Is there a stop to Internet Backgammon cheaters?

I agree with you. This cheating happens all of the time. I have even had my die number changed after I roll.

I have had the other player roll when I had not even had a chance to move my second number. I am not a loly gager I love the fast pace of the game, but often there will be a long pause, then the other player gets the perfect roll. How about 3 doubles in a row.

When you are not playing a fixed game it is great win or loose. It is so easy to detect a cheater on the other side. These are people that have to win every time, they just cant loose.

When I detect this I just abandon the game. Let them finish with the computer **** them.

New study results.  This time I counted (using a program I developed) their come out roll of a 6 or equal rolls.

The expected probability is 33% (1/6 + 1/6)

I got 242/344 or 70%

 

I just wanted to clarify that the probability of rolling doubles is not 33%. If it were than the probability of rolling six sixes with six dice would be 100% (1/6 + 1/6 + 1/6 + 1/6 + 1/6 + 1/6).

The actual probabilty is 1/36 to roll a particular double, say 6-6. and 1/6 to roll any set of doubles. There are 36 combinations that two dice can be and six of those combinations are doubles.

The odds of rolling at least one six with two dice is 11/36 or 30.5%.

Having said that I agree that there are plenty of cheaters on MSN backgammon.

I just got taken by the cheat where they move their pip back and forth and then accuse me of cheating just before the clock somehow runs out on me and I am booted from the game.

I also play backgammon a lot, and beat about 78-80% of the players I face, including any cheaters (if there are any). Yes, there are games I suspect are weighted either by cheating, or VERY lucky rolls, which (of course) are possible without cheating.

I've never seen anyone move 6 pieces on a move. However, without cheating, I have rolled doubles in succession a handful of times. I've had it done by the other player a number of times. It does SEEM more common in certain situations (but it could just be me):

a. When the other player is trying to catch up.

b. When I'm playing vs. the computer (other player has resigned).

Another VERY bad couple of things that I KNOW are problems, and I wish Microsoft would fix:

1. Some players have learned to ignore nudges. (It's happening to me right now, actually, which is why I came here.) This typically happens when I sense the other player is angry with me. The game is stalled. I nudge them. The time expires, but it's still they're turn. I go and do something else. Either they eventually return, and play continues, or I get disconnected eventually. (The opponent who is doing this can send me chat messages, or turn chat off and on. even though I nudged them 30 minutes ago.)
2. There is a bug to watch out for, that ought to be fixed. If you roll doubles, and move quickly, and change your mind, and decide to re-play the doubles, BE SURE to take your time. Do it slowly. Most of my disconnect-losses are due to this. I think better of it, and start to replay my doubles, and BOOM! I'm disconnected.

Is this a Microsoft thing, or a wifi thing? Anyway... watch out.

THESE LAST TWO ARE "SUSPECTED" PROBLEMS:

3. When playing against the computer (other player has resigned), I'm almost positive that the luck is in the computer's favor. If they have the 6 spot and the 1 spot covered, and I'm on the bar, I'm VERY likely to roll a 6-1, or double 6s or 1s. If I'm about to beat the computer, which I do 99.x% of the time, then the computer virtually ALWAYS gets the precise roll needed to hit me. If I'm bearing checkers off against the computer, I end up leaving open single checkers close to 100% of the time vs. the computer, which it manages to hit about 80% of the time. This is unheard of, compared to a human player, against which I tend to get my checkers off fairly safely. I use the same, careful strategy. I don't ease up, just because it's the computer and I know I'm gonna win. Am I imagining things? I need to keep a database...
4. I've suspected that some have learned how to cheat, but I certainly have no proof it's not just incredible luck. Certainly, I've been beaten by lesser players. They were awful, and made beginners' moves, and yet managed to beat a strategy that clearly is successful. I've also been beaten by smart players who sure seemed to be lucky (and maybe just smarter than me). I have no beef with getting beaten, as long as it's truly fair.

If a player moves 6 checkers with a doublet, this indicates a bug in the program.

There was a time about 10 years ago when a clever programmer found a way to manipulate the dice on the MSN Gaming Zone.  I don't know if this was patched or not, but this was before the MSN Gaming Zone was completely redesigned.

There are bugs here and there.  Snowie, a backgammon program developed by some of the world's top experts, has a bug where sometimes the first roll will be doublets, which of course is not permitted in backgammon.

However, if your issue is that your opponent seems otheworldly lucky, it is 99.999% likely that you are just misperceiving the actual luck.  Four doublets in a roll will happen 1 time in 1296, but if you play hundreds of games a week, this will almost surely happen once or twice a week.  Moreover, it is almost certain that you will have a sequence where you THINK someone rolled four in a row, when in fact they rolled four doublets in 5 rolls, which is much more likely to occur by chance.

There have been complaints about online dice for as long as online backgammon has existed.  Interestingly, I have never heard of any complaints about either cheating or non-random dice from the true top experts in the world.  They all realize that real dice are equally cruel.