About
Shesh Besh is a backgammon game with an AI engine we built ourselves. We're a small team of developers and backgammon fans, and our goal is simple: the best place to play backgammon online. Fair, friendly, and helping you play better.
What you can do here
- Play a friend online: open a room and send your friend a 6-digit code or an invite link (WhatsApp works too).
- Play the computer at four levels, from Easy to Champion.
- Play two people on one screen.
- Learn: the Academy (short lessons and practice matched to your level), analysis after every game (mistakes, luck and PR), move hints, a coach and a winning-chances meter.
Our commitment
- Real dice: every roll is generated by the browser's secure random number generator, and the dice are the same at every computer level.
- No hidden bots: the computer is always marked as the computer.
- No ads and no real money: game coins have no monetary value and cannot be redeemed.
- No sign-up and no tracking tools.
The technology
The computer plays using a neural network we built ourselves. It first learned from hundreds of thousands of games against itself, and then from millions of positions scored by GNU Backgammon, the free and strong backgammon program. When bearing off at the end of the game, the computer uses exact tables. At every level the dice are completely identical — the level only changes the computer's decisions, never the rolls. The dice are generated by the browser's secure random number generator. Remote games go through Google Firebase, and the site works only over an encrypted connection (HTTPS).
Credits
- The Heebo (© The Heebo Project Authors) and Frank Ruhl Libre (© The Frank Ruhl Libre Project Authors) fonts, under the SIL Open Font License 1.1.
- Google Firebase hosts the site and the database. The Firebase JavaScript library is distributed under the Apache 2.0 license.
- Open Sage by Mark Higgins, under the Mozilla Public License 2.0: the engine that gives hints, analyzes, and plays at the Strong and Champion levels. It runs in your browser, without sending the game anywhere. Details and source code.
- GNU Backgammon (free software, GPL), whose evaluations helped us train the computer. GNU Backgammon's own code is not on the site.
Talk to us
Ideas, bugs and kind words: dorssg8@gmail.com