Is there a stop to Internet Backgammon cheaters?

Mark I don't know who you are playing, but I'll tell you this. There is more control on the cheaters side than you are aware of. One poster said the art of the game is going with die numbers setting traps, and building blocks for the opponent.

Blocks yes you can build for your  opponent but it is impossible to set effective traps unless YOU can control the die numbers.

When you are playing a legit game not using cheat programs that dictate the moves for you or allow you to operate manually,as some of these programs do, (meaning having free reign over the numbers you are going to roll) also allowing you to select the numbers your opponent gets.

One way this is used. Your opponent will purposely bait you by leaving stones uncoupled. The point is they want you to knock them out so they land in your home pen. The more they get there the better at least to a point. This is to build up a offence for your stones coming home. If you fall for this prank your stupid.

Next you start getting a generous amount of doubles out of no where. The truth is they are being sent to you. Why? To hurry the game up. Now you are methodically moving home when you start getting crazy rolls that are designed to brake up your protected stones. This is of course is to force an exposure that the cheater can take immediate advantage of.

If one avoids the bait of their purposely unguarded stones set as a trap in their home pen, given your on the rail, you are given numbers that force you to knock them out giving them an opportunity to get stones in you home pen. Once there they turn on the program that gets them out of any fix they are in, knocking as many of your stones out as possible.

This kind of playing can only be done with a cheat program allowing them to win.

When C-R-A-P like this happens I just ditch the game. I don't like leaving any game but I am not going to set there like a dolt taking this abuse like some idiot.

Some how even when you shut down then reboot to try to loose these pathetic cheaters, not always but too often these there they are again. This is usually in the wee hours of the morning.

I read somewhere BG/MS scanned all over the world looking for different players but I find that hard to believe. When you play thousands of games you get to know personalities just by their play style. There is no doubt these scammers can identify you and know who they are playing.

When you have to leave a game because of this obvious cheating and reenter hoping for a new game, (and a new opponent) they open the game (ALWAYS) giving them selves first roll.

Once the numbers are on the board they stall. Not for 10 to 15 seconds but for 2-3 minutes.

They know you will leave the game giving then a point because you left.

If they do come back they move with an irritating slowness. It's to bug you. They may even play a legit game till the stones are all in their pen and pour on the doubles like crazy, to insure a win.

They do this because they are tired of people leaving the game so frequently. This gives them a chance to play a game at least until the end where they will scam to win.

It's pathetic.

You make some good points, but (not by you) there seems to be a misunderstanding of what I consider cheating.

The only cheating that I believe is going on is the stall cheat bug, ie: your opponent makes a move, then reverses it, then makes it again, then reverses it, and so on. He then stops all together, and  then somehow you get timed out, even though it still shows as his move. Surely msn are able to solve this bug at a fairly low cost? I don't know about computers, but I suspect someone has designed a bug, and I would hope another expert could design a way to destroy the bug.

A lot of people on here are claiming that because someone gets perfect rolls that they must be cheating. They even claim that opponent gets many doubles on the trot and this is a sign of cheating.

As all good players know, too many doubles are actually bad for your position... not good. Okay if you got a double every single throw then maybe not, but too many and you cannot build a position.

I do not believe the dice are properly random, but I do not believe that it involves cheating by opponent, just a poor dice programme. This is proved in my opinion, by the fact that I am sometimes extremely lucky, and sometimes extremely unlucky, and generally it happens in streaks: I have often lost 15 matches on the trot, and every single throw my opponent needs he gets; but also many times I get every throw I need, and have won many matches on the trot (never 15 though). I don't cheat so it must just be a poor dice programme.

Maybe some computer expert could explain if there is a way to have absolutely random dice

Fred; thanks for at least giving the Windows version that you were using. That may be part of the issue here as frankly I have just not observed many of the things mentioned here. e.g. I did keep track of doubles and the numbers were well in expected ranges (I actually rolled 4 more doubles than the opponents over about 200 total doubles). I don't cheat and win a majority of my games . . . . no check that, a majority of the games I leave after the opponent quits . . . hardly anyone complains about that except very early in the thread . . . that happens A LOT, most people do when then fall behind. There are lots of reasons why one must abandon a game but very few say anything like "sorry I have to go now". The only way to combat that is to be able to choose your opponent by handle, that way you know the good players and the ones to avoid.

So yeah there are annoying things going on and after playing for a while I just don't see that cheating is a major one. BTW I play with W7 Pro. The game works really well I think as far as speed/visuals etc. it is just the rude people that spoil it, no surprise there since they are anonymous. But, I have too had great games with very good players that play honorably.

between rolls, wouldn't this be a little of an overreaction?

I don't wish to be rude - but I'm not sure if Microsoft would dedicate a team of moderators AND a bunch of expensive servers to a game that frankly was made to entertain people when they're bored.

I agree, it's a great game. However Microsoft have lots of important things on their agenda - they've got to develop updates for MSE, they're always creating new software, fixing bugs for windows, etc.

They'd have to dedicated hundreds of moderators and servers - ideally you'd need one moderator per game going on at any one time. If you visualize how many people play backgammon - especially at weekends - it might start to become too costly for what it's worth.

Microsoft made IB for people to play. They pay the amount they do and dedicate a few people to fixing bugs. They give it allowance to connect to other players, etc. But I don't think Microsoft can simply say 'Ok, people are cheating at our game. Let's spend, say, $200,000 on wages, servers, etc.

That seems like a lot of money, and it is. Perhaps not to Microsoft, but they wouldn't want to lose it.

I live in the UK, so I'll do this in pounds.

Minimum wage: £5 an hour.

Let's say this backgammon worker works between 9 in the morning, and 7 in the evening. Let's just say that. Ok, 10 hours of work that day. Multiply that, you get £50 a day. Multiply by 365 and you get £18250. Of course, this worker needs a break.

Let's say this worker has 5 weeks off per year, let's just say. 3 weeks in holiday, 2 weeks in Christmas, being ill, etc.

Multiply 35 days (5 weeks) by £50. You get £1750. Subtracting this from our yearly wage we get £16500.

Now, this wage is for somebody getting the MINIMUM wage, with rather good hours and holiday times.

This person would probably get paid more than this minimum wage, perhaps double or triple it.

For now, let's stick with this wage. Now, how many moderators would we need, say, for a constant onslaught of, say, four or five games starting per minute? This isn't too much at all considering the amount of players, and it could be more.

How many minutes in this worker's 10 hour day? 600 minutes. In 600 minutes, there would be AT LEAST 3000 games starting. Let's say each game to be moderated takes 20 minutes. If we calculate how many individual 20 minute games can

occur in 600 minutes, we get our result to be 30 of these 20 minute games. This is WITHOUT multiple moderators. Now, divide 3000 by 30, giving us 100.

For THIS AMOUNT of games being started in a day, there would need to be 100 moderators constantly working.

Let's get back to our moderator's minimum wage, and multiply it by 100. That's £1650000 per year for these moderators.

Microsoft would have to shell out on this, PLUS the cost of buying the servers and upkeeping them.

That's a lot of money for one little game. People who SPECIALISE in online games (like kids' games such as 'Club Penguin' by Disney) spend TONS of money. They have something

like one million players on at once at peak times, possibly more.

The whole point is, it's a bit too expensive for Microsoft to pay that much for a game designed for a small amount of entertainment.

I might have made some sort of mistake here - if I have, please inform me so and I will correct it.