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https://lichess.org https://lichess.org is fantastic for online chess. But we need a lichess for Backgammon! Backgammon has tons of strategy but also has the e

https://lichess.org https://lichess.org is fantastic for online chess. But we need a lichess for Backgammon! Backgammon has tons of strategy but also has the element of chance because of the dice roll - anyone can win anygame (in theory, at least). There is even a lichess forum post about making lichess for backgammon: https://lichess.org/forum/lichess-feedback/backgammon-clone-of-lichess https://lichess.org/forum/lichess-feedback/backgammon-clone-...

bschne 6y ago
Playing chess was only a brief phase for me, I never really got into it, but I love lichess - it's open source, completely free, doesn't run ads, and the UX is amazing, it just works perfectly and there are no unnecessary gimmicks. One of those few exemplary projects to take a big chunk of inspiration from, if you ask me!
- shpongled 6y ago
  Lichess is the best 'web app' I've used, bar none.
- noir_lord 6y ago
  Guy behind it is lovely to talk to as well and the iPhone and android clients are pretty much best in class in addition to the web interface been best in class as well.
lgl 6y ago
lichess.org's creator, Thibault Duplessis has an hn account [0] and has made some posts around here (although his last post appears to have been in 2015). The entire thing is also free, open-source and with a very diverse tech stack behind it that includes Scala, Redis, MongoDB, Elasticsearch, Typescript, websockets, nginx and more [1] [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=ornicar https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=ornicar [1] https://github.com/ornicar/lila https://github.com/ornicar/lila
- grantismo 6y ago
  Great tech talk from Thibault about lichess: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHP5AdRlRNY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHP5AdRlRNY
pakitan 6y ago
Doesn't backgammon lose a lot of its appeal if you're not playing for money? Kinda like poker.
- LargeWu 6y ago
  Not really. There are a lot of strategic decisions to make, and those decisions aren't about money. In poker, almost all of the important decisions are directly about wagering. When wagering has no real value, neither do the decisions. Also, in backgammon, you still need to actually win. Contrast this with poker, where oftentimes when playing for money, you don't actually want to reach the end of the hand (i.e. showdown). Which, again, is pointless if there's no money involved since always calling is your optimal strategy.
  - dfan 6y ago
    You do lose all the strategic decisions involving the doubling cube, though.
    - LargeWu 6y ago
      Assuming you are playing individual games, yes. But, if you are playing a series of games up to X points, the cube does come into play somewhat.
- philshem 6y ago
  Are you thinking about blackjack?
  - Tiltowait-- 6y ago
    Backgammon is primarily a gambling game. People who get good at it always play for money. Kind of like pool. It's a hustler's game, too. You can play backgammon without any money on the line, but the game loses its zip and tension (what gamblers call "action") and you won't be able to play anyone but your friends and family.
conistonwater 6y ago
> anyone can win anygame (in theory, at least). Is this supposed to be a good thing in a game? It's kind of like the opposite of being skill-based. E.g., poker has this "problem", and it's a huge part of the game and its skill, but it's not literally a good thing that "anyone can win once". At worst, it just encourages gambling, at best it makes results more random than necessary to establish skill differences. Bridge also has this property that every beginner can win, and the main consequence I've seen when teaching people is that it trips people up when their understanding of probability theory isn't up to snuff already before they start learning, they end up having way too much trouble distinguishing success and failure. There's a theory that one of the reasons chess is so highly-developed with so many children playing at such a high level is precisely that not anyone can win, so people just get so much more feedback on their decision making.
