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BGonline.org Forums
Adjusting Delay Settings
Posted By: Chuck Bower In Response To: Adjusting Delay Settings (Colin Owen)
Date: Sunday, 18 March 2012, at 12:57 a.m.
1) That a minimum requirement for shaking is established in rules sets, rather than merely having the convention of three (or two). Desirable anyway, but more relevant with clocks.
2) In order to try to equalise the clock time players spend shaking their dice, consider setting that minimum at four, or possibly higher.
3) Enforce it! Yes, exactly how this might be done is a fraught subject. But mainly because there are players who know their lax attitudes to the rules (their opponents therefore) or simply their 'forgetfulness' mean they will NOT shake sometimes, or not shake enough; and they expect to get away with it, because they nearly always do!
What dicetubes and baffle boxes have in common is that they reduce the variance on the rolling time. But the problem with cups is the lack of enforcment, and that is a systemic issue in backgammon where there is not an official monitoring every play (monitoring being common in all team sports and many individual sports). It comes down to the players having to enforce the rules on each other, and that can be a problem, partly because of the lack of impartiality. I'm sure it's different in some parts of the world, but for example, the one time I played in MC I was not at all comfortable with the dice shaking and went out of my way to make it an issue, but even that wasn't enough. (And why should I have to exert mental energy trying to get my undisciplined opponent to follow vague rules?)
Bottom line for me is that both baffle boxes and dicetubes take the uncomfortable self-enforcement out of the picture so why should they be hampered by rules which effectively regulate against their usage?
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