Last updated on January 15th, 2026 at 11:15 am
Backgammon NJ HD – Board Game Review
Backgammon NJ HD is a Board/Entertainment/Strategy game from Jimmy Hu, first launched in 18th May 2010.
It’s rated 4+ and currently has 3,522+ ratings on the App Store.
What Makes Backgammon NJ HD Stand Out
● GAME CENTER — Play online, chat, invite friends, auto-match with random players
{ Real-time } Play online in real-time
{ Turn-based } Play online at your own pace
● VERSATILE — Play offline vs. computer or against another person in 2-player mode
● CUSTOMIZABLE — More options than any other backgammon app
● UNIVERSAL — Supports iPad, iPhone, & iPod touch
Play & learn backgammon at skill levels from beginner to world-class!
Backgammon NJ HD is a full-featured game which uses an advanced, neural network-based, artificial intelligence. Play against a computer AI, another person in 2-player mode on one device, or online against friends & others. Using Tutor Mode & Hints, Backgammon NJ HD can show you how to improve your game.
Discriminating players will appreciate how well the AI plays. It uses a neural network trained on millions of positions, a bearoff database, & a match equity table to achieve strong gameplay that will challenge even expert players.
REVIEWS
"[I] know strong bg play when I see it. This app is the strongest iPhone bg app I've played with by far. It does not cheat period. …Analyzing these matches with eXtreme Gammon confirms a world class level of play with normal luck factors. If you are losing, get over it. So would 99.9% of the other backgammon players in the world. It is just that good. Learn from it." -Richard Munitz, Giant of Backgammon, #21 world ranking in 2009
"Backgammon NJ plays at an extremely high level with an excellent interface, and I often use it to practice on my iPhone when I am traveling. I recommend it highly to my students & friends." -Phil Simborg, Professional Backgammon Teacher & Player, www.mindgamescenter.com
"I've played over 500 games now; I've checked about 5% of these against World Class Desktop programs (GNU, BGBlitz); and I've actually used some of the competition. NJ has the best interface & has more useful functions than any other backgammon apps out there."
"For serious backgammon players, Backgammon NJ is the way to go." -Macworld.com, May 2012
IS THIS GAME RIGHT FOR YOU?
This game is best for people:
• Who recognize the strength of neural network backgammon bots
• Who want to improve their game by playing against a world-class level AI
• Who will use the in-depth, technical features included in the app to prove that it is honest (https://www.njsoftware.com/note.html)
• Who won't expect to win consistently on the higher skill levels
FEATURES
• Neural network-based AI
• 2 game types: Standard Backgammon or Nackgammon
• 4 skill levels: Easy, Medium, Hard, Expert
• Customizable board design & checker colors
• Mersenne Twister algorithm for random number generation
• Doubling cube
• Single games or match play up to 25 pts
• Crawford rule for match play
• 1-player mode vs. computer
• 2-player mode on one device
• Game Center: Play real-time or turn-based online matches with friends & other players
• Chat with your online opponent
• Online Elo & Experience leaderboards
• Block list for auto-match
• Tap-to-move interface
• Highlighted checker movement options
• Hint & Undo
• Learn with Tutor Mode
• Game & dice stats, including Elo rating & ER
• Match info: GnuBG ID, win chances, equity, top 10 moves, cube decisions
• Email match files
• Practice mode with unlimited undo (1-player vs. computer)
• Manual match recording mode with unlimited undo & speed mode option
• Options to reverse board direction, resign, use one-tap moves, auto bearoff, auto finish, use Jacoby rule, & much more
• Match analysis (in-app purchase): Analyze past match files, view moves & errors for match, step through match, jump to position, play from position, save match files permanently
IMPORTANT
• If an online match ends for any reason, you'll receive the Elo pts you deserve. FAQ: https://gamecenter.njsoftware.com
• Contact us for help: https://contact.njsoftware.com
This Board game offers engaging gameplay and regular updates for mobile players.
