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BGonline.org Forums
The Opening Bell Curve
Posted By: Daniel Murphy In Response To: The Opening Bell Curve (Chase)
Date: Tuesday, 5 June 2007, at 7:31 p.m.
Chase writes: Simply have the player who wins the opening roll play only his (i.e. the high) die .. [which] ... on average, leaves Op on roll trailing by 4 pips, which is essentially an even game.
Ok, and for the second roll, we can let the responder keep rolling until he rolls 6-2 or 5-3 -- 8 pips -- so we have an even game again. I'm being facetious, of course, but the point is that making the opening roll "fair" in this way only passes the "unfairness" off to the second roll.
Various rules-tinkerers seem, I think, to often make some faulty assumptions: (1) Variance, or luck, is "unfair." (2) Reducing variance or luck is necessarily good. (3) Reducing variance or luck is desired by tournament participants.
The "World Championship" in Monte Carlo lasts more than a week. In the same eight days we could easily reduce variance. Let's make it a 15-round seeded Swiss tournament with 25-point matches. Who's for it?
One of Garal's suggestions -- the simplest one -- I've no big objection to. That is his suggestion that players roll once for the opening roll in two consecutive games. But I don't think it's a big improvement. Does it have disadvantages? At least one: arguments at the start of the second game over what the opening roll in the first game was.
As to Garal's rationale for a new scoring system, I'm totally unconvinced. As far as I can see, his reasons are twofold:
1. A random opening roll, he asserts, is unfair. But it's not unfair. It produces a small amount of variance, but that's not unfair.
2. The current match scoring system (each game being worth 1, 2 or 3 points times the cube value) is unfair, while scoring by calculating value for (1) winning the match (2) the value of the cube at the end of each game (3) how close the loser was to losing a gammon is is "fair." But Garal doesn't make any argument for why the second method is "fair" and the first is not. As far as I can see, all he's done is assert that the first is unfair because it's the same method used in money games.
And that's it. Here's what he says:
After all, a doubling cube used in the money-game is practically a coefficient by which the stake should be multiplied. There are no stakes in the backgammon tournament games. However the scoring for the win in a game is nonetheless made by the same system (using the identical scoring rules of money-game).
This is a specious argument. There certainly is a monetary stake in a tournament match. It's your expected share of the prize pool. Every point won in a match increases that share.
In a money session a game is worth 1, 2 or 3 points times the cube value. In a tournament match, a game is also worth 1, 2 or 3 points times the cube value. What's wrong with that? Garal doesn't say. Why is scoring according to the number of checkers removed better? He doesn't say.
Of course, in a match there's the added complication that because the match is played to a certain number of points, not every point has the same value. This complication is a huge part of the challenge of match play. Garal doesn't even mention it. But his proposed solution would eliminate this complication. Instead of, for instance, playing a match to 11, you'd play 12 discrete money-type games but with a different, complicated scoring system.
As far as I can see, Garal's rationale amounts to this:
1. The cube, which was devised for money games, is currently used in matches the same way it's used in money game.2. There's no stake in a tournament match.3. Therefore the current match scoring system is unfair.The logic escapes me.
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