[Bug-gnubg] Recent RGB posting on "Change Dice" Option

[Ian Dunstan]

There is always a lot a very repetitive discussion in RGB about how such & such a Bot is cheating by dice manipulation in one form or another.  The Jellyfish text file option addresses the issue to a point but fails because of the possibility that the Bot is looking ahead at the file.  In response to one of these seemingly neverending "dice cheating" debates I put forward a programming idea that I believe would overcome the lookahead problem.

 

I never got a response from anyone on RGB but I still think it's a good idea, if only on the basis of giving some of the dice conspiracy  fanatics  less to dwell on.

 

My idea may not be practical, worthwhile or suffer from some other defect but I would like to get some feedback please.  A copy of the RGB posting follows:

 

 

 

Re: PROGRAMMING IDEA INSTEAD OF MANUAL DICE

Personally, I have never thought that any of the Bots cheat in any way
and therefore I would never actually use what might be termed the
"change dice" programming option I propose here.

My idea is to not have one dice text file but several, perhaps 5 or
more, files which store (say) 1000 rolls each in them. A paranoid user
can simply toggle between the 5 pre-determined dice text files anytime
he wants to, as he sees fit.  The Bot can hardly be accused of looking
ahead at the dice rolls when the user may have selected any of the
dice files quite at random.

A couple of silly examples on how it might work:

1) Cheating_Scumbag_Bot has broken contact and is making a race of it.
It's 25 pips down and must see sets of 5's and 6's coming up for it
and 1-2's for me. No way, I'm "changing dice" to stop that nonsense!

2) Cheating_Scumbag_Bot has hit me with 2 open blot's in it's home
board. It must see double 6's, 4's or 6-4 as my next roll to keep me
on the bar. I'll upset that little plot, I'm "changing dice"!

I am not a programmer but I don't think it would be very hard to set
this up.  The "change dice" UI could probably be a simple keypad
arrangement which would display close to the board and be clicked on
just before or just after you've rolled.

Jørn, I'm sure you have better things to do with your programming
time than worry about a few paranoid "dice cheat" uers but maybe one
of the GNUBG development volunteers might like to think about it
for some future update?  Is it viable?

Regardless of this, keep up the good work on GNUBG :)

Ian Dunstan.

 

 

 

P.S.   I am relatively new to using GNUBG but I'm hooked - thanks for a great product.