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BGonline.org Forums
Nactation families, and unusual plays with 21
Posted By: Nack Ballard In Response To: opening roll nactation question (Petter Bengtsson)
Date: Tuesday, 24 August 2010, at 4:38 a.m.
Starting with the general and moving to the specific:
Each main Nactation character (letter, symbol or numeral) is the primary member of its family. For example, H, $ and 5 are each a primary member, heading different families.
In a letter family, the capital is the first (primary) member and lower-case the second (secondary) member. Next (to answer Tim's question), italics are resorted to: italic capital is third (tertiary), and italic lower case is fourth (quaternary), though these will seldom be needed for plays made in a normal game of backgammon.
[The fifth through eighth terms are the same underlined, and the ninth through sixteenth are those same eight emboldened, but these virtually never arise in other than puzzle-fabricated situations, so I typically use underlining and emboldenment instead in the standard way -- as tools for referencing or emphasis.]
For the H family, the rule is that the play that hits the checker on the highest point (where there is a legal hit) gets the capital "H." If the checker on the next highest point is hit, "h" is used. For hitting on the third highest point use italic "H," and for the fourth highest point use "h."
The U/V family (where priority is lead checker closest to home) is, by design, twice as large because in some positions there are many Up plays. The hierarchy is U, V, u, v, U, V, u, v. This dual letter umbrella is an isolated case, however.
For symbols, no lower case version exists. Instead, I have paired a couple of them with another symbol, so that the family size is restored to that of most letters (such as H). Those dual families (so far) are Slot -- $, %, $, %; and anchor -- @, #, @, # (though in this latter case note that the first and third, and the second and fourth, too similarly resemble each other in this font). Again, one will rarely require or see the third or fourth members, let alone the underlined fifth, etc.
Numeral families are half the size of letter families. There is no lower case, and no practical pairing to anything else. For example (without going so far as to underline), the "5" family is just 5, 5. For that reason (and also because I am contemplating a grander scheme to apply them to complex doublets), I tend to resort to numerals sparingly in my self-notes, documents, charts, etc., though you will more frequently see me use numerals online because they are easy for less-Nactation-fluent readers to understand.
The original (or offshoot to the original) question had to do with the roll of opening 21 Slot plays:
13/11 6/5 is $
13/11 8/7 is % (correcting Petter)8/7 6/4 doesn't actually bring down a checker (which is the normal default expectation unless the other half of the $ play stands out as forced or obvious); for that irregularity alone, 8/7 6/4 would be demoted to quasi-Slot usage. But there's another problem with applying the Slot concept to it. While it is an unwritten rule at this point, I avoid using a member of the Slot family for double-slotting moves -- it's a poor division of labor. For 8/7 6/4, therefore, better is italic "&," the second member of the double-slot family. The primary double-slot member "&" is 6/5 6/4 (because slotting the 5pt and/or 4pt is usually more distributionally natural and by rule takes priority over slotting other points).
As Petter points out, 13/11 6/5 can also be "N" (though less stylish than "$"), and 8/7 6/4 can also be "n" (which I usually prefer because it is easier to write and read than italic "&").
Nack
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