Player Feedback
As a newer release, Backgammon NJ HD is building its player community. Early feedback suggests .
Recent Updates & Development
Latest Update: 6th October 2024
Recent improvements include:
v7.0.1:
- Added "Stop Auto Finish When Doubled" option
- Added "Display Statistic/Meter" option
- Added "Match File/Info Export" option (includes Share function)
- Added "Swap Match File Player Position" option
- Added "Analyze Most Recent Match" option to Double Tap & Swipe Left on Status Meter settings (included in Analysis Package in-app purchase)
- Native resolution graphics for iPad mini 6th Gen
- Updated for iOS 18
- Minor bug fixes
v7.0.3:
- Fixed issue where some online play buttons were not being grayed out
Download & Availability
Backgammon NJ HD is available through the official App Store for iOS devices.
Get Backgammon NJ HD on App Store
Requirements: Requires iPhone 5s / iPad Air / iPad Air (Cellular) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina, Cellular) / iPhone 6 / iPhone 6 Plus / iPad Air 2 / iPad Air 2 (Cellular) / iPad Mini 3 or later.
Compatible with iPhone and iPad devices.
Player Experience Highlights
Community Insight:
Random Rolls cannot be printed in advance. When the user plays with actual dice rolls the bots win rate predictably decreases. No surprise the developer has never explained this.
This game is so Rigged really Blatant but we play it anyway because of its formatbut really why RIG it.
Its actually an app to find out how much frustrated people cheat back. Its psychological research to see how long you go without going to manual and giving yourself the kind of rolls it gives itself.
Learning so much from the HINT function. Changing our safe style to a much more fun and effective rounded and even aggressive one.
How did we go through 70+ years and not play this game? Anyway, started a month ago with Adikus Backgammon and liked it ok. But this one pulls out all the stops at Training us. In multiple ways the computer opponent is causing us to assess moves, defensive and offensive strategies, to play the different stages of a game. You can ramp up the quality of competition in stages nicely through its many possibilities to adjust the learning pressure. Highly recommended.
we know the devs swear the AI doesnt cheat and that the dice are all pre-rolled for each game. But we have played thousands of games and hundreds of matches and all we can say is that it certainly feels like the AI cheats. We have won ~50% of the games but only ~37% of the matches. We cannot tell you how many times the AI gets what it needs from the bar on the first or second roll, whereas we are routinely rolling 5-10 times before getting out, even when there are 2-4 free spaces. It is truly infuriating and forces some unrealistic adjustments that we try not to take with us to IRL games with real people. Still, the game is well designed and has made us much better, so thanks for that, even if we rage quit probably every single time we play for more than 15 minutes. But we keep coming back, so.
We are play it several times each day.
This game is nearly flawless. Ive used it for years and it just works well.
We can win 51% 24 game matches in hard mode but in expert mode you barely even get to play. It consistently gets the rolls to put you on the bar then covers all spots. Its obvious a very simple program logic. So play in any other level besides expert and its a good app.
Solid app if you want to learn the skill levels are a joke the dice outcomes are 100% manipulated The rolls are technically random, but dont be fooled. The computer definitely receives better quality rolls in all risk situations.
Love the interface, love the feel, and easy to get lured into. But, then you play and impossible rolls just seem to happen over and over in the most uncanny ways. We started dropping rolls into ChatGPT to see the odds. 3 doubles in a row? No problem for the AI – with less than a .5% chance. In a tight race with all pieces past each other? No problem for the AI as we roll 5 under 5 combined rolls in a row. A 0.165% event. This kind of stuff happens consistently in this game. Love it, but had to delete it as Ive never seen the luckiest human get those rolls. And so consistently when needed the most.
. . .game is slanted to the white. We can be WAY ahead. Then we get knocked off, and the white gets all the around, and we cant get out until the white is bearing off. We have also tested a theory. We let the computer decide EVERY MOVE, and WAALAA, we won way more than we lost. The algorithms are definitely skewed. Another theory we noticed was if white is ahead, they get doubles, and black gets ones and twos. We play because we love the game, but when it is lopsided, we x out of it, hoping it will reset.
