# Cry babies who quit online backgammon when they start to lose **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [February 14, 2012, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cry-babies-who-quit-online-backgammon-when-they-start-to-lose/612792 "2012-02-14T04:53:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Oly](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/oly/32/8255_2.png) [@Oly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oly)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2012, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cry-babies-who-quit-online-backgammon-when-they-start-to-lose/612792/1 "2012-02-14T04:53:41Z")
Or they just don’t roll, forcing you into their childish standoff or quitting. This is iPad Trivial Technonogy Backgammon I’m talking about. bobbycade55 Tri2Athelete You’re on the list. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2012, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cry-babies-who-quit-online-backgammon-when-they-start-to-lose/612792/2 "2012-02-14T05:01:20Z")
This is worse than the infamous Curling Scandal of 1978! \*\* _(Wauwatosa vs Poynette, opposing skip hogged a guard rock that picked up a straw)._ ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2012, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cry-babies-who-quit-online-backgammon-when-they-start-to-lose/612792/3 "2012-02-14T05:03:03Z")
I remember a game of online checkers which had ratings and such, that got down to me having one king and the opponent having one king and nobody cornered. Draw, right? I mean, any sane person would recognize this immediately, only some kind of half-retard freak would refuse to accept an offered draw, right? So I offer a draw and it’s refused, and I can make the offer only once per turn. I move. He or she moves. I offer the draw again. Refused. What the hell? Fortunately, I didn’t have anything more pressing to do, so I starting waiting until nearly the full 60 seconds to make my move had elapsed, making my move at 0:57 or so, letting them build up their hopes of an automatic forfeit, only to dash it mercilessly. Five or six iterations of this, and when I next offered my draw, it was accepted. Trifle with _me_, will you?! ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2012, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cry-babies-who-quit-online-backgammon-when-they-start-to-lose/612792/4 "2012-02-14T05:09:41Z")
How about pub quiz weirdos? Me and my brainy friend\* went to a local pub quiz. At another table there were two weird-looking middle-aged dudes, both of whom looked a unkempt and unwashed in a way that says “many years since they have had to endure the attention of a woman”, sitting at another table. As the quiz proceeded, eventually there were only two teams in the running to win, far in front of the rest: us and them. There was a point between us and three rounds to go. Then we smashed them on the music round, to the point where the only way they could beat us was by them getting 10/10 in the next two rounds. They just got up and walked out, leaving the rest of their pints un-drunk. All the other teams stayed. Our victory felt hollow. \*And her sister, who got drunk and famously called the quizmaster a “dappy twat” for pronouncing a Scottish town name incorrectly. ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2012, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cry-babies-who-quit-online-backgammon-when-they-start-to-lose/612792/5 "2012-02-14T05:15:28Z")
Oh yeah, like none of you haven’t flipped a Life board over when you landed on “car accident” and didn’t have insurance. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2012, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cry-babies-who-quit-online-backgammon-when-they-start-to-lose/612792/6 "2012-02-14T05:21:24Z")
What Johan Huizinga (author of _Homo Ludens_, the seminal work on play theory) had to say about spoilsports: > [@](#): > > “It is curious to note how much more lenient society is to the cheat than the spoil-sport. This is because the spoil-sport shatters the play-world itself. By withdrawing from the game he reveals the relativity and fragility of the play-world in which he temporarily shut himself in with others. He robs play of its illusion – a pregnant word which means literally ‘in play’ (from inlusio, illudere, or inludere). Therefore he must be cast out, for he threatens the existence of the play-community.” ---
**Author:** ![Rachellelogram](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rachellelogram/32/8689_2.png) [@Rachellelogram](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rachellelogram)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2012, 8:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cry-babies-who-quit-online-backgammon-when-they-start-to-lose/612792/7 "2012-02-14T08:45:03Z")
> [@Frank](#): > > Oh yeah, like none of you haven’t flipped a Life board over when you landed on “car accident” and didn’t have insurance. For me it was a Sorry board, and having three of my pieces slid off at the same time… but I think the principle’s the same. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2012, 12:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cry-babies-who-quit-online-backgammon-when-they-start-to-lose/612792/8 "2012-02-14T12:22:55Z")
> [@digs](#): > > This is worse than the infamous Curling Scandal of 1978! \*\* > > _(Wauwatosa vs Poynette, opposing skip hogged a guard rock that picked up a straw)._ Well, that sort of thing could happen back in the Corn Broom Era. ---
