One quirk about improving your backgammon by playing against bots is that it will always play the same opening move at a given setting.
E.g. for money att 2-ply, GNU-bg will always play 21 opening 13/11 24/23 etc etc.
The alternative of 13/11 6/5 is likely equally as strong but leads to different types of games.
When moving from bot play to live play, not being experienced in these variations can come as quite a shock!
Someone once played 43 24/20 24/21 on me!
All this leads me to wonder if an option to randomize GNU-bg's opening move might be an interesting option.
My ideas was to select a threshold EMG or MWC within which GNU-bg could randomly select a different opening play. To take it further one could select more than just the opening play.