We think this has great gameplay so we still play it but we are convinced that the game looks ahead on doubling and definitely rolls better than we do when push comes to shove. We only play expert mode but subtle differences in coming out are irrefutable imo. Just our gut but its a bit absurd tbh.
We have played thousands of games of backgammon on this app. Theres no advertising (good) and for the most part, the games are challenging and fun. The bad is that the app gives itself perfect rolls repeatedly, so expect to lose frequently. Theres no element of luck for the computer, but we suppose this is one way to get people to keep playingif you won all the time, what would be the point? We plan to keep the app, which is why we gave it 3 stars. But if you are a highly competitive person (we are not), you might find this app frustrating.
This game punishes players for an aggressive, non-traditional style of play. If you take occasional chances by leaving pieces open that require a combination of both dice to get you, it will do just that 80% of the time, even if two specific numbers are required to do that, such as a 6 & 1, or 2 & 5! This is not random chance.
At first it was good and then even putting on the easy setting it is hard to beat. We have learned to hate it actually.
Im sorry but the amount of doubles the computer gets, especially on the Expert and Hard levels, is simply unprecedented. You should add an option Disable doubles. Leave everything as is. Dont change the algo. Just add this option. If the next throw is a double, just simply skip over it and use the next non-double turn. Just to clarify, Im not talking about the doubling cube. Im talking about disabling the option to throw doubles (eg 6-6, 5-5, etc).
Looks like the things that we took issue with were all fixed with the last patch. Thank you.
Love it. No ads + AI assistant helps us learn the best moves we should have made post game. Would recommend.
This backgammon app has been around for a long time. Its made by a small development group that does this thing well. Contrary to all the apps with flashy graphics and gameplay that demands a steady stream of revenue, treating us like a piggy bank, we bought this one and now its ours. Of course its backgammon so doesnt require 3d perspectives. The graphics are fine as it is. Now lets talk about the computer cheating. We have had some amazing rolls with this game. If it was cheating, we would not have been able to get the results we have. Ive also lost some annoying games. 3 doubles in a row? Are you kidding us? But that happens with dice, too, campers. You win some, you lose some. Sometimes the dice are crazy. For both good and bad. That said, we play on the hard level. And the game has made us a better player. We have found that the computer is fond of doubling when its home row has a lot of openings, and its at those times when we say, are you kidding us? And then we clobber it and win 4 points which is really satisfying. The developer is super transparent about the dice rolls. The computer knows the odds, for sure. So you better bring your A game. You can win if you are clever. The computer is not wise about knocking you out of its home row. It will do it and leave itself exposed. If it does, then when you hit its pieces, they get sent all the way back to the bar. Thats how Im able to win. L And one has to know when to just surrender when the computer doubles and its in a really good position. Its very good about covering the middle section of the board, so watch out. We love this game. We can knock out game after game of backgammon in just a few minutes. Its fun.
No unnecessary bells and whistles, just world-class backgammon on the expert level. Just play on Expert with instruction enabled($) and try to improve your percentages. It is NOT cheating, it's just better than you, unless you're one of the top dozen players in the world.
This App is terrible. While dice are proven to be random, the game play is not. Computer consistently makes stupid moves that no rational person (or even AI) would only because it knows the future rolls. Computer consistently hits two pips in the box knowing that you will not get them coming out. Just one example of the many strange moves the computer makes to tilt the advantage. Jimmy will contest all he wants but he knows that the game is rigged.
We play against the computer in expert mode, and the thing is pure evil. However, if you cant stand in the heat, go play a kiddy game. This particular game makes you an expert player. It toughen you up and it teaches you how to win. The best Ive ever done is 100% against the computer and the last game we just played a few minutes ago was 98.3%, so the computer is beatable, about 50% of the time if you got game. If you dont have any game, the thing will eat you alive. If you want to be good enough to play in a tournament and win, well, this is the game that will get you there.
