Lolol. Nice wriggle. :-))

Unit names with prefixes are treated "as per 9.2" because that's the clause that deals with unit names, while "A derived unit is usually singular" is stated explicitly and derived units would not, therefore, be "as per 9.2".

Science-based I am but my interest here is mainly in English. The NIST stuff was all news to me and just a chance for a bit of pedantic quibbling, er, I mean fun, lol. ;-)

The last word's yours, my friend (unless you drop a big clanger, lolol).

"9.2 plurals: Plural unit names are used when they are required by the rules of English grammar."

This is straightforward.

"9.3 Spelling unit names with prefixes"

This defines "centimetre" as a unit name that has a prefix. It doesn't fall into a distinct "prefix-unit" class. Therefore it is treated as per 9.2.

It seems clear enough to me, George, but I know you don't like to be wrong, so let's see how you wriggle. ;-p

lolol. Pedanticsemantics. Okay, backgammon be damned, I'll join in too.

Walter is quite correct with his original "33 and 1/3 centimeters" (apart from it being centimetREs in *proper* English, hee hee). Due to the use of the plural there's no option to construe the 33 as merely a number and the 1/3 as the measure.

"1/3 centimetres" is incorrect English. It would be "1/3 centimetre" which is shorthand for "1/3 of a centimetre". Writing "1/3 of a centimetres"? Well, you can see how wrong that is. (Though, interestingly, the plural is correct for decimal fractions, eg 0.5 oranges)

Therefore, when Walter says "33 and 1/3 centimeters", the plurality, and hence the centimetreness, must cover the 33 as well.

Chessmaster1000; I didn't understand why you said "better not to use plural". If I say "It measures 2 centimetre." then it feels as if I'm talking like a foreigner.

Lol. No apologies necessary, that was fake offense-taking there. :-))

And you're right to say "apparently" mistaken because we *have* gone metric. Sort of. But we've gone to great lengths to do so in a British on-our-own-terms kind of weigh. Which is to say that we keep the miles but use metres and centimetres - except for people's heights which are in feet and inches if you prefer. We now have litres instead of gallons but you can still buy pints of milk and beer. And you can buy a pound of apples and a kilogram of sugar. Plenty of packaged foods come as 300g, 800g, etc. but some weigh exactly a pound and are labelled as 454g.

Howdy. Best to read the message "Gammons and Doubling Cube - Now possible" first.

The gammon idea's fine but I've just tried to do the doubling cube thing and discovered the fatal flaw. The doubler gets to see their dice first. Lol, what an advantage; you could never accept a double!!

It could only work if each player sent their move by message, in advance, so the opponent could consider doubling kning the position but without knowing their dice. Then they'd have to send a message back ("Double" or "No dDouble") which the mover *must* wait for but only open after they've sent the move off. (This is so that the appearance of a message doesn't come to imply doubling). And this message thing has to be done by each player between each move.

Confused?? Try it, it's ...


... worse, lolol. *Nobody's* going to do all that! ;-)

.. back to the drawing board unless, maybe, you've got some better ideas ... ?

It's just occurred to me that gammons and the doubling cube can be made part of the game here without Fencer having to lift a finger. It would just require a bit of cooperation between the players.

All it takes is a gentleman's/lady's agreement for the loser of a gammon or doubled cube to resign as many subsequent games within a match as required. A dropped 1-cube would mean resignation of the current game and a 2-cube the following game as well, etc. A gammon loss would similarly mean resigning the next game.

Messages would be sent to signal intent to double and then acceptance or rejection. I don't yet know whether a note can be sent as part of the game record without a move being made. If not then the message would have to be sent via the envelope system. The receiving player would then send it back as a note on the next move so that it becomes part of the game record - makes it official in the case of dispute. But that's only a procedure that need be done if you wanted to be strict about it.

Dishonourable players could be posted here and as much hot air expanded over the issue as anyone likes and/or can stand.

One interesting angle from this method that sites with built-in doubling cannot offer - the ability to continue the game after dropping the cube and the chance to say "Phew!" or "Doh!" when the result becomes known. ;-)

Hope this is useful to those who like the cube. I'd certainly like to use this system for gammon wins.

:-))

I quoted him from the alanback message of 22.May 2005, 01:21:17. Was I wrong to lift a quote from Alan's quote? Yes? Perhaps I've misunderstood how this message board works? That's enough for Darnosock to dismiss me?

He can't be bothered to skip the humour - which is a poke tongue at Alan anyway (who strikes me as having a better sense of humour and doesn't have his head stuck up his ..) - and move on to the backgammon bits? But then I gather he's not that interested in backgammon anyway.

[shrug]

His loss. No more of my words will be wasted on him.

