If you want to focus on developing your backgammon skills and tactics, Backgammon Galaxy is one of the places to be. Powered by the powerful XG2 software, it is a wonderful tool that might get you addicted.
Presentation of Backgammon Galaxy
BackgammonGalaxy.com has been around for a while now and continues to attract more players every day. One of the main reasons for its success is the fact that it’s powered by XG2, a powerful analysis software that is a reference in the backgammon world.
This means that after every match played on Galaxy, you have access to a full analysis of your moves and cube decisions. Thus, you can spot your mistakes, learn from them, and improve your game at a galactic pace. The software also assigns you a rank based on your performance, from “Galactic Master” for near-perfect games to “Distracted” for off days.
You’ll encounter many skilled players on Backgammon Galaxy, making it a challenge to reach the top of the rankings. However, the satisfaction of improving your rating and making fewer and fewer mistakes one game after another is rewarding. After all, backgammon is not a game that you can master quickly, so enjoy the journey as much as the result.
Graphically, Backgammon Galaxy offers a clear and pleasant experience. There are a few more sections under construction (like playing for Galaxy coins), because the project is still at a beta phase, but there is no doubt in my mind that Backgammon Galaxy will be one of the major players in the online backgammon world for years to come.
Backgammon Galaxy: Version 2.0 – A New Direction
After a long time of running on the beta version, Backgammon Galaxy underwent a massive update and a complete reorientation of its mindset on the 6th of September 2023. This new review is based on the changes in Backgammon Galaxy 2.0, and it’s important to note that opinions on these changes vary among players.
Interface and Design
One of the first noticeable changes in Galaxy 2.0 is its graphics. The lobby’s design and layout have received a significant facelift, and to be honest, it looks impressive. Navigating both the desktop version and the app is smooth. However, some users have reported issues with saturated colors while playing on the Android app.
The game board itself resembles the previous version, albeit slightly darker. Moving checkers around remains effortless, and you can access vital game information like the pip count, score, and remaining time on the clock. Overall, the design in this new version of Galaxy surpasses the previous one.
Gameplay and Features
This is where the most significant changes have occurred, and opinions are divided among players. The initial spirit of pure knowledge sharing seems to have shifted toward monetization.
Ranking: Galaxy now offers three different rankings, replacing the previous single ranking. One is for the leader in coins, the second for rating, and the third for Win Points (WXP).
Coin Games: Your adventure starts with 1,000 coins. You can attempt to win more by selecting “Coin Game” in the lobby. However, the length of coin games is fixed at 1 point and cannot be changed. This change has frustrated some players who appreciated the ability to choose opponents in the previous version. Additionally, you can purchase coins with real money (only available on the app) to boost your bankroll.
Ranking Games: Similar to coin games, but you don’t need coins to participate, and matches can go up to 7 points.
Play a Friend: It’s possible to create a private game and invite a friend by sending them a code.
Tournaments: As of now, there are no tournament options on Galaxy.
Analysis: You still have access to a complete game analysis once it’s finished. A new, interesting feature allows you to focus on checker errors and bad cube decisions you made, making it easier to identify areas for improvement.
Star Membership: For $7.99 per month, you can become a member, gaining access to deeper game analysis, free chat usage, and a bonus of 800 Galaxy coins every 12 hours (compared to 400 for the free version). A Star+ option is displayed but not yet available at the time of this review.
Galaxy Shop: Backgammon Galaxy now features a shop where you can purchase site-branded goodies. Some learning materials are also available in the shop, although only one covers the very basics of backgammon for free.
Mobile Playing: Backgammon Galaxy offers a user-friendly application for both Android and iOS.
Our Opinion on Backgammon Galaxy 2.0
The recent massive update has drastically altered the direction of Backgammon Galaxy. While the platform remains smooth and enjoyable to play on, it now resembles a Facebook platform like Lord of the Board more than its original incarnation. I personally prefer the direction Nextgammon is going but I still recommend trying it to form your own opinion.
