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some Question on Safe Harbor Games

Posted By: Michael Petch
Date: Sunday, 29 April 2012, at 11:43 p.m.

In Response To: some Question on Safe Harbor Games (Christian Plenz)

Stick is correct, you can search this forum however I can sum it up for you:

In late 2009 an issue was found with SHG dice (Neil RObins is credited for the initial discovery). They are random, BUT they don't behave like typical 6 sided dice. In particular these bad dice generate about 9.2-9.6% doubles rather than the 1/6 you'd expect.

SHG changed the dice algorithm with an effort from Will Womack and myself, and SHG deployed the correct dice site wide.

SHG got a lot of flack from social (not usually competitive) tournaments and players about how there were too many doubles, and that the game didn't seem fair anymore. Under pressure SHG compromised. They created two sets of dice and allowed tournament hosts to choose which they wanted. The purely social rooms also were given the improper dice.

Red Dice = Incorrect dice that generate about 9.2-9.6% doubles. Affectionately called "social dice" .

Yellow Dice = Proper dice (that have been heavily studied) that yield a distribution in lines with what you would expect statistically. Dice are generated using Mersenne Twister.

Beyond this forum Will Womack has a blog with his own commentary, and comments from people who were upset over the dice change. It makes for interesting reading.

http://backgammoncamp.wordpress.com/2009/10/11/safe-harbor-games-dice/

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