We are having trouble with our game. We used to be able to play with other people online and now we cannot. We actually paid for the game a second time and we still cannot play with other people. Could you please help us.
Cant figure out how to add our friends to play with them.
Played computer best out of three. First game we had a gammon, second game computer won with a gammon. Game ended and stated computer won match. Can someone please explain scoring rule. Should there not have been a third game for the win.
This player will change his name to incorporate other players names and attach to profanity or use names like other players and act rudely disguised as that player . He is a 2170 playerplease kick him off app.
Get this. Its a well thought ought amazing online game. We have game friends in every timezone and can play 24 hours a day.
Hands-down the number one backgammon app. Unless Snowie, GNU or Jellyfish release their app, youre not going to find a stronger game to help you improve. Disregard all of the people leaving comments about the computer cheating. Those people truly dont understand the randomness of dice. Years ago when we first purchased, we were in that same boat. However, more than once we have turned on manual rolls and rolled our own dice and you know what? Crazy things also happen. Just this morning we played with Manuel dice and rolled four double sixes in a row. Had this happened on the random generator in the game, most people wouldve thought the game is terrible and on and on. To avoid future trashing of this app from all of those people, do what we did. Roll your own dice and see what happens. We guarantee youll always hit some crazy rolls or the computer will have what appears to be the perfect rolls. Guess what though? It happens. Play it long enough and roll your own dice and you will see all of these crazy things you people complain about time and time again.
By far the best backgammon app available. Ive tried the majority of them and there isnt a close second. Unless you are playing on a PC and play GNU, Snowie or jellyfish, nothing is going to compare on the iOS next to this one. If youre looking into seriously improving your game, disregard the negative apps that all claim the game is cheating. Ive been playing backgammon for over 25 years at a very high level and take our word, the people who complain are not that good of players and dont fully understand statistics and probability. Being able to save your games/matches and go back and have them analyzed move by move is a tool that will absolutely improve your game. You will swear you made the right move but when you run through it being analyzed and see the best move youll have that lightbulb moment. In short, if youre looking to improve your game, you will not find a more superior version than this.
Dice are fair. The computer player is pretty good. Backgammon is the cruelest game.
The app is amazing! Great and all the customizaiton you could want. Controls and UI are also great! But there's a bug when playing on our desktop. For turn based games we only see that our oponent played if we quit and reopen the app. There is no notification. Can you please try and fix? Let us know if there is any way we can help debug. Thanks for an amazing app.
It has everything except it can't make coffee. The rolls are pretty darn fair. We couldn't find any problem with them. Even if you might think they are unfair there are enough adjustments in settings to make you feel better. We have to refuse the temptation to "cheat" using hints when we run into a problem. This can be great for learning but sometimes we get lazy and keep wanting to hint to a win. Shame on us.
Okay, we really like this app (cannot say we LOVE any app, LOL). Still cannot figure out how the computer constantly gets back on the board quickly with perfect rolls (when we only have 2 open spots) so much more often than when we roll. Understandably, the computer moves well and covers the board better, but it still seems to almost ALWAYS get back on within 2 rolls unless we have the entire board covered. But, as far as cheating is concerned, we dont think it looks ahead at future rolls, but the manual rolls are suspiciously perfect. Either way, we still enjoy the game and have gotten better quickly. After a few weeks, Im taking best of 7 matches consistently against medium unless we do something dumb in the first 4 rolls. Ill move to hard and expert soon. In the analysis portion, we would like to see mirrored dice rolls as an option to replay entire games and see how different moves would change an outcome. That could help folks get much better. We have no idea if other apps do this at all.
Our favorite backgammon app mainly because of its excellent multiplayer support.