Backgammon Galaxy
Free
Pros
- - Free to play
- - Leaderboard available
- - Strong Community
- - Possibility to win bitcoins
Hellluf a money must be involved for people like Marc and Mochi, to give away their good name for this scrap-site, which has “profit-maximisation” written all over it. Olsen-books are on top of my wish-list, but I’ll never buy one. Ok Fibs, TMG, Gammon Empire and so on, they don’t exist anymore, but at least people ran the show for the sake of the game. Donald would say: Soooo saaaad…
Hi Bernhard, you should give a shot to Nextgammon, maybe you would like it better.
BG Galaxy should rename site to Doubles Backgammon. The winner is player who gets the most Bogus doubles. Doubles are rolled about 20x more often than with rolling actual dice. Once you played long enough, you know what the next bogus numbers will be.
It’s a joke , Marc Olsen should be ashamed. Galaxy is Just like all the other amateur rigged BG formats available on the internet but with a big name behind it. I refuse to buy coins so automatically I am unable to improve my rating. I can predict that when I hit my max rating I then lose 7/10 matches on the bounce then win 6 or 7. The pattern is comical. Insult to BG and people who play it. What a clown, embarrassing.
Hi Chris, maybe you should give a try to Nextgammon, they are fully transparent on the dice rolls on every single game they host and offer deep analysis as well.
The stupidity of this site is abysmal. Not only are dice rigged to a ridiculous degree (and I’ve been on both sides, either prodigiously advantaged or prodigiously biased against) but, adding insult to injury, it also assigns a so-called ‘luck’ coefficient whereby the player who has profited from dice rolls that wouldn’t happen in a billion years is often deemed by the system to have been less ‘lucky’ than the loser. All in all Backgammon Galaxy is an insult to the game and to the intelligence (if any) of those who play there.
Agreed wholeheartedly. The game is fixed and not worth the aggravation. Horrible and in no way does justice to the game. It’s quite embarrassing.
Well said sir. With the advent of Game Coins it is simply a Ponzi Scheme.
With all the talk of “unfair dice”, it would seem like an easy task to publish an analysis/tally of “ALL DICE IN ALL GAMES” or even create a page which shows the probability of each roll historically. They certainly have the historical data! I’m not an expert but as a developer, it would seem like an easy task to see if any “bias” is involved or if the roll function has any idea of the previous roll or board situation. That being said, there could be an element of “timing” when the system rolls for you. Some random number generators use a seed and will produce the same result if you start with the same seed. If time is exactly (35ms) perhaps you know. Just an idea…
The die are rigged. They use a business model everyone should know about, as just about every single other online gaming sites do the same (inside info for those who believe online gaming is legit). When a player first joins, and the bigger money sites often throw in some freebie moola, points, tix, whatever the currency of exchange is being used, winning rates are usually governed around 60-65%, not so overwhelming as to be obvious, but more so to make the playah feel real good about spending time here. And that’s the hook, my friends. Once they got ya, well, guess what, the more ya ponies up the more you continue to win, until, suddenly ya hits a dry spell. Here’s where the specially made algorithyms kick in, and depending on how the game is fixed, er, “programmed”, your previous winning percentage may or may not match, but usually will decrease by about 5-7%. Your milage may vary. But for sure, if ya’s don’t pony up some more at some point you’re gonna end up on the losing side of the game. Just like places that offer ‘paid’ and ‘free’ play. The free play is meant to hook ya, if you don’t purchase tokens or whatever the hell you need to pay to play, then guess what, you’ll be fodder for all the newbies that are now being set up to become a paid ‘playah’. C’mom man, ya all didn’t really believe someone out of their kindness and goodness of their heart would give away the milk for free, did ya?
You nailed it! Kudos…… XG Mobile in my opinion is far and away the most reliable per dice throws. BG Galaxy rolls are predictable. The most improper rolls appear almost Pavlovian. Giving you a winning streak, is the carrot enticing you to play for $$$. I’ll not play for $$$ on line…..Never. At a club sure why not. To improve your skills, XG Mobile, using TUTOR mode, explains why the move you made is not the one you should have. The Ap is free A $10 upgrade is the way to go. It certainly shows you the correct move. Watching Backgammon Championships on YOUTUBE has been an invaluable teaching aid as well as enjoyable watching. Enjoy!
