  (Jerry, Nov 2004) 

Gammon11  (sirkaber, May 2006) 

HigherGames--Announcement  (Michael Gilbert, Dec 2003) 

ItsYourTurn--Announcement  (Tom Buhrman, Sept 1999) 

Ladbrokes.com  (mccm1976, May 2006) 

Link to review of play sites  (cindybel+, May 2006) 

MSN Gaming Zone--Overall experience  (Mark Ferrante+, Nov 1997) 

MSN Gaming Zone--Thoughts  (Gregg Cattanach, Dec 1998) 

MoneyGaming.com  (max+, July 2005) 

NOBS  (Lou Poppler+, Aug 1996) 

Overview  (chinaski+, June 2008) 

Overview  (Alan Webb, Jan 1999) 

PiranhaGammon  (Piranha, Dec 2007) 

Play site wish list  (Perry Gartner+, Dec 2012) 

Play65/GammonEmpire  (Butch Meese+, July 2005) 

Play65/GammonEmpire  (Daniel Murphy+, Dec 2004) 

Play65/GammonEmpire vs. TrueMoneyGames  (oneprime+, Feb 2005) 

Play65/GammonEmpire--Are they the same?  (Tony Yarwood+, Aug 2005) 

Play65/GammonEmpire--Review  (Tom Keith+, Sept 2005) 

Play65/GammonEmpire--Withdrawal symptoms  (David Warmind+, May 2007) 

Play65/GammonEmpire--Withdrawal symptoms  (Erik Sorensen+, Apr 2007) 

Playmaker World--Announcement  (Michael Crane, Nov 2001) 

Playsite--Announcement  (Seth Tapper, Mar 1997) 

Ratings comparison  (Daniel Murphy, Aug 1999) 

Richard's Play-by-E-mail Server  (Richard Rognlie, May 1997) 

TrueMoneygames--Announcement  (TrueMoneygames Info, Apr 2002) 

VOG  (Glenn+, Feb 2000) 

Where to play for money  (mginat+, May 2006) 

Where to play for money  (Victor Zanfer+, Apr 2005) 

Yahoo Games  (Steve Fiete+, Mar 1998) 

Yahoo Games--Ratings  (Neil GoBlu+, July 2000) 

melBG--Announcement  (David Kinston, Dec 2000) 

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