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Nackgammon Shuffle - Starting Positions

Posted By: Chris Haviland
Date: Wednesday, 5 October 2011, at 6:39 a.m.

In Response To: Nackgammon Shuffle (Stick)

If a NackGammon Shuffle event is offered in tournament play, the procedure for establishing starting positions should be standardized. There are several reasonable mechanisms; I like these.

Although Nack’s dollar bill method is clever, I slightly prefer a die for a few reasons:

  • Dice are standard backgammon equipment.

  • I dislike paper money in general. Although I almost always have a dollar bill on me, I look forward to a day when I don’t have to carry physical money. As mentioned, both players need bills to prevent manipulation.

  • For long sessions, the number of different positions isn’t constrained by the number of bills on hand.

  • It’s easy enough to work out and memorize what the serial number totals mean (i.e. 6 and 2 means anchors on the 3 and 4 points). But not as easy as dice rolls, which are self-evident.

The NG450 procedure in particular has a couple things going for it:

  • It’s simple, and doesn’t take many rolls to establish a position (4.4 on average).

  • It favors the flexible [four-checker stack on the 6-point] configuration, but leaves room for the unusual 5-point and exotic 4-point stacks (distributed 10:4:1).

-Chris H.

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