My main problem with this site is disconnections. It seems to happen more on wifi than wired connection however I have lost 100’s of ranking points due to this, whether something about my ISP is prone to this I have no idea as sometimes I lose internet connection specifically playing on Galaxy. Right click ‘reload’ sometimes works
Re dice, I can’t see why on earth somebody would program biased dice -in fact people seem to be claiming that the algorithm is set to purposefully reward bad play. This is crazy. It is very frustrating when you leave a 17/1 shot or 35/1 shot that gets hit, but it happens.
I don’t know many of the higher ranked players on the site but some of them I recognise and they are all good players (not bad players rewarded with biased dice).
I am a reasonable player, not a great player in real life (around 30th to 100th over last year or so in UK rankings) and am around 2000ish on Galaxy which is probably correct (though would be higher without disconnections!!!). So I think it works.
Although uses XG for analysis it cannot use a higher ply or it would take too long so the analysis does get some complex prime/backgame positions wrong but generally is a good indication of your playing level.
Yes, the loading problem is really getting old. I believe that the problem is overloaded servers, as I’ve noticed that this happens at certain times of day more than others. I love the speed games, but I’ve lost far too many due to problems with loading and time running out. I started playing normal time games, but it disconnected completely on the last game I played, so I’m just going to have to quit playing until they fix this problem.
E excellent in terms of of number of decent players but very frustrating when ghs game disconnects which is very often. Shame as now i play only casual so the time doesn’t run out when this happens. Not sure about the dice being random as every site I have played, and there are quite a few all seem go suffer from pood die algorithms.
Hi David, re my query of 11/05/20. It seems my iPad (quite old) cannot cope with Galaxy. I don’t know if this is the case for all mobile devices. I have invested in a new laptop and have been playing happily for sometime now!
Cheers Alan.
I have problems with their rating system. I played a game that I won, made no errors according to their computer analysis, my opponent made one error and he received a higher player level evaluation. So I won the game and played more accurately, the two crowns to gain rating points but received no increase in rating. They need to publish their formula for player level evaluation.
OK David, got it!
FYI I posted above on Galaxy Facebook group and below is their response and mine.
You get a forced resign action when losing on time. This is a very big blunder, that is why your PR was so high, it is fair.
I recommend sticking to “casual” clock setting when starting out at Galaxy
Thanks Marc for your response and sorry to be blunt but don’t you think this is poor design? Surely it can and should be fixed. There is no logic for it tobe this way. If one is practising for live play on the clock, casual is too slow and normal … well if you run out of time / resign before you do, then you’re scr***d, no? Or if you resign before time is up, it’s a ‘normal’ loss?
Comments from anyone here? Do you ‘all’ agree with me?
Hi. David. I am new to Galaxy. Exp.points 14. I was playing a 9pt match and ran out of time. The match stats showed I played to 134.34 PR !! and my Opponent to 19.75 PR. Taking the match into XG and analysed, I was pleased to see that I had played much better than your stats showed. My PR was 11.5 and opponent’s PR 19.8.
The errors and blunders showing were the same but total equity lost was vastly different. I wouldn’t normally bother but I lost 36 Rating Points on this match and would like to know why? If I ‘lost ‘ the match due to time out, but my PR was better, there should be no change for both players, am I right?
Hi, Yussuf. Just for you to know, I am not the owner or creator of Backgammon Galaxy. I simply give my opinion and reviews on backgammon platforms online to advise readers. Thus, if you have any complain, I suggest that you contact the Galaxy Team directly on their official facebook page. Stay safe and may the dice be with you!
I like the ability to analyze games after play, but I don’t like the rating system that only allows your rating to go up when you win if you play closer to the “suggested computer moves” . So if I win but I played a little more creatively than the computer I don’t gain points. Am I expected to play like a computer or a human? I prefer to play like a human, otherwise I can just play against my own computer.
