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BGonline.org Forums
Reminded again last night why I HATE non-Legal Moves
Posted By: Phil Simborg
Date: Wednesday, 17 April 2013, at 2:18 p.m.
At the barpoint club last night, I was playing with a very nice man who is not a particularly good player, but I was losing and at a critical point in the match he made an illegal move. He was on the bar, rolled a 4-6 which hit me and ran, but he forgot to pick up the checker he hit and then picked up his dice.
He realized it afterwards and felt horrible.
This is exactly the ethical dilemma I don't want to be in. I am entitled by the rules to profit by his error. I am trying to win, and I very much want to win, and I come to the table knowing that I will do everything I can do to win within the limits of the rules and good sportsmanship. I if had made the same mistake my opponent had just made, I would not ask for, NOR WOULD I ACCEPT any mercy. I would blame myself for not being careful and take my medicine. Therefore, I should not feel in any way guilty or obliged to give him mercy.
I have seen Neil Kazaross in this position and he insisted on letting his opponent correct the mistake, and I have seen others do it too. I think they are wrong to do this, but because of their example, and their statements that they do not want to win this way, they have made the "sportsmanship" lines blurry on this issue. An issue that would not be blurry at all if we played legal moves, and this is just one of the many reasons I strongly advocate legal moves becoming the law of the land.
So there I was, forced to choose between my personal values and what I think is fair and right, and between my not wanting to be known as a prick and as someone who beats up on a lower-level player who was simply not careful. By the way, there were people watching, and that puts additional pressure on the decision.
Why can't we all just play legal moves? I won't tire you all again with all the other reasons I prefer it...you've heard it many times. And I don't want to be bored hearing the reasons against it. Suffice it to say that I believe nearly 90 percent of top players I have discussed this with prefer legal moves, and with only a couple of exceptions, the only strong proponents of the status quo in the ABT just happen to be a couple of the major directors in the ABT. Isn't there any chance for a strong majority to convince these non-democratic leaders of the ABT to yield to popular opinion? How much of a majority of players does it take to get a rule change? And what about the rest of the world which is fast changing to legal moves for all the same reasons?
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