With the battle against the misuse of backgammon bots, we almost forgot that these programs were originally purposed to help us become better players. I thought about it after reading an interview with Martin Smith, GameAccount bots buster and the creator of ProBot, not the heavy metal side project of Nirvana drummer and Foo Fighters lead-singer Dave Grohl, but the toughest challenger in the family of the games network’s robotic opponents which includes AmateurBot, RookieBot and Beginnerbot, on FT.com.

Backgammon Bots History Revisited

First, an old obligation. At the end of the first episode of the long and winding history of backgammon bots, after looking at the first experiments in backgammon computing, the winning BKG 9.8. and the commercially successful Expert Backgammon, I promised to leap forward to 1990 to review TD-Gammon, still the most revolutionary backgammon software in the history of the game and artificial intelligence.

TD-Gammon Backgammon Software

TD-Gammon was developed by Gerald Tesauro of IBM’s Watson Research Center in New York, as part of a reinforcement learning study. The TD stands for Temporal Difference learning, a prediction method mainly used for reinforcement learning, or in less scientific jargon, the computer taught itself to play backgammon and to play better and better. The eventual result was the first neural net to really take up the best human players. Moreover, TD-Gammon could have also improved the way its human opponents played backgammon.

Back to ProBot

Mr. Smith, whose doctoral thesis is based on Teasauro machine, had similar methodical aims when building his family of bots (which, by the way, can not only play backgammon but also blackjack, poker and other skill-luck combined games). That is why ProBot is not undefeatable; as in human vs. human backgammon games, a beginner can beat a pro with the right rolls.

What ProBot does is "it wins for a couple of weeks, then the humans figure out how to beat it and they win for a couple of weeks while Smith goes away and works on his software… Then he comes back with a new version of the program that wins for a couple of weeks, while the humans go away and think about it." While the bot’s younger, less skilled brothers are programmed to make stupid mistakes, just like humans do.

According to Smith, who holds a PhD in with Artificial Intelligence and a past in chess and poker hustling, these nonhuman players are the best opponents a human player can ask for; bots don’t bitch and whine as you win nor do they blow their horn when you lose, "they won’t be saying: ‘I’m just going to make a cup of tea,’ and not come back. There’s none of those annoying human frailties."

The Naumburg Bandshell area in Central Park, New York City was covered yesterday with authentic Mediterranean sand to disguise itself to Tel Aviv beach. To complete the costume, Israeli DJ, reggae and rock bands performed and the usual attributes of a beach in Tel Aviv covered the sand including tanning beds, sunshades, games of beach volleyball (matkot) and, of course, backgammon (shesh besh). The sun, however, was absent through most of the day.

The reason for this metamorphosis was Tel Aviv 100th anniversary and the first day of the summer. The cost of the one day project was estimated as $150,000 and it was sponsored by the Foreign Ministry, the Tourism Ministry, the Tel Aviv Municipality and El Al Airlines. Tel Aviv beach will be re-replicated in Vienna on July 19 and once again from July 25th to August 2nd in Copenhagen. You don’t have to bring your own backgammon boards.

Below, pictures from a real beach in Tel Aviv, taken at the first beach backgammon championship held last summer:

Ishai Shotten, Play65’s long time affiliate, won the wii game console in the first ever Affilicon backgammon tournament held last week during the affiliate marketing convention and exhibition in Airport City, Israel. To win the wii, Mr. Shotten bested 6 of the toughest rivals out of the 30 enthusiastic backgammon affiliates who attended the backgammon tournament; about half of them were qualified online while the others followed the smell of freshly baked brownies, the sound of rolling dice and the rumors about a free wii desperately seeking owners.

Mr. Shotten however, hardly ever play backgammon online, though he appreciates Play65 backgammon software ("I think that the software and gameplay are good") and affiliate program ("It’s decent, somewhere in the middle") he prefers playing backgammon live, with his friends; apparently, it takes an incentive such as a wii console to get the competitive backgammon devil out of him.

So backgammon made a brief yet notable appearance in Lost, thickening the plot by adding extra layers of cosmic meanings, but backgammon as a game is hardly a spectator’s sports. Though several attempts have been made to televise backgammon championships (from the forgotten experiment of The Crowns Cup to the World Series of Backgammon, now beginning its third season), but none have them succeed in giving backgammon the same push the broadcast of World Series of Poker gave poker, for example.

But comparing backgammon to poker in this sense is not fair as long as no backgammon equivalent to hole cards camera (which exposes the player’s hidden cards to the viewers at home) can be found.

So what can improve the viewers rating of backgammon? Speed backgammon games? Suspensive men vs. backgammon bots sessions? Nude backgammon with swimsuit models? or Play65 backgammon channel? All suggestions will be welcomed.