I propose the creator of the algorithm post an affidavit saying that the dice are totally random, unaware of the position of blots on either side.
I can predict too large a percentage (running count says 30%) of the severely disadvantageous responses that actually occur — often both die — when I have to take one risk or another. The prog is geared, I have absolutely no doubt, to pick off blots. The players with high rankings are no better than average: they have only learned to duck the prog.
I was just playing a minute ago and have had enough. The luck on the BG Galaxy dice is so frustrating, I’ve just take it anymore. No way that these dice are random…just no way. For the past two weeks I’ve been playing a lot and the luck of the dice is so slanted. My opponent will get the most amazing rolls, I’ll lose, and at the end, it will say that I had the better luck. It’s so bad it’s kind of funny.
I wish it was different because I like the site.
I so agree, today I have played my last game on this site, and there have been many. Usually when beginning a game you should a least have the impression you stand a fair chance of winning, unless of course the bias is strongly against you. I found this so on this site. I have watched others play of a far higher ranking than myself, and I play no different. We all know the moves. I have moved forward, held back, taken chances in order to create a different approach, but regardless what I did when your opponent constantly rolls doubles or hits your unprotected counters, and is able to cover them when you are never given the same chance you are on a hiding to nothing, and so frustrating. I have played the board game for years and at no time have I seen dice behave in this manner. Random – NEVER. this is the site where the improbable and the impossible can and does happen.
This site is a joke in every respect. Dice are so rigged they would make a professional hustler blush. The ‘luck’ element assigned to the players after each game does not reflect in the least the inherent bias of the program. The analysis, though often accurate, sometimes recommends wildly wrong moves. The final skill computation (which is, at best, debatable) does not take into account the different degrees of difficulties the two players have encountered. These comments come from a professional and I can tell you that the rolls one sees on this site wouldn’t happen in a million years. It is a shame that its creators, for reasons that are to me unfathomable, don’t want to deal with these issues. In the meantime, serious players, I recommend you steer away.
My experience has been the exact opposite. I’ve logged quite a few matches now and analyzed most of the games outside of Backgammon Galaxy. I’d say the dice distribution has been quite level and fair. Sometimes I get lucky and roll well. Sometimes I get unlucky and don’t roll well. Most of the time, I get some of both.
I haven’t necessarily paid much attention to the luck factors assigned, but the skill computation is pretty accurate, too. I’d rather see it use a little higher level of analysis, but I understand why it doesn’t and it’s still pretty good (and better than anybody else’s skill assessment which is basically non-existent). I’ve only come across a couple matches in which a higher analysis level would have affected the ranking/ratings. I can live with that. Is it perfect? No. Is it pretty darn good, I think so.
The issue I have is that it’s very frustrating to win matches and get no points when the skill levels are close to the same. Regardless of the skill required to be a good player it is, after all, a dice game and anyone who has been to a crap table knows that the dice can run in streaks. You may not always choose the highest probability move (the one that the program analyses) for a number of reasons including choosing a more aggressive option, etc. Anyway my point is that if the skill levels are within a reasonable range as evaluated by the program then there should be some points granted the winner of the match.
Hi, thanks for sharing your experience with the community. Keep in mind that this platform is still a beta version. I heard that some of the problems you are referring to, will be fixed with future upgrades. Let’s hope so! Thanks again for your support and may the dice be with you!
I joined backgammon Galaxy via iCloud. I now have a new laptop on which I have created an outlook email account. Since creating this account every time I try to log on to Galaxy, on my laptop, I recieve a message stating my log in details are incorrect! Could this be related to having a new outlook account? Using the same log in details I can still log in to Galaxy on my iPad! Alan.
Hi Alan,
For problems related to connection and password, I advise you to contact Backgammon Galaxy via Messenger on their Facebook page.
Thanks, I will try that.
When I’ve been disconnected, it’s worked sometimes that I can return if I quickly press the back tab and quickly press forward to return, but it doesn’t always work.
