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How do you bearin when you can hit...

Posted By: Barry Silliman
Date: Tuesday, 19 August 2008, at 4:53 p.m.

In Response To: How do you bearin when you can hit... (garyo)

Based on your description I assume 1^2 means make the 1 point. Is this Nacktation or some other nomenclature? Is it documented somewhere?

This may be opening a can of worms, but I am having a hard time understanding why when we have a precise notation that exactly describes all moves, that we have increasingly shifted to using other variants such as Nacktation, etc.

The best description I've seen of Nacktation is what I've found in the back of Nack Ballard's and Paul Weaver's recent book (Taco Broker advised me months ago to get that book and something happened in July that made me decide to listen to him and get it) and after reading it I still can't help but thinking that not every move is precisely annotated. That is, for any given position and roll if you give me the standard notation I can know right away exactly what the move is but if you give me the Nacktation I have to stop and think about it sometimes.

Maybe part of it is just that I'm new to Nacktation (but not new to backgammon) but I just wonder if a newbie to the game might not be scared off by it. It kinda seems like the way lawyers come up with fancy legal words for simple everyday terms. (I know lots of professions do this).

While reading the Nacktation appendix in the Ballard/Weaver book I do agree that it seems like a convenient shorthand notation for Figure captions and the like, but if I want to see the moves for a 80 move game e.g. I think I would much much rather see it in the standard notation.

BTW, I'm not picking on you garyo, I've just been thinking this way for a couple weeks while watching the forum, and decided to bring it up and see what others thought about it.

Messages In This Thread

• How do you bearin when you can hit...
  Klaus Evers -- Sunday, 17 August 2008, at 8:08 p.m.
  • How do you bearin when you can hit...
    bob koca -- Sunday, 17 August 2008, at 8:44 p.m.
    • How do you bearin when you can hit...
      Klaus Evers -- Monday, 18 August 2008, at 4:56 a.m.
      • How do you bearin when you can hit...
        bob koca -- Monday, 18 August 2008, at 5:49 a.m.
  • How do you bearin when you can hit...
    garyo -- Tuesday, 19 August 2008, at 4:17 p.m.
    • How do you bearin when you can hit...
      Barry Silliman -- Tuesday, 19 August 2008, at 4:53 p.m.
      • Nactation
        Stick -- Tuesday, 19 August 2008, at 5:07 p.m.
        • Nactation
          Barry Silliman -- Tuesday, 19 August 2008, at 6:40 p.m.
          • Nactation
            Stick -- Tuesday, 19 August 2008, at 9:00 p.m.
            • Nactation
              Matt Cohn-Geier -- Tuesday, 19 August 2008, at 9:19 p.m.
              • Nactation
                Stick -- Wednesday, 20 August 2008, at 7:31 a.m.
                • Nactation
                  Marty Storer -- Wednesday, 27 August 2008, at 1:08 p.m.
                  • Nactation
                    Stick -- Wednesday, 27 August 2008, at 1:22 p.m.
                    • Nactation
                      Matt Cohn-Geier -- Wednesday, 27 August 2008, at 3:16 p.m.
                      • Nactation
                        Stick -- Wednesday, 27 August 2008, at 4:50 p.m.
                        • Nactation
                          Barry Silliman -- Wednesday, 27 August 2008, at 6:52 p.m.
            • Nactation
              Caryl Stephanson -- Tuesday, 19 August 2008, at 10:49 p.m.
            • Nactation
              Marty Storer -- Monday, 25 August 2008, at 8:55 p.m.
              • Nactation
                Stick -- Monday, 25 August 2008, at 9:07 p.m.
                • Nactation (generation gap)
                  Marty Storer -- Wednesday, 27 August 2008, at 1:02 p.m.
          • Nactation
            MaX -- Wednesday, 20 August 2008, at 8:57 a.m.
      • How do you bearin when you can hit...
        Marty Storer -- Wednesday, 27 August 2008, at 1:15 p.m.