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BGonline.org Forums
Meyer Dice Tube
Posted By: mamabear In Response To: Meyer Dice Tube (Stick)
Date: Friday, 30 July 2010, at 1:15 p.m.
I have played with a dice tube, and overall, IMO the disadvantages outweigh the advantages in normal tournament play in a standard hotel venue, with the match possibly being recorded and/or streamed, and with kibitzers present at least off and on.
That said, I don't think these gadgets are useless. If I were as lucky as Steve Mellen and won one as a door prize, I'd at least hang onto it, in case a situation arose where it would be better than dice and cups. Here are two that come to mind:
1. One player or both players have a disability that makes it difficult for them to pick up two small objects, shake them adequately but not too much, and roll them without either blooping them out one by one or tossing them across the room. The tube would solve their problems. And since the non-disabled player wouldn't have to use it, the disabled player could simply lift the tube at the end of his turn and put it back on his side of the board, same as he would have done with dice. None of this tapping business!
2. There are venues at least in this part of the world where the floor consists of decking boards, where a lost die can drop into a black hole and never be seen again. Also, some people might like playing on their pontoon boats. While a pontoon boat in good repair is almost impossible to capsize, losing dice over the side is quite easy. Even if the tube isn't well sealed (more about that in a moment) it still isn't going to immediately sink like a stone...or a pair of dice. So you should be able to fish it out, dry it out, and get back to your game if it falls or otherwise ends up overboard. I can also see using a tube in extremely crowded venues, where a lot of people will be inconvenienced (yourself included if you get stepped on) if you have to chase a die. And do you really want to chase a die across a band platform or dance floor?
Steve Mellen mentioned the issue of "hermetic sealing". Hellooo zeba nayba, no way will I play with someone else's dice that I can't mix at the beginning of the match, plus pinch-poke-rattle if I think there's something funny about them. So don't seal that tube, hermetically or otherwise, no matter how good the original dice might be. A cheat could unseal the tube, replace the dice with ones he knows have particular quirks, per esempio like rolling more than the expected number of 6s or 1s, then re-seal it. Yoiks!
Another problem I see with the tube is that it often obstructs the players' view of the checkers in the area of the board where it is placed. Yeah, we can all see through it and around it, but if I paid a full entry fee, I expect an unobstructed view of the field.
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