- yoDibly 6y ago
  >Is this supposed to be a good thing in a game? Absolutely. Maybe not for a sport, but unless you're talking about the pure competitive aspect of it, most games benefit from having that level of accessibility. Bad players need to feel like they can win games. Even if they don't know how, they'll feel like they can win again. One of the big draws to any game is the idea that you aren't just measuring your skill/experience at the game against everyone else playing, it's like when everyone comes over to play Super Smash Bros but you can tell the host has been playing on his own to practice, it takes a lot of the fun out of it. You can also use the example in SSB of playing with items on. Sure, really competitive players will hate the randomness that comes from items but the whole point of that randomness is to give everyone else a fighting chance. I guess it depends on what you want out of a "game". If you're only looking at it through the lens of Chess where luck is virtually nonexistent and skill is the ultimate deciding factor, you're going to take a lot of issue with anything that upsets that balance. But, in practice, most people play games for enjoyment, not for sport.
- LargeWu 6y ago
  You seem to view "it promotes gambling" as a negative. I happen to think backgammon is a great game precisely for this reason. The fundamental skill in backgammon is managing variance. Since there are many possible outcomes of the dice that you can't control, your job as a player is to put your checkers into position such that you're maximizing good outcomes and minimizing bad outcomes. Yes, in any giving game, a poor player might roll very well and win that game, but over a large sample, the better player will absolutely dominate. Backgammon also has the advantage over poker in the sense that it's still fun to play in the absence of gambling. Poker is dreadfully boring if no money is on the line.
searchableguy 6y ago
There is a hn chess group on lichess too. Although it's dead. Wonder if someone could revive it. https://lichess.org/team/hacker-news https://lichess.org/team/hacker-news
octygen 6y ago
I'd more than happily contribute to such a project! Backgammon is to chess what boxing is to fencing and I love boxing.
- philshem 6y ago
  there are lots of existing code that one could build on (e.g. https://github.com/quasoft/backgammonjs https://github.com/quasoft/backgammonjs) but it probably makes sense to start from scratch, and use the gnubg smart game format ".sgf" https://www.gnu.org/software/gnubg/manual/gnubg.html https://www.gnu.org/software/gnubg/manual/gnubg.html
philshem 6y ago
self-reply with this great NYer profile (2013) about backgammon and all its weirdness https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/05/13/the-chaos-of-the-dice https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/05/13/the-chaos-of-t... Sadly, Falafel (Matvey Natanzon) passed away in March: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/03/nyregion/matvey-natanzon-dead.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/03/nyregion/matvey-natanzon-...
labelbias 6y ago
I got hooked on chess because of Lichess. The interface is well done and it's so easy to play. Something about it feels much better than chess.com. Unfortunately, I got heavily addicted and had to stop. Although, I had so much fun. I was playing mostly openings with 2nd move being the one with queen. Got to about 1700 rating on that site in bullet (3-5 min game). This was the result of about 1 year of heavy addiction (2-10 hours of chess per day).

