Editing Hypergammon (section)

== Gameplay ==
As a consequence of the reduced number of pieces, many people believe that hypergammon relies more heavily on [[luck]] than backgammon. The difficulty of getting two pieces on the same point means that both players nearly always have blots on the [[Board game|board]]. The combination of the fact that bearing off can be completed with a single lucky roll of doubles, and that it is nearly impossible to protect blots from being sent to the bar, results in gammons being scored much more often than in backgammon. This also means the lead in a game can swing very quickly.

In fact, for most players, the skill-to-luck ratio (or, more precisely, the error-to-luck ratio) is much higher in hypergammon than in backgammon, which means that a skillful player can achieve a statistically significant lead much more quickly in hypergammon than in backgammon. The best moves in hypergammon (especially [[Backgammon#Doubling cube|doubling]] decisions) are often subtle and less easily conceptualized than those of backgammon.

Hypergammon has been 'solved', in the sense that [[computer]]s can now play perfect hypergammon.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Hypergammon Fun, by Tom Keith|url=https://bkgm.com/articles/Keith/HyperFun/index.html|access-date=2021-04-09|website=bkgm.com}}</ref> Nevertheless, it is still a very challenging game for human players. The development of [[heuristic]]s for expert play is very much an open topic.

In the early 1990s Hugh Sconyers solved Hyper Backgammon using a computer. There are over 32,000,000 possible positions when you include the double cube. In addition, Sconyers solved 1, 2 and 4 checker backgammon, which have similar starting positions.