UPDATE

                     UPDATE

At last an update on Piphit and safe online backgammon. My online user name should be lazydave. To make up for my tardiness I will give you some insights on playing and making money, or avoiding losing too much, at online backgammon. Read on to the end, these tips and opinions could be worth a lot to you.

Unfortunately, online backgammon providers have no interest in putting Piphit online. Backgammon has not lived up to their expectations. They thought it would be the next big thing following on from poker. We can clearly see the reasons why there was no hope for this.They think Piphit would be more of the same. It is a shame but there we are. Thank you to all of you who emailed saying you wanted to play Piphit online.

Safe backgammon is heading down the same path. Online backgammon operators are not interested.  There is no way they can guarantee you will not be cheated. So only one thing to do. Look after yourself. You want to have fun, make money and be safe while playing online. This is how to do it.

Is it the wild west out there? Does anything go? Will I be cheated? The answer is no if you just use common sense.

The first step is to decide where to play (by the way no backgammon site gives me anything for recommending them.) This is what you should be looking for.

1) A long established gaming company with a wide range of gaming products not just backgammon - You don't want to risk not being paid or being cheated or manipulated by the operator.

2) A low rake This is super important. A high rake will eat in to your winnings or make it impossible to win.

3) A site with a good flow of players with a wide range of playing abilities.

4) Displayed player ratings - This is a must. No displayed ratings favour the first class players no one else. They can be manipulated but they are essential to give a rough guide as to whether you should play when offered a game.

5) A good playing platform

Now lets look at a few sites and see which  I think is best of all.

Partygammon - No does not display player ratings

GameAccount - Which includes William Hill, Paddy Power, Corals ect - No does not display player ratings

Play65/ GammonEmpire - I don't know where to start with this site. I am baffled. There are a lot of No's. I used to play there so a good starting point is an email I received from them and my response.

  Dear David You have ceased to log in to your account over the past year. As part of our efforts to improve customer's service, we would like to understand the reason for your decision, and to assist you with any difficulty you might have experienced on GammonEmpire.

We at GammonEmpire aspire to personalise our customer relationships and to improve our player's game experience.

We will be more than happy to receive your response with any specific problem you would like us to solve, or with anything you would like to share with us about your game experience. I will attend to your qeury personally.
Best Wishes
Heather
GammonEmpire

Well I certainly had some sharing and solving to do. This is my reply to Heather

Dear Heather Thank you for your email. The reason I do not play at GammonEmpire any more is as follows. While playing online you have runs of good and bad luck. Your rating should go up and down with these runs. I had a very bad run of luck losing nearly every game the last time I played on GammonEmpire yet my rating froze on 1717, or something like that, and did not go down with the matches I lost but went up with the matches I won. Clearly I cannot play with you any more if I think you are fixing the ratings.
kind regards
David

I received no reply to my email

So, they have poor customer service, a very high rake and I have doubts about what they are doing. All very good reasons not to play on the Play65/GammonEmpire site.

Which site do I think is best of all?  Ladbrokes. This is why:

1) A large long established gaming company. Online backgammon is a tiny part of their operation. There is no way in the world that Ladbrokes would have anything but a fair site

2) They display ratings

3) Low rake 2.5%

4) Good flow of players wide range of abilities

4) A solid pleasing playing platform

5) Instant payout

6) Fantastic customer service. How is this for looking after your players? Last month the site went down (rarely happens I think the last time was about two years ago) at the worst possible time for them. The day of their $2,000 big money monthly entry fee $20. The tournament had to take place one day later and what did I find. The tournament was free and $20 dollars had been returned to my account. if this wasn't enough. I had $16 frozen on the site in a game when it went down. When the site came back up the $16 dollars was returned and an extra 20 pounds was placed in my account for the inconvenience. Very Impressive.

What can Ladbrokes do to make their site better?

Unfortunately, they took the opportunity of taking all their guaranteed and big money monthly tournaments off when the site went down. they need to put these back up to give a well rounded site. Backgammon makes them peanuts compared with their other offerings. They should use backgammon purely as an acquisition vehicle to get new players to their site. They should make their games rake free or put all their rake into attractive tournaments. Look at it this way. Because of the rake equally matched players cannot hope to win, They will have the rake working against them all the time. Therefore, to make money they have to play players weaker than themselves. No one better.No one equal. Go rake free and it allows players to gamble. A rake free site would be tremendously attractive. This would be the site to play on. Let's hope they read this.

