Backgammon Pro

I've enjoyed backgammon for years, and prior to the last release, this was one of the best apps for it, but it does need tweaking. The difficulty level appears to be tied to tweaking the luck aspect of the dice vs actual playing level of the system, when playing against the device. For instance, I've barred the system, and I'm bearing off, yet the system continues to move the near its home, vice moving his pieces out of mine, resulting in a tripling of my win. Just today, I had 12 wins vs 5 for the system, and I put four pieces on the bar. The doubling cube was at 16, and I pulled the triple, giving me a 60 game match. The update to the algorithm on the most difficult setting allows up to 6 back to back rolls of doubles for the system. It also favors barring pieces vice making tactical decisions which are better. This version really lowered the quality of the game in my humble opinion. Please, revisit the tactical part of the game.

It is a fun app, you can choose your difficulty levels. The part that gets tiresome is when playing the computer in a "hard" setting, they constantly roll doubles beyond anything you would see in normal dice rolling. Also, when your in the bearing off mode and there is no danger of hitting or being hit by another pip, this game has no automatic roll-off, in other words, you must tirelessly keep rolling and removing your men and waiting for the computer to so the same when at that point it should just be automated bearing off. I'm sure there are some apps that have that, I just don't know which ones do. In the meantime, this is a fun free app that will keep unnecessary occupied for hours.

I like this game overall but you reach a point where you realize the dice rolls seem to your advantage when playing at a lower level and the dice rolls seem rigged against you at the hard level. I’d rather it was more of a strategic challenge than a challenge based on chance. Also it would be nice if you could forfeit if you clearly are going to lose to speed the match up. The computer too could offer to forfeit when losing is obviously inevitable. The doubling cube helps to a degree but there is still a lot of monotonous bearing off.

I've tried 4 backgammon v. AI games and this is the best so far. Some say that the hard setting wins by rolling doubles. I do find that to be true-when it d videos to win it has rolled the perfect shot or even up to 5 doubles in a row. I get almost as many doubles as it does at some opportune moments. I do wish hard were a bit harder but perhaps I'm a better player than I think. It does beat me sometimes though. Especially if I'm too wild in my moves but that's to be expected. I do enjoy whiling away my time on it. It doesn’t seem to understand the doubling cube, and will accept a double that it should not. Good game, worth the price.

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I like so many aspects of this game except when it’s time to bear off. That’s when the game starts getting back to back doubles (or, sometimes gives them to me.) This is a highly unlikely element in a real game. Honestly, it makes me angry that I can be 40 pips ahead and then the game gives itself double 6s, then double 4s, then double 5s and beat me by a lot. It’s also not a satisfying win the other way around, either. I’d like to win according to the strategy of how I have placed my pieces throughout the game, not on waiting for the luck of the roll of the dice. I’m looking for a different game, now.