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BGonline.org Forums
Another Issue for Tournament Directors
Posted By: Stick In Response To: Another Issue for Tournament Directors (Phil Simborg)
Date: Wednesday, 2 September 2009, at 11:32 a.m.
I see many problems that can stem from this, some have been mentioned here already. I personally like to play a match here or there on a computer but I wouldn't want it to become the standard practice. I get a lot of enjoyment from rolling the dice, moving the checkers, etc...as you may have noted from my lackluster response to baffleboxes and what they take away from the game.
- I want all matches to be clocked and now you want to play matches on a computer, how is that going to work? You can't simply use the same time controls the rest of the tournament is using because you've taken out the time to shake, the time to cock dice, etc.
- By playing on a computer you take a lot of the human emotion out of it. People (your opponents) will not react to the same way as seeing you need a 17-1 shot while you shake for a couple seconds and having it spill out in front of them the same way as if you're clicking buttons and flump, there's the dice roll.
- Others in the tournament will argue it's not as mentally tiring to play on a computer as it is to play on an actual board. Whether I agree with this or not it's true that now you can't make an illegal move, pip counting may be easier (you simply can't turn off the pip count, you have to turn off the numbers of the points too!), the frustration is cut down, etc.
- Sometimes when the players agree to you asking 'do you want to play on my computer' they don't realize they are costing themselves. Sure, you take the top player, fine, both of you have a mouse and can play your own moves however now they're playing on XG and maybe they're used to Snowie? Perhaps your monitor size is a lot smaller than their home computer? Likely you're more comfortable playing on a computer than they are ... maybe other things I'm not even thinking of right now, and that person agreed to it, but they didn't realize where they were going wrong so it almost feels like you could be taking advantage of someone even if you weren't trying to.
- What happens when the computer crashes in the middle of a game? Play enough, it will happen. What if someone *misclicks* and closes the program? How about if you start the match on the computer and then the other person realizes they no longer want to play on the computer, that it's a distraction, do you change to a regular board or uphold the rule that whatever equipment started the match will end the match unless...
- People don't trust computers and certainly not randomized dice. It can be easily manipulated, I could know all the upcoming dice rolls and my opponent wouldn't have a clue.
Stick
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