Party Gammon has 3-D style boards which work well. They have a feature that is nice for beginners which shows where a checker with the mouse cursor on it can move, without being annoying or obtrusive for experienced players. The boards seem to be similar in size and perspective to the ones at Gammon Empire and Play65, but with a different inoffensive color scheme (black and white pips on a grey background, white and dark brown checkers,"wooden frame").

There are enforced time limits, using timers that have two clocks for each player. One (they call a "local timer") is reset to zero after each move. The other (they call a "global timer") only starts when the other runs down, and then stops when the player has moved but isn't reset during the game. The player loses if the Global Timer runs out before the game is over on the board.

Three different speeds are available:

"Normal" is 45 seconds per move, plus 3 minutes on the "global timer".
"Fast" is 30 seconds per move, plus 2 minutes on the global timer.
"Express" is 15 seconds per move, plus 1 minute on the global timer.

There is a "Play Money" section for those who want to practice and become accustomed to the player interface before risking real cash. There are some checkboxes that look a bit similar to ones at "Yahoo! Games-Backgammon"and also (like Yahoo! and Gammon Empire and Play65) a color-coding system for different player ratings.

The site is very new and some minor things are still being perfected. For example, the "Auto Bearoff" feature doesn't work. There is a general lack of automatic features. For example, a player without access to the doubling cube still has to roll the dice. The player can, after giving up the cube, click "Auto Roll" but then it stays on for the next game unless the player switches it off (which might cause the player to miss a good doubling opportunity).

It isn't possible to save games so that they can later be reviewed.

On a positive note, two novel variations of the game are offered, "Nackgammon" and "Hypergammon", both I think invented in the last few decades. Both have all the same rules as standard backgammon, except that they use a different starting position and Hypergammon uses fewer checkers.

The Nackgammon starting position differs from the normal one in that each player has two men on the twenty-three point and only four on each of the thirteen and six points. The effect of this change is to make for a longer game with more contact and a greater chance that the better player will win.

In Hypergammon, each player starts with only three checkers on the board: one each on the 24, 23, and 22 points. This to makes for a much faster game than normal backgammon, but with still a lot of skill involved, I think mainly in handling the doubling cube.

PartyGammon now has 24 hr phone and email support for players, which is excellent support for players.

There always seems to be plenty money games being played and some players waiting for an opponent. At present the maximum amount of money that you can risk on a single game is US$500. You can join an open table, or set up your own with a stake, time limit, etc. that suits you. If you don't like the idea of playing for money against a ratings-wise mismatch, you can be guided by the ratings colour-code on what table you join or who you admit to your own table.

Unfortunately there so far there doesn't seem to be much interest in money Nackgammon and Hypergammon.

Plenty of "Sit and Go" tournaments (which start as soon as they fill up). Four, eight or sixteen player knockouts with matches to one or three points. Tournament entry ranges from $1.25 "buy in" (all paid back as prize money) plus a $0.25 "fee" (the rake) to $20 buy-in plus $2 fee.

Some other scheduled tournaments.

The site is owned by PartyGaming PLC. The "rake structure" as been designed to discourage head-to-head money play between players with very different ratings. According to their site, the lowest the rake gets is for two high-rated players (over 1700) playing a one point match for $100 or more (so far not allowed) is 1.375% capped at $5.

The rake on a one point match between two similarly rated player below 1700 playing for less than $20 is 4%. For longer matches there is an extra rake of 0.25%
per point above one point.

All the complex rules regarding the rake can be found at their website.

Curiously we see a lot of players playing "single games" with a limit the same size as the stake, subject to rake of 5% when they could be playing a "match game" to one point (of course in effect the same thing) with a rake of 4%.

Like Gammon Empire and Play65, Party Gammon seems to be purely geared to gambling. Playing for money and with the timer always on, there is little opportunity or incentive for online "socialising" between the players.

The site is part of PartyGaming PLC, which is well respected and established. You can use the same account to play at Party Poker and also at Party Casino.