I am considering entering my first tournament. I've only played against family members and BGblitz here in Arkansas it's a backgammon wasteland with no players. I watch BG on YouTube and can't get XG because it's not compatible with my devices. My question is this. What are "side pools" that you register for?
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Side pools are optional and exactly what they sound like. It’s a pool of money on the side that can be won only by players who chose to enter the side pool. I could win any event but if I didn’t enter the side pool I can’t win THAT money. If you place higher (not necessarily a win) than the other side pool entrants, then you win the money in the side pool regardless of where you finish in the main event.
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Take the plunge! The St Louis tournament is coming up in a few weeks!
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Thanks guys. I've played for 25 years off and on. It's just hard to get players in Arkansas
Hi Grabow. DEFINITELY start going to whatever tournaments you can. I also have a basically non-existent local club, so the only way I'm going to get better is through tourneys. This past weekend in Minneapolis, I was talked into a side pool for the first time ever, and we cashed, which made the $$ better. Not that it's all (or even mainly) about money, but my $50 turned into something like $300, and that was kind of nifty. And holy cow, tournaments are fun. You meet nice people like Ian Terry, and David Klausa, and just this past week, Brett Hemes. 
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Haha; hey Donna! Minnesota was really fun (and only my 3rd tournament experience). I am hooked.
Btw, I still need to go back and figure out if my take was right on that forever holding game. I put it in from memory and it is very sensitive to several factors (super fun). It will probably become a reference for me 
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You should totally do it! I had my first three this year (Chicago, Wisconsin, and Minnesota). It was very fun and great experience as a player. The people are all very nice with few exceptions. Of ALL the hobbies I have ever had, the community around backgammon is orders of magnitude more friendly, welcoming, helpful, considerate, etc.
BGblitz should be a viable replacement for XG, no?
I don't know it's a app called True Backgammon and it uses the BG Blitz engine I don't know if it can give me a ELO or not
What you want is to be able to go back and see where you made mistakes after playing. Equity lost per decision drives PR. Post-play analysis in my opinion is critical is you want to keep improving.
Frank Berger of BGBlitz @bgblitz is active on the forums btw
I only provide the AI (as plugin) for True Backgammon. I know that Markus extends the capabilities and is very helpful for questions.
What device(s) you use? Only mobile ones?
Yes I live out in the country with only mobile internet. XG isn't in the Google play store and I bought it on Amazon and it's not compatible with my Samsung Galaxy S24
And BG Galaxy just freezes and crashes my phone
XG (all versions) is officially abandoned, so issues on mobile phones will not be fixed. Playing offline against the computer is naturally possibel.
Don't know about Galaxy, but I know that many people play aon dailygammon by mobile phones. It is a bit unusual because it is a bit like correspondence chess on steroids, but it has the huge advantage (for me) I don't have to reserve an hour or two for a match but I make some moves whenever I have a few minutes spare time
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I'm trying a $100 solution. I ordered a new Kindle Fire tablet and hopefully I can put the Amazon version on it.
I also bought a new laptop a few months ago to hook up to my mobile hotspot
It has that sucky windows 11 on it but it will prob work as well
With Windows 11 Linux is an free alternative (if you don't have a crucial app that runs only on windows). (I would recommend Linux Mint; works out of the box very similar to windows)
On Windows you can install all 3 (BGBlitz, GnuBG, XG in alphabetical order) on Linux the first two only.
Years ago I used Linux Ubuntu and really enjoyed it. But I may go for Mint. Thank you
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Mint has Ubuntu as base and adds some polish, is more common to Windows users and replaces the controversial Snap packes with normal packages (Firefox, Thunderbird). But if you were used to Ubuntu not to long ago (so with Unity or Gnoe 3 as desktop) this is a good choice too.
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