PartyGammon

PartyGammon Gaming Server

Imagine for a moment the ultimate in golf courses. Such a golf course will obviously have other amenities associated with it, such as a restaurant.
But a world-class golf course doesn't imply a world-class restaurant.

Playing Backgammon on PartyGammon

That was my impression of PartyGammon. Just as a world-class golf course wants to provide its members with a place to eat, Party Poker seems to want to provide its players with other gambling amenities. But backgammon isn't its specialty, and it shows. Big time.

Game Defects and Software Improvements

The most significant defect of the site is that there is no way to save matches for later analysis. Probably to established backgammon players, that is a good thing. If all the poker players who are looking for a little diversion were to get GNUBG and realize how bad they are, they would probably stop donating their poker winnings at the backgammon tables. Other features lacking are auto bearoff, automatic play of forced moves, and autoroll when you cannot double. Overall the site is pretty slow.

Game Software Features

Another curiosity of the site, that shows it carries the poker mentality, is that you can participate in up to 4 backgammon games at once. While it is common to play multiple poker games (poker being a game where players will often fold early then wait for the next hand, so they want the action of being in multiple games), that's not really practical for backgammon.

Gaming Rakes and Charges

Rakes are in the range of what most sites charge, including the "upcharge" on games between players rated more than 100 points apart. As a side comment, I would love to see the stats on the rakes sites actually collect.

It seems to me that the sites and the players would both do better if the sites used the increased rakes on mismatched games to increase the payout to the weaker players (similar to what GammonEmpire is doing). It's a very marginal decision at best for a high-rated player to play a low-rated one with an increased rake, and a suicidal one for the weaker player. But if the site were content with a standard rake, it could rebate the excess to the lower-rated player. There would be more action, it would be fairer, and everyone would be happy.

Negative Points About PartyGammon

Some other negatives of the site. One major one is that the maximum stake in a game or match is $25. So even in a $5 a point game, the maximum win or loss is 5 points. There also seems to be a peculiarity that benefits bonus-hunting players. If you have a minimum wager to redeem a bonus, you get credit for the maximum stake of the game. For example, let's say you have to bet $500. You can achieve this by playing 20 money games for $1 a point with a maximum of $25. Most of the games will end at low levels, so you get a lot of "bonus wagering credit" for relatively little action.

Serious Backgammon or Poker Players

I don't play poker, so I would probably not build a very good poker site.
But "We're not backgammon players" is the only excuse I can think of for the shortcomings of PartyGammon. It might be an OK backgammon site for poker players, but it's not much of a backgammon site for backgammon players.