Re: No bugs, just a question

[Joseph Heled]

Maybe you should ask yourself this: what makes a position strong? You can argue that in such positions most rolls are "lucky", as in giving you another strong position, or most opponent rolls are "unlucky". This might go some way to explain this perceived impression. You make a bad move, your position is much the worst for it, so you allowed your opponent to "get lucky"

-Joseph

On Sat, 2 Jul 2022 at 15:35, Tom Moulton <tom@moulton.us> wrote:

There is no such logic in the code that I have ever seen

The human mind has a great ability to find patterns in chaos.

This topic comes up a lot with the playing bots on fibs.com

Tom

On July 1, 2022 10:47:11 PM EDT, Paul Thornett <pthornett@gmail.com> wrote:

I play backgammon to a reasonable standard and have always regarded
myself as an unlucky player, both as a real-life player and when
playing the gnubg version.

But, over several years, I have become convinced of a strong tendency
in gnubg to punish what it may regard as a bad move with remarkable,
even outrageous, luck. This has become so apparent to me that I can
usually predict extraordinarily lucky throws by the computer
immediately before they are made. This also, on occasion, works in
reverse. Occasionally the computer makes what I would regard as a bad
move. This has then resulted in a series of ridiculously lucky throws
by myself.

I can offer no evidence for this wild assertion, it's purely anecdotal.
Regards,
  Paul Thornett


Regards,

Paul Thornett


On Tue, 28 Jun 2022 at 03:32, Ian Shaw <Ian.Shaw@riverauto.co.uk> wrote:

 Hi Teddy,



 The luckier player wins a lot of the time. However, I’ve definitely seen many games where the luckier player had played badly enough to still lose. It’s often me!



 Perhaps you’re sample size is not large enough. That’s all I can suggest.



 (I’m not sure what happens if you play on any setting lower than ‘expert’).



 Best regards,

 Ian Shaw



 From: Bug-gnubg <bug-gnubg-bounces+ian.shaw=riverauto.co.uk@gnu.org> On Behalf Of hereodt Z
 Sent: 25 June 2022 20:04
 To: bug-gnubg@gnu.org
 Subject: No bugs, just a question



 Dear all who created GNUBg,





 Thank you for your wonderful, GREAT software.



 It provided me with countless hours of fun and relaxation.Maybe a little TOO much, but that's my problem ;).







 How come the winner, be it me or the computer, is always the luckiest player?



 I thought backgammon was a game of skill. 'Course, luck plays a role, but the outcome of the game to be SOLELY based on LUCK?! C'mon! How is it possible?



 Let's say I am not skilled and indeed, I can win only if I get lucky .



 But the computer is World Class, after all. How come IT never wins when it is less lucky than me?





 Thank you and Best regards,

 Teddy

--
Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.