Re: [Bug-gnubg] Regarding Pip Count Tutor

[Jim Segrave]

On Thu 14 Aug 2003 (10:36 -0300), Albert Silver wrote:
> 
> > Hello,
> > 
> > So I mentioned yesterday wanting to add something that would somewhat
> > force
> > you to correctly count pips before making your move.
> 
> I was real busy during the day yesterday so had no chance to comment. I
> think that forcing a user to get it right exactly is a bit tough to just
> play a move. Perhaps it could keep track, tell the user if they are hot
> or cold, and give an overall grade according to how right or wrong they
> were, and how many times. I wouldn't prevent them from playing though as
> that can quickly become very annoying IMHO.

Top of my head reaction:

At the risk of overflowing people with options, could they set the
tutor to accept answers where the pip count was withing x% and in the right
direction - so miscounting by 3 in a long race doesn't force you to
redo it (but maybe warns you), miscounting by 3 near the end can lead
to a serious mistake. 

Other things re. pip counting:

Sometimes it's only of major interest to have a rough idea of the
counts as long as you know what the difference is, sometimes you need
both. 

At/during bearoff, modified pip counts to account for bearoff are
important - should a user be allowed to select a method for pip counts
where, say, one player has all chequers in their home board?

An alternative would be to not do this during play but simply provide
a function which selects a random position from whatever play has
taken place 1 game, 10 games of a match or session, whatever you've
done, and display randomly selected positions from those games to get
the pip count. It doesn't interfere with play but gives people a tool
to practice with.

-- 
Jim Segrave           address@hidden