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Electronic cubical dice - one advantage

Posted By: Henrik Bukkjaer
Date: Wednesday, 23 February 2011, at 9:23 p.m.

In Response To: Electronic cubical dice - one advantage (Colin Owen)

@Colin:

If you want to greatly reduce rerolling of cocked dice try a baffle box: It is amazing the difference it can make.

I agree! And in addition you remove any issues regarding the randomness of your shake and roll.

How many would we have got rolling without? Five hundred to a thousand?

I think that's a bit on the high side, but of course I don't know how energetic you roll :-)

Of course, it takes a second for the dice to pass through a baffle box, but most players shake their dice less when using one, if at all.

I feel that a well constructed bafflebox entirely eliminate the need for shaking the dice. Actually it shouldn't be necessary to use cups at all! If you play using a good bafflebox without cups, you save approx. 1-2 seconds per move!

In a recent speedgammon tournament I hosted for my team I played 6 4-point matches with 3min/10sec controls, without using a single second of the bank time in any of them! We used my prototype baffleboxes on all boards. They allow you to adjust the throw speed and height slightly, to match the board/dice you play.

As long as the box is placed next to the outer tables (contrary to the US and Danish rules) it speeds up the game on most boards, and probably dramatically so on some.

As for DBgF rules, they state exactly that! From the translation used for Nordic Open:

4. PLACING. If a baffle box is in use, it must be placed opposite the home boards of the players.

I know this for a fact, because I authored that particular rule. It should be considered along with the clock rule, which say the clock must be placed next to the home boards.

The obvious reason being that you rarely have 5-7 checkers stacked on your 7 or 8 points, compared to your 6 point, causing fewer cocked dice from a baffle-box shooting towards the bar from the outfield.

It's also most comfortable having the clock next to your home board, for moves entering, re-hitting and bearing off.

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