bschne 6y ago

Playing chess was only a brief phase for me, I never really got into it, but I love lichess - it's open source, completely free, doesn't run ads, and the UX is amazing, it just works perfectly and there are no unnecessary gimmicks. One of those few exemplary projects to take a big chunk of inspiration from, if you ask me!

shpongled 6y ago
Lichess is the best 'web app' I've used, bar none.
noir_lord 6y ago
Guy behind it is lovely to talk to as well and the iPhone and android clients are pretty much best in class in addition to the web interface been best in class as well.

lgl 6y ago

lichess.org's creator, Thibault Duplessis has an hn account [0] and has made some posts around here (although his last post appears to have been in 2015). The entire thing is also free, open-source and with a very diverse tech stack behind it that includes Scala, Redis, MongoDB, Elasticsearch, Typescript, websockets, nginx and more [1] [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=ornicar https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=ornicar [1] https://github.com/ornicar/lila https://github.com/ornicar/lila

grantismo 6y ago
Great tech talk from Thibault about lichess: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHP5AdRlRNY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHP5AdRlRNY

pakitan 6y ago

Doesn't backgammon lose a lot of its appeal if you're not playing for money? Kinda like poker.

LargeWu 6y ago
Not really. There are a lot of strategic decisions to make, and those decisions aren't about money. In poker, almost all of the important decisions are directly about wagering. When wagering has no real value, neither do the decisions. Also, in backgammon, you still need to actually win. Contrast this with poker, where oftentimes when playing for money, you don't actually want to reach the end of the hand (i.e. showdown). Which, again, is pointless if there's no money involved since always calling is your optimal strategy.
- dfan 6y ago
  You do lose all the strategic decisions involving the doubling cube, though.
  - LargeWu 6y ago
    Assuming you are playing individual games, yes. But, if you are playing a series of games up to X points, the cube does come into play somewhat.
philshem 6y ago
Are you thinking about blackjack?
- Tiltowait-- 6y ago
  Backgammon is primarily a gambling game. People who get good at it always play for money. Kind of like pool. It's a hustler's game, too. You can play backgammon without any money on the line, but the game loses its zip and tension (what gamblers call "action") and you won't be able to play anyone but your friends and family.

conistonwater 6y ago

> anyone can win anygame (in theory, at least). Is this supposed to be a good thing in a game? It's kind of like the opposite of being skill-based. E.g., poker has this "problem", and it's a huge part of the game and its skill, but it's not literally a good thing that "anyone can win once". At worst, it just encourages gambling, at best it makes results more random than necessary to establish skill differences. Bridge also has this property that every beginner can win, and the main consequence I've seen when teaching people is that it trips people up when their understanding of probability theory isn't up to snuff already before they start learning, they end up having way too much trouble distinguishing success and failure. There's a theory that one of the reasons chess is so highly-developed with so many children playing at such a high level is precisely that not anyone can win, so people just get so much more feedback on their decision making.

yoDibly 6y ago
>Is this supposed to be a good thing in a game? Absolutely. Maybe not for a sport, but unless you're talking about the pure competitive aspect of it, most games benefit from having that level of accessibility. Bad players need to feel like they can win games. Even if they don't know how, they'll feel like they can win again. One of the big draws to any game is the idea that you aren't just measuring your skill/experience at the game against everyone else playing, it's like when everyone comes over to play Super Smash Bros but you can tell the host has been playing on his own to practice, it takes a lot of the fun out of it. You can also use the example in SSB of playing with items on. Sure, really competitive players will hate the randomness that comes from items but the whole point of that randomness is to give everyone else a fighting chance. I guess it depends on what you want out of a "game". If you're only looking at it through the lens of Chess where luck is virtually nonexistent and skill is the ultimate deciding factor, you're going to take a lot of issue with anything that upsets that balance. But, in practice, most people play games for enjoyment, not for sport.
LargeWu 6y ago
You seem to view "it promotes gambling" as a negative. I happen to think backgammon is a great game precisely for this reason. The fundamental skill in backgammon is managing variance. Since there are many possible outcomes of the dice that you can't control, your job as a player is to put your checkers into position such that you're maximizing good outcomes and minimizing bad outcomes. Yes, in any giving game, a poor player might roll very well and win that game, but over a large sample, the better player will absolutely dominate. Backgammon also has the advantage over poker in the sense that it's still fun to play in the absence of gambling. Poker is dreadfully boring if no money is on the line.

searchableguy 6y ago

There is a hn chess group on lichess too. Although it's dead. Wonder if someone could revive it. https://lichess.org/team/hacker-news https://lichess.org/team/hacker-news

octygen 6y ago

I'd more than happily contribute to such a project! Backgammon is to chess what boxing is to fencing and I love boxing.

philshem 6y ago
there are lots of existing code that one could build on (e.g. https://github.com/quasoft/backgammonjs https://github.com/quasoft/backgammonjs) but it probably makes sense to start from scratch, and use the gnubg smart game format ".sgf" https://www.gnu.org/software/gnubg/manual/gnubg.html https://www.gnu.org/software/gnubg/manual/gnubg.html

philshem 6y ago

self-reply with this great NYer profile (2013) about backgammon and all its weirdness https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/05/13/the-chaos-of-the-dice https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/05/13/the-chaos-of-t... Sadly, Falafel (Matvey Natanzon) passed away in March: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/03/nyregion/matvey-natanzon-dead.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/03/nyregion/matvey-natanzon-...

labelbias 6y ago

I got hooked on chess because of Lichess. The interface is well done and it's so easy to play. Something about it feels much better than chess.com. Unfortunately, I got heavily addicted and had to stop. Although, I had so much fun. I was playing mostly openings with 2nd move being the one with queen. Got to about 1700 rating on that site in bullet (3-5 min game). This was the result of about 1 year of heavy addiction (2-10 hours of chess per day).