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three sides to every story/important clarifications

Posted By: Jason Pack
Date: Thursday, 9 April 2015, at 5:28 p.m.

In Response To: three sides to every story/important clarifications (Phil Simborg)

Dear Phil,

It is surprising to me how much time you and others have taken up on commenting on an episode on which you were not involved and the details of which you are not privy.

However, let me thank you earnestly for spending the time, because I think I have learned something that I did not previously realize. You have hit the nail on the head that I am proud that I am the kind of guy who would go to the TD to seek a ruling in a weird BG occurrence. I have always tried to be the kind of guy who goes to the TD for clarifications and to enforce proper play. I once had a length conversation with Falafel about this matter.

I see from your comments and that of many of your (almost exclusively American) peers that that is seen as a bad idea. Shockingly, some have called it unethical. I didn't realize this. I have always sought as many rulings as possible. Rulings on if a match needs to be filmed, if you need to roll multiple times for things like direction of play, where the clock should be placed, checker colour etc. or only once. Fascinatingly these rules differ from continent to continent and tournament to tournament and assessing what the 'universal' ethic or etiquette is in this matters is as challenging as grasping the nuances of different Arab dialects and the corresponding etiquette differences.

I have always wanted to further inform myself of the rules as the written rules are not sufficient and the etiquette of backgammon is largely opaque to those of us from the younger generation especially who have very different expectations of what it should be. For example, I read the rules thoroughly before bringing this matter to Steen and to my mind they don't cover the occurrence at all. And that was very disappointing for me.

I now see from the comments of many experienced players on this thread that going to the TD is seen as a nit-picky or pedantic approach. I have always assumed the exact opposite and hence I have wanted to be the kind of guy who was known for seeking lots of rulings and learning from them.

I will take your advice and change my behaviour on this aspect. Fortunately, having now grasped this I think this is a fairly easy change to make. Much easier than improving one's PR or even trying to be less frustrated when one rolls bad. so I think this is a very implementable change.

However, even incorporating this new understanding, I don't think however that my conduct in this episode was in anyway unethical and I don't see why a player shouldn't be allowed to resign an incomplete match. But now I know. then I didn't. I was quite sure that a resignation would stand as final even if it was given erroneously or out of frustration. To someone who is newer to the game and has a very different range of expectations, I of course assumed that it would be the rules that an incorrect resignation would be final and the gentlemanly conduct would be for the match to be over due to the sanctity of contract/never going back on your word argument.

So what can I say live and learn, I do think I will adopt a different approach to seeking rulings based on what you say Phil. I had always felt it a good idea to penalize opponents for fast rolling or pick up their dice and then trying to change their move because I was trying to compel a respect for and adherence to the rules.

It does seem to be that this approach runs counter to the general consensus of the American bg community of old timers (say people who have played seriously for at least 15-20 years) .... I think it is very important to acknowledge that to those of us with training in chess, or law, or the academy, or diplomacy, etc. there might be exceedingly different expectations about what constitutes correct behaviour.

I have always valued your insights Phil and I think this one was expressed very clearly and will be easy for me to latch onto.

Thank you

Jason

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