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BGonline.org Forums
... made less precise by cutting off the corners
Posted By: Phil Simborg In Response To: ... made less precise by cutting off the corners (vidvis)
Date: Friday, 26 August 2016, at 1:33 p.m.
You are correct. Just because the corners are cut does not mean that the dice are "automatically" not accurate. But it does mean that they no longer fit the official definition of "precision" and it does mean that unless they are tested by rolling them tens of thousands of times, you can't know how accurate they are.
Again, people are missing the point of this thread. It is not my intent, or P40's intent to say that the rounded dice should not be used, or that they are so bad it ruins the game. I am perfectly happy to play with the rounded dice we now call precision dice. I think they are just fine for our purposes, and even though I know that it is nearly impossible for a rounded-corner dice to be perfectly fair in the long run, I believe they are just fine for backgammon and probably don't favor a number enough to matter. If I didn't believe that I wouldn't be playing for money several days a week and I would never sit down at a table and use someone else's dice, as I so often do. I know they cannot be perfect, and I know that tests have shown they all favor one or more numbers in the very long run because they are not perfectly made, but that's fine with me.
The purpose of the post was to say to those people who criticize electronic dice because they fear they are not as fair as real dice that a) their real dice aren't compeletely fair either, and b) it may be that electronic dice are even more fair than real dice.
And again, the issue of using electronic dice is not about fairness or cheating...they are both likely to be reasonably fair and there are reasonable ways to protect from those very few cheaters out there would would try to gain an advantage by using skewed or loaded dice or by trying to hack an electronic program. The point is that if we have a good electronic dice program, and it is provided by a neutral or trusted party, it is an alternative that can make the game more accessible and enjoyable for some people and it may also provide some advantages for streaming, recording, and automatic transcription.
So why not do open and honest experimentation and discussion about the facts and the options and see how it works out? Why not look at alternatives that some people might enjoy or benefit from, and do this without personally attacking people who, whether you agree with them or not, are trying to find ways to improve and promote the game?
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