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It was broke!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted By: Joe Russell
Date: Saturday, 19 August 2017, at 10:49 a.m.

In Response To: Opinion poll here. Die on checker. (Bob Koca)

I have seen a lot of comments saying; 'if it ain't broke don't fix it'.

What people don't realize is that it was broken. Due to matches being clocked and the inequity faced by the player that must roll on the bear-off side, other federations throughout the world have amended their rules because the old rule was broken-the board set-up was unfair to one of the players in clocked matches.

The most common solution federations decided upon was to: (1)stop the clock; (2) pick up the dice; (3)start the clock, (4) shake the dice; (5) roll again; (6) if cocked again, repeat the process.

The USBGF did not decide out of thin air to change the old rule. The old rule was unfair and had to be changed, as most federations determined. People were going to have to adjust to a new rule no matter what it was. A match should never begin with one side having a non-skill advantage. There were a few ideas tossed around and allowing die-on-a checker seemed like a possible solution, because it saves time and because it is played that way by millions of people worldwide. It is not something new.

To test whether players would be comfortable with it, Patrick Gibson agreed to use in in the Vietor Cup he was directing. Most players found it easy to adjust to. It was tested in another tournament not too long after and there were no issues. Patrick Gibson started using it in his weekly tournaments, again no issues. The USBGF considered this a good test and adopted the rule.

IMHO it is a great rule. I just returned from Monaco where the world championship is played on very small boards- not the streamed matches, the other 99%. I played matches where a die was cocked 30 to 50 times in the course of the match on those small boards. One match, my opponent cocked a die 5 times in a row. Once you get used to die-on-checker, it seems painful to play the old way.

I hope I have explained why the USBGF adopted the rule. It was not just to change the old rule for the heck of it. It was because the old rule had to be changed to make the game fair.

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