They say backgammon is a game you have to pay to learn. What this means is that good players will take all your money while you slowly improve by learning from experience. If you think this is a way you will enjoy or if you want to see how good you are I am available on Ladbrokes username runtoma   www.ladbrokesbackgammon.com I will be delighted to see you.

For Players Who Are Not Advanced

You have decided to take a big step and play online for money. You will have to be good, sharp, careful, patient. You do not want to do what I did. About seven years ago I upgraded my computer and found at last I could play online. I was a tasty player back in the nineteen seventies in my own little group. I had arrived online in 2002 a player with nineteen seventies skills, credit card in hand, ready to take on world class players, cheats, anyone. I was thrilled. I was confident, I was a delight. I could weep when I think about it. Day and night I was there playing all comers. Oh look! someone from Germany wants to play me and now someone from Denmark. That player from Japan who took all the money off me yesterday is there waiting for a game today. I'm up for it. I'm going to get my money back, This is so amazing. So exciting.  For two years I never made a withdrawal just many many deposits.

Tip No 1

Be careful who you play be patient. You arrive at Ladbrokes (you are sensible) Look at all the players who are waiting for games. Take note of their user names and don't play any of them no matter what their ratings ( the only one you are allowed to play is runtoma and that is just for low stakes. For the challenge) Ninety five per cent of these players are extremely good; World class, advanced, professionals. They are there waiting day after day. You have about a five per cent chance of hitting on a player you can beat.

Tip No 2

Do not just hope to be lucky. Always play players you have played before or those with a lower rating than yours. Create a game in the lobby and wait. All the good players waiting for games will hit on you. Reject all of them. You accept a game and now it is time to do some work. Do not just sit back and play.  Look closely at your opponents game. Can you see bad checker moves or errors? Do you think the doubling cube is coming across too soon or too late? Are they accepting your doubles when you think they should? Do they seem to be putting you constantly under pressure? Always in the game. Are they making good moves that would not have occured to you. Now decide. Will you continue to play them or are they too good and is their user name being remembered as a player to avoid?

Tip No 3

Do not chase your losses. You have been beaten. You feel angry you want that money back. You up your stakes to more than you can afford to lose or become very aggressive in your play. Doubling early or taking doubles you should not. These are all surefire ways to lose even more. Stay calm be cool keep playing as you were before.

Tip No 4

There is absolutely no difference in a world class player and someone who is cheating using a robot player. Tip No 2 tells you how to deal with both. Remember only a minority of players will cheat.

Tip No 5

Players to avoid. Online backgammon is a high speed snappy game. Nearly everyone plays fast. This leads to more errors and blunders, That is fine. We are all in the same boat. But every now and then you will come across that horror; a slow player. Get ready for boredom and a painfully long game. They carefully consider every move making sure they have not overlooked anything and invariably play very well. A game that should take four or five minutes can easily take twenty. Once is more than enough. These players should always be avoided. Avoid players who have their user name in upper case, this is shouting play me, and have low ratings. You may end up in the hands of a hustler.

Tip No 6

The fastest way to improve your game is to read a backgammon book. If you enjoy backgammon this is not studying. It is fun. Several years ago I did this and a few evenings of reading turned my game around. Incredibly. I began to win money playing online. The experts write well and their books are entertaining. The books I read were: 501 Essential Backgammon problems by Bill Robertie, 100 Backgammon Puzzles by Paul Lamford, Backgammon To Win: Play Like a Pro Both Online and Off by Chris Bray. Amazon has loads of backgammon books go there and pick whatever takes your fancy. You can't go wrong. Click here UKAmazon    USAAmazon

Do only advanced and world class players make money online? No I do well and I am no where near advanced. Advanced intermediate I should think. My game has dramatically improved from seven years ago. It had to with so much online experience. The more you play the better you get. But I certainly have weaknesses. I know I regularly make horrendous game losing blunders. I just do not see a long shot hit or misread a prime and think I need a six to get out when a five will do. Things like that.   I see some of them immediately after I have made my play. The worry is how many I never see. What saves me I think is I am excellent on the doubling cube and my checker play is also  good if we disregard the horrendous blunders which of course do not happen in every game. So If I can do well with a handicap like that may be you can to.

If you want to know what areas of your game I think you should work on I can give an online live anaylisis of your game with more tips. Email me at davemarkwick@yahoo.co.uk   Next update first week of September 2011 with more tips and possibly more opinions on sites