A few years ago I went through my serious backgammon phase where I was studying and playing the game all the time. This education served me well because it also helped me improve my poker game. I used to spar with a very strong backgammon program called Master Gammon which was endorsed by ex-world champion Michael Meyburg. It was very strong on its highest levels and a top human player would only win around 55% of the games played against it.
Computer technology has seen improvements in many areas and in Chess for example, there are many situations on the board that a computer can play far better than even the strongest players in the world. Open positions and very sharp tactical positions are clearly played better by computers than humans. We then had the breakthrough Chinook computer program in draughts that became the very best player in the world at one stage.
So backgammon was always going to be a game that would follow suit and programs like JellyFish and Snowie also test the very best backgammon players in the world today. I have played Snowie and it is very strong and I was ahead 37-35 in points but that sample size is very small. My record against Master Gammon was also comparable and I played several hundred games against that program with me being ahead by about 50 points or so. I never used to escalate the stakes beyond a certain point because I knew that the machine could outplay me in endgame situations. This is akin to blocking the position against a powerful Chess computer program. But good backgammon software will certainly improve your game and take it to another level.
