GamesGrid exists since 1997, they are licensed by the Lotteries and Gaming Authority of Malta.

To understand what is going on at this site, it is necessary to know they offer Backgammon and Poker, for guests and members and they are pushing real hard towards membership and poker. From the index page of their website over the client software up to almost every single window or page, you will find a link to real money poker play for members almost instantly, but finding anything about backgammon for guests requires some searching.

Once you made it into the backgammon lobby, you will find several 100´s players logged on around the clock, where most of these are guests. As long as you are logged on as a guest, you will get the impression there are no real members other than a few robot players, which are indicated as such, but once you become a member, you will discover at least 100 members logged on almost any time; it is just that guests cannot see regular members in lobby unless you know their nicks and add them to your friends list.  They do not have specific restrictions but only a general expression in their terms, saying you may not participate in the site if it violates any law in your location.

The software is a downloadable client, which installs and updates automatically, currently version 3.6.1. On first view it looks like a Java applet, or some kind of GNU cross platform software, but it is a real client software written for Windows 98 or later.

The client software and connection to the server appears a bit unstable, even upon fast connections such as DSL, I've had frequent disconnects and no connection when trying to reconnect.

Window updates and speed of game play is average, compared to the amount of active users it is acceptable.

Compared to any other online backgammon software, the GamesGrid software is heavily overloaded with options, up to the point that you don´t find anything anymore in between several dozen individual settings. From the main lobby window itself, which can be split in tiles or cascade, over lobby chat, where you have fancy features like a list of gagged and blinded players, up to settings for the backgammon board itself, where about anything one can imagine is an optional setting, from 2D/3D board over board scheme and texture up to play options like auto play forced moves.

Options during game play are almost unlimited, up to tiny details like the die size relative to checkers and the delay for automatically played forced moves, the software has about any feature one can imagine and most of it is even optional including sound effects.

You can kibitz other players, and even chat with the players at the tables, but there is just one chat window where all chat messages from lobby and tables are mixed together including system messages and tournament announcements, meaning it is very hard to keep the overview, especially when using the features of gagged and blinded players it is about impossible to keep track who actually sees a message you type or which of all the messages are actually for you.

The software offers log files, once again optional and even in several formats to choose from.

Games Grid - play now!