**Author:** ![sweet\_chemist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@sweet\_chemist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sweet_chemist)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2012, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cry-babies-who-quit-online-backgammon-when-they-start-to-lose/612792/9 "2012-02-14T12:38:45Z")
You will have to vote [Republican](http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/04/14) this year then. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2012, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cry-babies-who-quit-online-backgammon-when-they-start-to-lose/612792/10 "2012-02-14T12:40:57Z")
> [@Frank](#): > > Oh yeah, like none of you haven’t flipped a Life board over when you landed on “car accident” and didn’t have insurance. Yeah. At age five before I knew how to play well with others. (Couldn’t resist.) ---
**Author:** ![Darth\_Panda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ee7513/32.png) [@Darth\_Panda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darth_Panda)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2012, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cry-babies-who-quit-online-backgammon-when-they-start-to-lose/612792/11 "2012-02-14T13:16:34Z")
This is why all games should be played in some sort of dome. eta: I would also note that there should be a penalty for a breaking a deal. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2012, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cry-babies-who-quit-online-backgammon-when-they-start-to-lose/612792/12 "2012-02-14T13:36:18Z")
Bricker Jr plays Pokemon via Nintendo DS’s global WiFi, which rates players based on their win/loss records – you get more points for beating a higher rated player. He’s reported the same phenomenon there: rage-quitting, where a player that’s clearly being pummeled into oblivion simply switches off, so the system doesn’t record the loss and ding their rating. It’s apparently a topic of heated discussion on the Nintendo forums. ---
**Author:** ![Ca3799](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9f8e36/32.png) [@Ca3799](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ca3799)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2012, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cry-babies-who-quit-online-backgammon-when-they-start-to-lose/612792/13 "2012-02-14T13:39:20Z")
"Words With Friends’ folks do this, too. If I start out losing, I just take my beating. There is usually something to learn even if you lose- a new word, a different strategy… One person I played with regularly must have been using an on-line word finder. I never saw so many obscure and 7 letter words. So, when I won against her, I really enjoyed it. In ‘Scrabble’ or ‘Words With Friends’, big words don’t ensure you will win. Still, I hate it when folks quit just because you made an awesome play. ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2012, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cry-babies-who-quit-online-backgammon-when-they-start-to-lose/612792/14 "2012-02-14T14:03:49Z")
Heh. I played head-to-head _Total Annihilation_, a fairly sophisticated RTS game with factories and tanks and stuff. There were problems like this. Probably the most egregious occurred in a three-way battle where one player found me first. He and I went at it hammer & tongs for perhaps 20 minutes, hurling a constantly growing stream of machines at each other’s defenses. I built, and lost, several forward gun positions, but they took out hundreds of enemy vehicles before they died. The ground was littered with smoking wrecks. It wasn’t called _Total Annihilation_ for nothing! It was all I could do to keep this guy in check, and probably vice-versa. Meanwhile, what about that 3rd guy? So I sent out some scouting planes despite being busy as hell, and found player 3. He’d completely walled off a large area with metal walls so many rows thick even he couldn’t shoot out of them, and was building not much at all but nuclear missile silos – _lots_ of them. It was instantly clear he planned to let player 2 and I kill each other and he’d nuke the survivors from his steel nest. Player 3 was an offensive juggernaut-in-waiting, but really lacked the built-up military the rest of us had, and would be hard-pressed to defend his position – he appeared to be relying on our being too busy to notice him. So I sent out a proposal in broadcast, inviting player 2 to a cease-fire and suggesting he himself scan player 3’s base. After allowing a few moments for him to do so, I suggested we ally and knock off player 3 before resuming our own personal Armageddon. My bitter enemy readily agreed. We instantly found ourselves back in the “waiting for a game” lobby. I’d forgotten player 3 had hosted the game. Upon realizing that his plan to lie low and be entirely ignored had backfired, he simply kicked us both – without even firing the nukes he’d carefully hoarded. Apparently he _only_ wanted to nuke people by surprise, not to actually have to fight fair. My erstwhile enemy and I had a good laugh about it, at least. ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2012, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cry-babies-who-quit-online-backgammon-when-they-start-to-lose/612792/15 "2012-02-14T14:06:53Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > where a player that’s clearly being pummeled into oblivion simply switches off, so the system doesn’t record the loss and ding their rating. I’ve played in systems where your rating takes an automatic hit if you disconnect like that, AND it tracks the number of disconnects, so players can form an opinion if you’ve pulled the plug hundreds of times. AT the time, I was on dial-up and dropped offline occasionally, which of course hammered my rating. If it ain’t one t’ing, it’s anadda t’ing. ---
