Backgammon for Mobile Phones: BGBlitz 2 Go

What's the point of a mobile phone without solid backgammon software running on it? The answer is - of course - that there's no point. You can make phone calls (rarely fun), write short messages (very rarely fun) or download ring tones (certainly no fun). See? Almost all the fun you can have with a mobile phone (apart from participating in the mobile phone throwing world championships, maybe) has to do with playing a good game of backgammon against it.

Not long ago, in the "dark age of mobile phone backgammon" that is the time before November 1, 2006, it was very difficult finding a good backgammon for a mobile phone. I'm owning a Nokia N93, which is actually a pretty decent mobile phone in terms of tech specs and capabilities, but the only backgammons I could find for it were ones that certainly don't have a neural net in their heart and that don't seem to support n-game tournaments (which, together with the doubling cube, add another level of strategy). Poor me.

But now the dark ages are over, there's "BG Blitz 2 Go", a Java Backgammon available for many mobile phones. And it has all the features I need.

BGB2GO is actually the "smaller brother" of BG Blitz, a world class backgammon program for PCs and Macs, so rest assured that it knows all the rules including e.g. the Crawford rule and that it plays a strong game of backgammon together with good intuition about when to double.

Feature check:

• plays money games or n-game tournaments (n can be set up in the preferences)
• plays according to all rules (well, that's a basic one)
• includes an optional "tutor mode" that warns you in case of blunders and can show you the strongest move.
• shows you the 5 best moves together with their equity (after pressing "7").
  
• doesn't seem to show you the volatility of a position.
• shows you the pip count if you want.
• automatically executes forced moves for you.
• has a couple of differently looking boards that do their job well.
• offers great statistics (I need those!) about your performance against the game, incl. matches won/lost, points won/lost, longest winning/losing streak.
• has a three (?) playing levels. Expert is strong and fast on my N93; even doubles in complicated positions don't take a second.
• has an outstandingly good "position memory" that is so important for a mobile phone game. Leave the game to do a call or something, come back later, and find your match in exactly the state that it was in before.

How strong is its playing level? I frankly don't know. Why? Because I really like that tutor, and listen to its advice now and then (whoops I can hit this blot, didn't see that...), so my playing strength is unnaturally enhanced. Still, it feels weaker than Jellyfish or BG Blitz on the PC / Mac, but not by much. Even with the tutor turned on I'm right now trailing by 5:9 matches (5 point matches). Without the tutor I'd probably be at 3:9, against the best programs that would probably be 1:9 or 2:9 max.

But rest assured that unless you're a champion BG Blitz 2 Go is a great opponent for you; I've had tremendous fun in some of those 14 matches so far, and I'm looking forward to the next matches just as well. Backgammon is great for a short game in between, and BGB2Go is the best Backgammon you can possibly want for your Java enabled mobile phone.

Right now the authors seem to be collecting a compatibility list; there's 22 known mobile devices on which it is known to work, including e.g. the Nokia 6230(i), the Sony Ericsson K800i and many other recent Nokia and Sony Ericsson phones (for details check the compatibility list - the German one seems to be much more up to date than the English one).

Pricing: there is a free demo version that will randomly quit every 2nd game. The license costs €12,95.

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Some time later: I'm still very happy with BGBlitz 2 Go. So far I've won 10 matches, lost 16, but I'm leading with 112:97 points. I like it a lot that you can just leave BG Blitz 2 Go, and when you come back you continue your game in the same position as before.

Highly recommended.