Forum Archive :
Variations
I invented lately a variant of backgammon that completely excludes the
luck component. It is a quite satisfying game. It can be played on a
computer, as detailed below, or between two human players, although
games sometimes tend to be long and frustrating. It also has a
drawback--since it is a deterministic game, some winning sequences are
easily memorized, so it wears itself out after playing a few games.
I call the variant Gabgammon, and its rules are as follows:
1. The game is basically regular backgammon, with the following
exceptions.
2. Only 1-point games are played. The doubling cube is not used, and
there are no gammons or backgammons.
3. The players do not roll any dice. Instead, the dice always have a
constant value of 3-4.
I successfully played Gabgammon using the computer software Gnubg,
which allows dice to be read from a file. I prepared a long text file
with the values 3 and 4, and configured Gnubg to play 1-point matches
using the values from that file. Interestingly, during the first games
Gnubg made pretty well, and only after a couple of games I started to
get hold of some winning tricks.
It is of course possible to play Gabgammon not only with 3-4 but with
any other of 14 possible dice values. However, most combinations are
futile and lead to trivial games. Only the combination of 3-4 leads to
complex positions and can hold for more than a couple of games. Try it
and enjoy.
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Variations
- Acey-deucy (J. Nagel, Dec 2004)
- Acey-deucy (Steve Ewert, June 1998)
- Acey-deucy (Lee+, Jan 1997)
- Acey-deucy (John David Galt+, Dec 1995)
- Acey-deucy (James Eibisch, Apr 1995)
- Backwards play (Colin Bell+, Feb 1996)
- Bad advice (Jason Lee+, Mar 2004)
- Best-of-n variant of match play (Tim Chow+, Feb 2009)
- Bluff Cube (Timothy Chow+, Dec 2012)
- BluffGammon (Christian Munk-Christensen, June 2009)
- Cancelgammon (Ilia Guzei+, Mar 2004)
- Domino backgammon (Laury Chizlett, Sept 1999)
- Duodecagammon (David Moeser, Dec 2000)
- Duplicate backgammon (Dean Gay+, Jan 1997)
- Duplicate backgammon (Albert Steg, Feb 1996)
- Exact bearoff (Chris Moellering+, Dec 2002)
- Fevga (George, Sept 2004)
- Fevga (or Moultezim) (Igor Sheyn+, May 1995)
- Freeze-out match (Dave Brotherton, July 1998)
- Gabgammon (jckz, Oct 2005)
- Greek backgammon (Alexandre Charitopoulos, Aug 2003)
- Greek backgammon (Alexandros Chatzipetros, June 1997)
- Greek backgammon (Marc Jacobs+, Feb 1994)
- Hit man (Matt Reklaitis, Jan 2004)
- Hyper backgammon (Gregg Cattanach+, Dec 2000)
- Hyper backgammon (Michael A Urban, Oct 1993)
- International backgammon (Bob Lancaster+, Oct 2002)
- Jacquet (Mark Driver, June 2001)
- Joker cube (Joe Russell+, May 2011)
- Khachapuri (Michael Petch+, Sept 2010)
- Kleinman's tandem backgammon (Fabrice Liardet+, May 2010)
- LongRun (Bill Hickey, Mar 2010)
- Longgammon (Michael Strato, Dec 2000)
- Low number first, fixed dice, others. (Walter Trice, Jan 1997)
- Mexican (Tom Henry, Apr 1997)
- Middle Eastern backgammon (Alan Cairns, Mar 2002)
- Misere (backgammon to lose) (Jason Lee+, July 2004)
- Misere (backgammon to lose) (Jason Lee+, Apr 1995)
- Misere, Chase, Skewed dice (Stein Kulseth, Jan 1997)
- Nackgammon (Ken Arnold, July 1996)
- Nackgammon Shuffle (Stick, Sept 2011)
- Nackgammon opening moves (Warwick+, Feb 2002)
- Narde (narde, Nov 2006)
- Nardi (KL Gerber+, Nov 2002)
- No hit (RedTop+, May 2004)
- Nuclear backgammon (Walt Swan, Apr 1997)
- Old English (Nick Wedd+, Feb 1996)
- One roll lookahead (Stephen Turner, Mar 1997)
- Opening slot rule (Gregg Cattanach, June 2006)
- Other variations (Douglas Zare, Feb 2000)
- Plakoto (Ed Dengler+, May 1995)
- Plakoto (Pasteel M., Feb 1994)
- Plakoto express (Athansios Vagias, Feb 2005)
- Portes (George, Sept 2004)
- Roll-over (Edward D. Collins, Oct 1997)
- Russian backgammon (Daavid Turnbull, Aug 1991)
- SassanGammon (Chiva Tafazzoli+, June 2009)
- Shesh Besh (G.S., May 2003)
- Simborg Rule (Scott+, Feb 2005)
- Slot backgammon (Fabrice Liardet+, Aug 2008)
- Sudden death, Woodpecker, Gerhardsen (Fredrik Dahl, Jan 1997)
- Tablestakes betting (TrueMoneygames, June 2002)
- Takhteh (Bruce Scott+, Mar 2003)
- Tandem Backgammon (Mislav Kovacic, Feb 2012)
- Tavla (Arda Findikoglu, Nov 2004)
- Tavla (ucc02cx+, Feb 1997)
- Tavli (Portes, Plakoto, and Fevga) (Jens Larsen, July 1997)
- Tavli question (Brus+, Apr 2011)
- Tracy turn around (Michael J. Zehr, Feb 1996)
- Tri-gammon (Gregg Cattanach, Sept 2000)
- Trictrac (David Levy+, May 1998)
- Trigammon (James Eibisch, Jan 1997)
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