I do have a question. I don’t think I’ve ever played even one game where doubles are not rolled by one or both parties in the bearing- off process., and often more than one set. Considering that there’s a 16% chance of rolling a double, I’m wondering why this happens so frequently, and at the specified time.
One of the parties also always rolls a double at the critical end of the kind of game when that double is contingent on whether someone loses or wins. It seems to me that the person who benefits is the one who is playing his moves according to the application’s program.
I have found some items of mishandling of the scoring and freezing of the game. I also asked to get some info. on how to use the clock, I haven’t played any tournaments or games using the clock. I like to learn it from your support how to and when to use the clock, how to use it at the doubling time e.t.c. I appreciate your help and response for this.
Best Regards,
Aydin Gedik
Hi Aydin.
There is nothing much to say about using the clock. When you play with a clock, each player has the same amount of time for the match ( Usually it’s 2 minutes per point when you play live and 1 min when you play online).
Like in chess, every time your opponent end a move it triggers your clock and when you finish your move, you trigger his clock.
If one of a player’s clock reaches zero, he loses.
There is no real science in using the clock. It is only to not take forever to play a match.
Hi David,
Thanks for this but someone told me you can return to a match you haven’t finished but not sure how unless you do of course.
Yes fully understand it is a work in progress but maybe what I’m trying to find out how to fix this is possible.
May the dice be with you too.
For what I read on some forum and FB group, it is not possible to return to a match after you have been disconnected, but I might be wrong. Keep us updated if you find a way.
Hi,
I really enjoy playing on Backgammon Galaxy but what I find frustrating is when the game freezes and all you can do is watch the clock go down and lose or resign as there doesn’t seen to be a way of rebooting and being able to resume an existing match like you can on Gridgammon for instance.
Sometimes it just says disconnect in the middle of the board but pressing it doesn’t seem to do anything but sometimes after a few minutes the game restarts.
This has happened to me but more so with some of my opponents.
Any help much appreciated.
Nick
Hi Nick, I heard of a bug freezing the game when one of the player roll a double for instance. I think these kinds of problems are going to totally disappear eventually. The Galaxy team is constantly making updates on the platform to eradicate such things. Keep in mind that it is still a beta version. All great things need a little work before becoming perfect. May the dice be with you.
Yes David, frozen game happened to me recently after throwing a double. The timer continued running though and after awhile game continued thankfully.
Hello, I dont think that its very fair, I am from Turkey, and joined lots of championships, I dont know how many times but here dice system is not fair at all. When ever you move and leave one of your cheeker alone, another player %90 break it. Normal games no way that , he can break that much max %30-%35 but here I am noticing %90 he breaks it. Its just annoying. I have watched lately Mochy’s game (Japanese famous player), he has lost versus random player here. Normally no way that he can lose vs amateurs but here your fucking dice system is letting professionals to lose amateurs.
Sziasztok! Jó kis oldal. Azt tudja valaki hogy miért van az hogy néha ad ranglista pontot néha nem. Ugyanez verességnél. Néha von le néha nem. Miért?
Hello! Good little page. Someone knows why sometimes it gives ranking points and sometimes not. Same with defeat. Sometimes it pulls down sometimes not. Why?
Hello, in order to get ranking points you have to win the match and the PR battle, witch means that you play better than your opponent according to Xg2 (it’s a software that analyse your moves and cubes action). If for example you win the match but your PR is higher than your opponent, nobody get ranking points.
I signed up for backgammomgalaxy and got logged on once. Since then every time i log on it says invalid password. when i try to reset password, nine times out of ten it will not let me reset. when i do get a code it does not reset. I have emailed customer support with no reply. im very frustrated as many of my friends play here.
Hi Bill, perhaps you should try to contact them on Messenger through their official facebook page.
i am pretty sure they are going to find a solution to your problem very quickly.
Analysis mode is extremely useful to improve skills. Highly recommended 😉
make sure you use your user name and not your email for login