Review

Quick facts

• AI strengh: world champion (PR 2.9)
• multiplayer: yes
• tutor / analysis: yes, fairly good
• price: $5 to $16
• app store link (NJ HD), app store link (NJ, maybe for older/smaller phones? – I’ve got the HD version on phone and tablet)

Summary: Backgammon NJ features a good, mostly intuitive UI, an AI oppenent playing from beginner to world-champion level, and decent online gaming. It’s not cheap at about $10, but it’s worth every cent.

Since the advent of pro-level backgammon programs mere mortals have been accusing them of cheating. To find out whether a backgammon app uses a state of the art AI, just check for the presence of many “this app cheats!” reviews. And, unlike in chess, it does feel like they cheat. The point, however, is: a world-class backgammon player plays the move that maximizes the number of good rolls for them in the next move, and that minimizes the number of good rolls for the opponent. It is a sign of great strength if an app always seems to roll dice that are good for it like this reviewer of Backgammon NJ (henceforth BGNJ) writes:

So: look out for this kind of review – in Backgammon these usually mean “world-class neural network engine at work”, not “app cheats”.

After an extensive analysis of the top Backgammon apps for iOS, I’m confident that BGNJ’s “Performance Rating” PR is about 2.9. Only a hand full of humans play better (5 at the time I’m writing this), most pros play worse. You probably play much worse. You can learn a lot from games against BGNJ.

Okay, you can buy yourself a world champ. But how does it look and feel to play against it?

BGNJ (reviewing the $2 more expensive HD version) features a clean, unobtrusive board, good UX while playing. It’s a bit on the boring side (e.g. no translucent checkers, no huge list of designes with subtle textures like in BGBlitz on PC and Mac), but it does the job really well. Everything looks crisp and precise.

Good bits: doubling works well; undo does as well – as common in backgammon you can experiment with different moves, and only once you finish the move by clicking on the dice there’s no turning back. A built-in tutor informs you about mistakes (in case you’ve enabled the tutor) just when you made them, and helps you find out what would have been better.

I don’t like the weird separation o a menu in the left upper corner and another menu in the right upper corner; I would have liked a few more board designs.

BGNJ comes with all Backgammon bells and whistles – money games, matches to 3, 5, 7, 9, … points with Crawford rule, full doubling cube handling (also incl. tutor), optional Jacoby rule, auto-completing games, saving games and matches or sending them via e-mail for analysis on your PC etc.

Improving your Backgammon with BGNJ

There’s a lot of features to help you get better at Backgammon: if you want, an equity bar in the top left area shows you how you’re doing. When you’ve moved your checkers, before you finish the move, this is immediately updated so you can see the equity impact of your move. Together with the tutor that allows for some experimentation with different moves.

By the way: equity is how the game stands. If equity is 0, the game is perfectly even. If it’s 0.4, like above, this means: if we play 100 games from this position, and get $1 for every game I win, and lose $1 for every game I lose, I’ll win $0.4 * 100 = $40. This also factors in doubling, so the equity can be something like 4, for example, if the game has been doubled and I’ll probably win by a gammon.

That said, if you buy that in-app purchase of the analysis package, you also get a nice option to analyze whole matches on BGNJ’s highest level. You can go through all moves of a match and get hints, or you can see them in a list like below and click on the mistakes you made to review them. Very convenient.

As you can see, I made a couple of mistakes in game 1 of this match. Nearly a blunder by not doubling in move 4 followed by a blunder in the same move, and a really big blunder in move 19. This list is helpful because it allows you to focus on big mistakes. A mistake that cost me -0.3 equity – nearly 1/3 of a game’s worth – shows that I have not understood this position well, and I should click on it and have a look at the position.

In this position you can see that I’m 0.27 points of equity and 12 pips ahead. I should play safe. I played 13/5, hoping to get one checker home and not be hit. I click ”Hint” and BGNJ shows me that the best move would have been 6/1 5/2, hoping for white’s position to deteriorate or for a double in the next roll.

Like all tutors, BGNJ doesn’t explain the ”why” of a good move like a human would. It just gives you the numbers – how much equity a mistake costs you, and leaves the rest to you (maybe have a look at my “tutortorial” for how to work with app tutors). Still, it’s valuable to have a superhuman backgammon player at your fingertips that shows you where you miss out on good moves.

I must say that True Backgammon HD and XG mobile offer more sophisticated analysis features, so BGNJ is great, but not the king of BG learning.

Online Play

BGNJ offers full real-time and turn-based online gaming; money games, matches, all is there, and works quite well. Match-making is a bit clumsy: In the settings you tell the game what match length you prefer, and then you click on “turn-based” or “real-time” and then, well, you sit there and wait for a few minutes, and you have no clue what’s going on until all of a sudden a dialog with a match offer appears. 

After a match has been established you play against the other player with the normal BGNJ interface, and all works beautifully – throwing dice, moving, doubling, all is fine. And after the match you can use BGNJ’s analysis to have a look at where you might do better. Good job, but in these days of Backgammon Galaxy and Backgammon Studio Heroes BGNJ’s online play is not really top-notch anymore.

Price tag

Back then in the early 90s I payed $200 for Jellyfish Tutor. I’m not concerned about the $8 for the app and $2 for the in-app purchase to get the analysis package. Still, it costs some money. If you really want to stay free, there are alternatives that I will cover later. I’m still recommending BG NJ wholeheartedly.