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BGonline.org Forums
Favorable Review of Rob Maier's Pittsburgh Tournament
Posted By: Rich Munitz In Response To: Favorable Review of Rob Maier's Pittsburgh Tournament (neilkaz)
Date: Monday, 21 February 2011, at 7:53 p.m.
We agree 100%.
Ray was clear that he was not agreeing to Legal Moves, and there should be no expectation after that for him to do otherwise.
That said, a rule change is needed. Placing your own checker on the bar can never be legal under any circumstances. Moving your opponent's checker from its current position to anywhere other than the bar can never be legal under any circumstances. These kinds of errors should be classified as impossible moves rather than illegal moves, regardless of whether it creates a legal backgammon position.
Interestingly, Rob was asked to rule on another somewhat similar situation. A player had rolled 66 and had a forced move - last 3 checkers into his home board and bear one checker off the 6 point. The player actually lifted the checker from the 6 point and placed it onto the bar instead of removing it from the board. Rob ruled that the checker was borne off rather than on the bar. His interesting line of reasoning here is that the player's intent was obviously to bear off the checker, and that there is a specific rule that states that borne off checkers must be removed from the playing area. He therefore believed that the checker was borne off to a specifically non-allowed location and the checker must therefore be relocated to the specific location required by the rules. He also stated that in general he agrees that the rules should be changed to not allow placing your own checker on the bar, but given the current rules in a non-bearoff situation he would be forced to rule the play as illegal. The case of the 44 roll here is somewhat different, since the checker placed on the bar could not have been borne off, even though it was the bearoff phase of the game.
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