Clubs, Voice Calls, Game Analysis: Gammon42 1.4.0

Gammon42 1.4.0 is the biggest update since the app came out. You can now join a backgammon club or found your own, talk to your opponent during a game, see an analysis of every online game you finish, and learn the game with Milo, a computer opponent who thinks out loud. Gammon42 is a free online backgammon app with real opponents, on iPhone, Android and in the browser, and it still needs no account.

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Gammon42 1.4.0 at a glance


App	Gammon42, version 1.4.0 (iOS and Android)
Clubs	Join or found a club: club chat, challenges, club tournaments and a weekly club leaderboard
Voice calls	Talk to your opponent during a game. Every call needs their OK
Game analysis	Every finished online game, analysed by GNU Backgammon: your PR, your blunders, your luck, the best play for every roll
Milo	The computer opponent now has a name, three levels and comments on the game
Learn	Eight short lessons, then a full game with Milo
Gammon42 Pro	Optional: unlimited analysis, free tournament entry, unlimited calls and a daily power-up bundle without ads
Languages	Hebrew, Arabic and Persian join the other eight

Clubs

A club is a group of players with its own chat, its own tournaments and a place on a weekly leaderboard. Open Social Hub: the Clubs tab lists the clubs you can join, with a search box, next to the weekly club leaderboard and your invites.

Joining. Some clubs are open to anyone, some take requests that the owner or an officer accepts, and some are invite-only. A club can also ask for a minimum rating, a number of games or a chat language.
Founding. Pick a name, a short tag, an emblem or a picture, a description and the rules for joining. Founding costs Sparks, and it is free with Pro.
Club chat, with pinned announcements.
Challenges. Tap a clubmate who is online and challenge them to a friendly game.
Club tournaments. The owner and the officers set them up, and members join from the club’s Tournaments tab. They are just for fun: no prizes and no rating changes.
The weekly club leaderboard. Every Boosted or ranked game a member wins scores a point for the club. Wins against clubmates don’t count. The week resets every Monday at 00:00 UTC.

All the details, from roles to leaving a club, are in our guide to backgammon clubs.

Voice calls with your opponent

During a game you can now talk to the player across the board. Tap the phone icon under your picture, and the call starts only if your opponent accepts. Either of you can mute the microphone or hang up at any time.

Calls work in friend games and in ranked or casual games found by matchmaking. Tournament games and games against the computer have no calls.
You decide who can call you. In your profile, under Privacy, “Allow voice calls” turns calls on or off, and “Voice calls with other players” lets you keep them for friends only.
Free minutes every day. Players without Pro get a number of free call minutes each day. With Pro, calls are unlimited, and a call with a Pro player doesn’t use your minutes.
Calls are not recorded.

How to call, what the opponent sees and how to turn calls off: voice calls in Gammon42.

Game analysis: see where you lost the game

After an online game, tap “Analyse game” on the result screen, or open any game later from your profile under “Game history”. Our servers run the game through GNU Backgammon, the open-source engine, usually in under a minute. You get:

Your PR (performance rating): the equity you lost per decision, times 500. Lower is better, and 0 means every decision matched the engine.
A rating name from GNU Backgammon’s scale, from “Awful” to “Supernatural”.
A mark on every costly play: doubtful, mistake or blunder, with the equity it cost you.
The best plays for every roll, so you can see what the engine would have done instead.
Luck: how much the dice helped you and your opponent.

Ranked, Boosted, friend and tournament games can all be analysed. You get free analyses every month for your most recent games, and both players share the same analysis of a game. With Pro you can analyse any game in your history, as often as you like.

How to read the screen, step by step: backgammon game analysis.

Milo, the computer opponent, and the Learn course

Under Play → Practice, “Quick Practice” is now a game with Milo. He plays on three levels (Easy, Medium and Hard) and thinks out loud, one line a move. Stuck on a roll? Tap “Ask Milo” and he shows you a move and why. If you prefer to play in silence, you can mute him. Games against Milo also work offline.

Next to it is Learn: eight short lessons of a minute or two each (where your checkers go, moving with the dice, blocked points, doubles, making a point, hitting, the bar and bearing off), then a full game in which Milo talks you through every move. More in play backgammon against the computer.

Gammon42 Pro (optional)

Gammon42 stays free, with unlimited games and nothing to buy in order to play. For players who want more, there is now Gammon42 Pro, monthly, yearly or lifetime:

Unlimited game analysis, for any game in your history
Free tournament entry, without the Sparks fee
A daily power-up bundle without ads: 2 Reroll, 1 Lucky Dice and 1 Joker every day
Unlimited voice calls
Gifts for your club: power-ups for your clubmates every week
A gold PRO badge next to your name

Without Pro you keep every game mode, free analyses every month and free call minutes every day.

Hebrew, Arabic and Persian

The app is now in eleven languages. Hebrew, Arabic and Persian join Romanian, English, German, Turkish, Greek, Polish, Spanish and Serbian, with the screens laid out right to left.

Other changes

A redesigned shop.
Many fixes across the app.
An updated Privacy Policy and Terms that cover the new features: voice calls, clubs and Pro.

How to update

Update Gammon42 from the App Store or Google Play. If automatic updates are on, you may already have 1.4.0: you see it in the app’s What’s New window. The browser version at play.table-online.ro is updated separately.

Frequently asked questions

What’s new in Gammon42 1.4.0?

Clubs, voice calls with your opponent, an analysis of every finished online game, Milo the computer opponent with a short Learn course, the optional Gammon42 Pro, and three new languages: Hebrew, Arabic and Persian.

Is Gammon42 still free?

Yes. Games are unlimited and there is nothing to buy in order to play. Gammon42 Pro is optional: it adds unlimited analysis, free tournament entry, unlimited calls and a daily power-up bundle without ads.

How do I analyse a backgammon game in Gammon42?

After an online game, tap “Analyse game” on the result screen. For older games, open your profile, then “Game history”, and tap “Analyse game” on the game you want.

Can I talk to my opponent while playing?

Yes, with a voice call in friend games and in ranked or casual games. Every call needs your opponent’s OK, and you can limit calls to friends or turn them off in your profile under Privacy.

How do I join a backgammon club?

Open Social Hub, pick a club from the suggestions or search for one, open it and tap Join. Some clubs ask you to send a request or need an invite.

Can I play against the computer?

Yes. Milo, the computer opponent, plays on three levels and also works offline. Find him under Play, Practice, Quick Practice.

Got an idea for the next version? Write to us at support@table-online.ro.

Good dice! 🎲