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Rules of play vs. irregularities

Posted By: Tom Keith
Date: Tuesday, 19 August 2014, at 7:38 p.m.

In Response To: Rules of play vs. irregularities (Timothy Chow)

Their notion of "first-order rule" is what you need to know in order to get started playing the game.

I would go a little further than that. For example, I would say that first-order rules distinguish match play from money play. The fact that you play to a predetermined match length and use the Crawford rule and don't use the Jacoby rule or beavers are all first-order rules. And first order rules distinguish clocked play from unclocked play -- e.g., what the time controls are, what happens if you run out of time.

There is a third class of rules which don't really fall into the other two categories which I call "mechanical rules." They are guidelines that come into play because we are playing face-to-face on a physical board using physical pieces. They include such things as: the proper way of shaking and rolling the dice, what to do about cocked dice, the proper way of moving your checkers, etc. (Most of the mechanical rules don't apply online.) I would also include in this category things such as: whether you are allowed to listen to music or take pictures as you play, the proper way of keeping score. In backgammon, some players are lax about some of the mechanical rules because they don't see them as a true part of the game and it's not always obvious why the rules are there. Chess is more strict in this area.

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