Confession: we were once one of those people that was CERTAIN that the game cheated in expert mode. After looking at Jimmys proof page, we were left with serious cognitive dissonance…. Surely, there must be some mechanism by which its playing unfairly. But then, a funny thing happened. As we continued playing more and more games, and learning from the hints provided, we gradually became a better player, better to the point where we were winning much more than we did before. It got to the point where we had to check the settings to make sure it was still in expert mode, like maybe we had switched it to easy mode and forgotten. Nope, still in expert mode. The game hadnt changed – we did. Look no further folks, this is the one to get. Good work Jimmy, and sorry for doubting you early on.
Confession: we were once one of those people that was CERTAIN that the game cheated in expert mode. After looking at Jimmys proof page, we were left with serious cognitive dissonance…. Surely, there must be some mechanism by which its playing unfairly. But then, a funny thing happened. As we continued playing more and more games, and learning from the hints provided, we gradually became a better player, better to the point where we were winning much more than we did before. It got to the point where we had to check the settings to make sure it was still in expert mode, like maybe we had switched it to easy mode and forgotten. Nope, still in expert mode. The game hadnt changed – we did. Look no further folks, this is the one to get. Good work Jimmy, and sorry for doubting you early on.
We have used Backgammon NJ and HD for years and have enjoyed it.
Great app. We wish the analysis addon included ability to save the files into ios files app or share via ios share settings. We don't use apple mail client so we cannot get any match files out of the app Also a minor issue but the match score font is too small.
For some reason this app does not get the respect it deserves. We are a 2000 + rated player, and we enjoy practicing with this game very much. The equity meter towards the end is sometimes wrong, but overall a very worthy adversary. Nice clean interface, and a joy to play. Highly recommended.
This player will change his name to incorporate other players names and attach to profanity or use names like other players and act rudely disguised as that player . He is a 2170 playerplease kick him off app.
If youre interested in improving your game, this is by far the best Ive seen, better than BG Galaxy. We recommend the complete analysis package.
The moves are quick and precise. Just what you are looking for. You can easily set random numbers and use built in options. We have tried dozens. This is a keeper.
Great way to increase your knowledge of backgammon, become a better player and choose appropriate opponents.
Without a doubt the finest iPad app ever written. Countless hours of absolute pleasure with this amazing game.
We win most games when we play in the easy mode. Go figure. Its more pleasing to win every now and again. In expert mode, we rarely won.
Our most used leisure app. Great game combining skill and luck; believe the dice rolls are random as advertised. Except when we lose ;-) Expert level is very challenging.
Very strong. Very impressive. Probably on par with Jellyfish (PC) and BGBlitz (Mac) at a tiny fraction of the cost. And after playing on the iPad, playing on a Mac feels positively 1990's. However for a more recreational player, Backgammon HD (versus Backgammon HD NJ) though not nearly as strong has a much more elegant, realistic and intuitive GUI, we think. PS: we see no evidence whatsoever that the dice are rigged. After playing a few thousands points, bravo, fabulous. Not for those with frail egos!! Better maybe than BGBlitz and playing on an iPad is so much better. Update: after playing nearly 5,000 games, wow! Bravo, Bravo, what a great app! After playing nearly 10,000 games, what an outstanding app. After playing 30,000 games, on an iPad Mini….expert mode, the value for money of this app is extraordinary. Thank you.
The following was a canned offering that we cannot disagree with. Follows standard moves for aggressive players; great learning tool most of the time. Almost never makes dumb moves unless it's being really aggressive. Strongly recommended.
Its so easy to think you played a bad game because you lost or a good game because you won. This app helps you evaluate your game objectively. Im still not a great player, but our game has improved significantly.
User feedback from Apple App Store
App Details
- Version: 7.0.3
- Size: 54.54 MB
- iOS: 15.4 or later
- Languages: EN
- Content Advisory:
- Developer: Jimmy Hu
Last updated: 6th October 2024 | Genre: Board, Entertainment | Developer: Jimmy Hu