Anyone tried sharking online backgammon? I've started to experiment with it... I think I may branch out and play both poker and gammon. Having just played some little 50 cent and dollar games, it seems to me that it should be possible to get a higher ROI and less variance as a solid backgammon player than as a solid poker player, since the strategy-to-luck ratio of the game is higher than that of poker.

The big problem for me seems to be lack of players. There's only ever a few games going on at once, at least on 888.com, which is the only Mac-friendly site I found. Maybe I'll fire up the PC and try PartyGammon at some point, see if it's any better.

I used to play at play65.com.

The trouble is you run into bots at medium and higher stakes, and unlike poker bots, they are very good.

Best thing to do is lose a bunch of $1 matches so your rating is shit, then start playing higher stakes games, people line up to play you.

Yeah, the rating thing is annoying. Online poker would die if something like that existed. I mean, there's Sharkscope, but the whole point is that the fish don't know about it.

Sandbagging is unethical, and presumably against the TOS, so I won't be doing that.

I guess bots are a big problem, yeah... but even if the servers can't detect them, presumably if you're a decent player, you can identify when someone is better than you and/or likely a bot, and just not play them.

how do you figure sandbagging is unethical? it is a mainstay of gambling (pool, whatever) and you are playing against bots and all types of unsavory characters online...