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BGonline.org Forums
Headphones
Posted By: Joe Russell In Response To: Headphones (benf)
Date: Saturday, 14 April 2018, at 9:50 a.m.
I think the concern over wearing headphones in backgammon should be limited to social concerns. Does it diminish the social aspects of the game for enough people that a ban should be considered? If we ever get backgammon broadcast to a broader, less sophisticated, audience (someday, maybe?), it may be preferable to bar headphones in important matches, so as to allow more of the personalities of the players to be displayed to the viewing audience. But, for now, I have no objection to them, whatsoever. But I am one person.
As far as cheating with headphones, I think the concerns are minimal.
How can one cheat with headphones? I can think of two main ways, though I am sure there are more: (1) Having doubling and take points on the output device; (2) Being signaled by a confederate what action is proper.
Number one seems rather absurd. Anyone that would go to all the trouble to record all the doubling and take points would be wiser to just memorize them for a 7-point match; it seems like a much better use of time. Even if someone did record them, would it not look suspicious if they started fiddling with their output device when being faced with a cube decision. That would seem obvious they may be cheating, even if in most cases the person doing it would not be. I guess one could have the doubling and take points constantly scrolling, but they would have to wait for the proper score to come up before making a decision, wasting a lot of their clock time.
Number two seems much more dangerous, but is it really much of a threat? This threat can be alleviated by having the match delayed on the stream or broadcast by a couple of minutes. Though one could still benefit from their confederate by using two minutes of clock time, they could not do it often.
I am happy to let people wear headphones.
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