The message below was supposed to go to Darnosock, not to the board. Lol. Still geting the hang of this here site. ;-)

[Edit: As you can see I've since appropriated that message as a repository for links relevant to Backgammon. A much better use ]

.

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For beginners
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Examples of strategy and tactics have been added to this message.
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Rollouts of the opening moves.
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Ric Gerace's Backgammon pages. Plenty of links.
Douglas Zare's Backgammon pages including an article on Luck
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danoschek: "Miles are standard, but just about nowhere else"
alanback: "miles" is a standard unit of measurement, but only in the US."

lolol. Excuse me!! And just who gave the Yanks the miles in the first place, may I ask??!! Britain is "just about nowhere else", lolol. Damn cheek!!

Aah, that felt good. So how was that for a fine display of nationalistic indignance, eh? ;-)

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Now, to the backgammon.

Walter mentioned two situations where a player cannot move, one being when a man is dancing on the bar because of a closed table. He says that the other "has probably never occured in Backgammon" so I'm inclined to wonder what he envisages. This gives us the third possibility of a player having one or more men stuck behind a 6-prime while all the rest are either on the ace point or have already been borne off. The first of these is uncommon but not rare while the latter is rare. (And the times when the trailing player actually wins from that position are *hugely* rare but *most* satisfying, lol. One of the backgammon book authors - sorry, can't remember who - witnessed this once and uses it to illustrate the never-give-up! principle.

I've only just joined here so I don't know whether an autopass rule would help or hinder the game flow. Certainly at Vog (www.VogClub.com), where I play regularly, the dice will always be rolled and a message shown for a second or two stating that I cannot move. Although this adds a delay to the game, it keeps intact the my-turn-your-turn aspect and I prefer that. Without this delay the board can change unrecognisably in a flash and I then have to spend much time working through the sequence of moves to get my mental board caught up with the real one. It's actually quicker to suffer the non-turn delay and keep my brain on track.

One thing that would be lost if an autopass rule were implemented and that's the ability of the stuck player sending an "Aaaggh!!" message or some such. ;-) Another thing lost (from autopass in a no-point-rolling situation) is the ability to see how many 6-6 rolls you've lost out on while stuck, lol, though this needn't be the case if those rolls are made on your behalf but without requiring the moving player to pause in their own playing.

My vote at this time would be for autopass to be an option that *both* players must select. And, if it can be explained easily enough (your explanation made perfect sense to me, Walter), to have two autopass options - for there *is* a valid distinction. I might accept a no-point-rolling autopass but would never want a your-roll-goes-nowhere autopass; it would be experienced as a disconcerting "jump" in the game.

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No doubling cube? Ah, well I can live without it. My apprenticeship consisted of learning how to beat an aggressive bot in 3-point matches. I would never have learnt proper chequer play if the cube was a factor unless I accepted everything - and then I'd have got hammered. Once I got to a decent rating I decided to take up the cube. Then Wham! Bam! my rating took a hell of a knock, lol. I'm still getting the hang of the cube. Maths of cubing?? Ha ha. I'll just use intuition for now thanks; I'll do the maths in a year or so ... maybe.

I thoroughly recommend learning the game without the cube until you reach a stable level and then introducing it. You'll reach game states that you'd otherwise rarely reach - because either you or the opponent drops before you get the chance to explore. Or you have to suffer, as I did when I first came up against players who knew a decent backgame, from having to accept the cube and an almost certain loss - just to find out how the game situation will pan out.

But gammons and backgammons don't count? No chance to smell the SIZZLE?? This ain't real backgammon yet, then. :-((

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alanback: You guys seem quite worried about someone missing their chance to double while sitting on the bar with the opponent's home base closed. It's hard for me to imagine that this would happen as this is a very disadvantagous type of position to find one's self in

Grenv gave the example of when you have borne off most of your men and one of the last few gets hit and stuck on the bar. Then, doubling from the bar will win the game unless the trailing player wants to pay the price of risking you escaping too soon and racing home to a win.

Another situation is in prime-vs-prime games where you have the better timing - *because* you have a man stuck on the bar - and you know your opponent's table is going to have to collapse. You may collect another blot or two if the table collapses untidily and you certainly get free and home to bear off before having to release your opponent. It's often a no-brainer drop if you're the player with the collapsing table.

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Non-backgammon point. What's with the poxy little message box that's only three lines deep and 60 characters wide. That's using about 2.5% of the available screen space - and that's on the smaller monitor! Jeez. It's a most annoying and yet common web design blunder, well that and marquees, and Flash graphics, and putting the [Move] button at the bottom of the page below a load of stuff that doesn't change so I have to scroll down to make each move, and .... oops, I'm about to go off on one .... better stop now. ;-))