I haven't played Backgammon on my Mac since the very old days when there was a black-and-white program that filled the 9-inch screen of my Fat Mac. So I was pleased to see MacUpdate offering a discount on this one.

I've only played it for two days but am fairly pleased so far. It took some getting used to as some of the details on how to pick up and put down pieces differed from the old MacGammon (or whatever it was called). Once I got settled in to that, I was satisfied.

Appearance is good, game play is good. I'm running with the default settings right now for the opponent, who seems remarkably aggressive to me, leaving pips exposed that I would never leave exposed, even to send one back. It seems to be at a competitive level for me, neither too stupid nor totally beyond me.

I have some sympathy for the "cheating" accusations as it seems to be very good at getting doubles right after the stakes are raised. But I thought that about the old game, too, so I'm assuming it's just some quirk of human psychology.

I don't know what sort of alternatives there are out there, but I'm pretty happy with this one.