**Author:** ![Oly](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/oly/32/8255_2.png) [@Oly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oly)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2012, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cry-babies-who-quit-online-backgammon-when-they-start-to-lose/612792/16 "2012-02-14T14:10:35Z")
> [@The\_Hamster\_King](#): > > What Johan Huizinga (author of _Homo Ludens_, the seminal work on play theory) had to say about spoilsports: > [@](#): > > “It is curious to note how much more lenient society is to the cheat than the spoil-sport. This is because the spoil-sport shatters the play-world itself. By withdrawing from the game he reveals the relativity and fragility of the play-world in which he temporarily shut himself in with others. He robs play of its illusion – a pregnant word which means literally ‘in play’ (from inlusio, illudere, or inludere). Therefore he must be cast out, for he threatens the existence of the play-community.” Despite what the learned scholar says, I don’t see much difference between the cheat and the spoil-sport. Both “must be cast out”. Both selectively violate rules of the game. What bothers me about it is that these people will fully accept the “play-world” when things are going in their favor, but then “shatter” it when things don’t look good. What is the point, I ask. How can you enjoy a victory - indeed, can there even BE victory - when there was never a possibility of defeat? Maybe the play-world is fragile, but I can only conclude that these quitters are themselves so fragile that they cannot endure losing a petty and meaningless anonymous competition that is largely based on luck anyway. But I see this as more than just shattering the play-world. It’s really just another example of how easily people will shed basic principles of human decency as soon as they feel they have any shred of a license to do so, which in this case is the anonymity of the internet. (How many of these quitters would, in fact, turn over the Life board if you were sitting across from them?) It’s _Lord of the Flies_ I tell you! ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2012, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cry-babies-who-quit-online-backgammon-when-they-start-to-lose/612792/17 "2012-02-14T14:58:05Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#): > > Well, that sort of thing could happen back in the Corn Broom Era. It’s still the Corn Broom Era in my yard… I’m about to take the ol’ “Beaver Tail” out and sweep the snow off my sidewalk. ```auto Oh, and don't bother with that "tip the LIFE board over" trick when you're playing against Death. He just picks it up and puts every last little piece (even that pink peg in the back seat of your car) back right where it was... ``` ---
**Author:** ![Rhythmdvl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/85f322/32.png) [@Rhythmdvl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhythmdvl)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2012, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cry-babies-who-quit-online-backgammon-when-they-start-to-lose/612792/18 "2012-02-14T14:59:02Z")
> [@rachelellogram](#): > > For me it was a Sorry board, and having three of my pieces slid off at the same time… but I think the principle’s the same. I hope you said you were Parcheesi! ---
**Author:** ![Rachellelogram](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rachellelogram/32/8689_2.png) [@Rachellelogram](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rachellelogram)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2012, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cry-babies-who-quit-online-backgammon-when-they-start-to-lose/612792/19 "2012-02-14T16:29:20Z")
> [@Rhythmdvl](#): > > I hope you said you were Parcheesi! Cheesi, indeed 😃 ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2012, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cry-babies-who-quit-online-backgammon-when-they-start-to-lose/612792/20 "2012-02-14T16:38:00Z")
It’s been awhile since I last told this tale, but this thread demands it: Back in high school, I was coaxed into a game of Diplomacy with a group of people that I didn’t know too well. I was playing Germany, and doing pretty well: broke an alliance with Russia for a better one with England, and was up to 7 units after 1903. But when I wasn’t willing to break my alliance with England for one with France, a surprising (to me) thing happened: all the other five players besides me and the English player went into a room and conferred together for the entire diplomacy period. England and I managed to hold them off for that move, but when the other five players went into conference again after the move was adjudicated, the writing was on the wall. So the English player and I left. We gathered our jackets, headed out the door, jogged down the street and onto the next street, and by the time that diplomacy period ended, we were in a completely different part of the neighborhood. It’s a pity the Eagles’ “Already Gone” hadn’t been written yet, because it would have been great to sing it as we headed down the street. They came out of their closed-door conference, ready to wipe the floor with us, and found…nobody. I found out later that this group had had a bit of a history of Dip games being settled by people ganging up 5 against 2 or 6 against 1, and that they stopped playing as a group after my ally and I beat our very brave retreat. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cry-babies-who-quit-online-backgammon-when-they-start-to-lose/612792.md?page=2)