| |
BGonline.org Forums
Lets talk about what the rules are and should be
Posted By: Phil Simborg In Response To: Director's response to Michel Lamote (LONG) (rory)
Date: Thursday, 9 June 2016, at 2:36 p.m.
Before I tackle the individual rules being debated in this and other situations, I want to establish a couple of major points:
1. No matter what rules are adopted, there will never be a set of rules that everyone will agree with. In may many years of writing and studying rules for not only backgammon and other sports and industries, I have learned that you will never have rules that satisfy everyone or every situation and that when you start imposing "ethics" and "fair play" and "good sportsmanship" concepts into the game, you will always get into trouble because everyone has different values as to what constitutes good sportsmanship and where we should play to win and let the opponent pay the price for his screw ups.
2. People often confuse what rules should be in unofficiated situations with officiated situations. In games like football, basketball and professional sports like Tennis where there are linesmen and a referee, there is a different set of player responsibilities than in self-officiated games like backgammon. For example, in a tennis match if the linesman calls your opponent's ball out and you think it was in, you should keep your mouth shut, knowing that calls may well go wrongly against you at times. But if you play tennis without linesmen and a ref, you are honor-bound to call honestly. In golf, where there is not always an official up close on every shot, it is considered appropriate to call infractions on yourself (moving the ball, grounding your club in the trap, etc.).
3. People who have been writing rules for Backgammon have tried to write rules that work both for Open players and beginners. There is a HUGE difference between those two skill levels in terms of experience and what is at stake. As a result there are many rules in backgammon that have been adopted that keep the game "friendly and nice" which is lovely for beginners and maybe even intermediates where the stakes are not that high and the experience level may not be that high, but Open players should not have to be worrying about helping their opponent follow the rules. At the highest levels, in my opinion, if someone doesn't know or doesn't follow the rules, he should suffer the consequences, and those consequences shouldn't be a gray area based on what some people call good sportsmanship or place an ethical responsibility on his opponent. So, we either have to have two sets of rules, or we have to have rules that try to institute good sportsmanship (as we have now) or rules that don't, which many people argue is not good for the game and keeps this from being "a gentleman's game."
In the open division, many ask very valid questions like:
Why should I help my opponent if he makes an illegal move that hurts him?
Why should I not benefit if he doesn't bear off enough checkers, or misses a hit, or puts the wrong checker on the bar, or turns the cube when it should be a dead cube? Why do I have to help him if he screws up when my goal was to beat him and I have no idea how tenacious he will be to help me if I screw up? I'm willing to take my medicine if I do something stupid, why shouldn't he? I sat down to win and the rules are telling me to do things that help him win.
Why should I help him with clock management? If he forgets to hit the clock that's his problem. How do I know if I forget to hit the clock he will help me? (Of course, if there is a time out and one person's clock is still going, it is reasonable that should have been caught by both players and should not penalize one of the players.)
These are great questions, and I would have no problem with strict rules that completely penalize the player who screws up. But many don't agree. They believe that this should be a gentleman's game and we should be fair and kind with each other and nice to each other.
The problem goes back to one of my first points. How should we compete in games where there is no official present vs. when there is not.
In most backgammon games, there is no official present, and therefore we are each given the responsibility to officiate over ourselves and our opponent. This opens up huge gray areas of how much slack and good sportsmanship to apply and how strict to be about enforcing the rules on our opponent. It is not fun to be in a tournament knowing that some players think it is terrible sportsmanship to let your opponent put his own checker on the bar and others believe that if you are playing non-legal moves and he does that, you can and should let him hurt himself for his blunder. That is just one example, and I do remember people UNFAIRLY chastising Herb Gurland for allowing this, and all Herb was doing was respecting the rules and giving his opponent no slack as he would not expect any if he made such a mistake.
But when you don't have a referee, where do you draw the line? Where do you say that some rules should be strictly enforced and others more lightly (or if the other guy is a good guy you don't call it on him). Very slippery slope.
So people who have written rules, all over the world, have tried to "institute" some of this good sportsmanship into the rules, and as a result we now have rules that apply ethics and good sportsmanship, and most of those require having to "trust" that your opponent will be as equally fair with you are you are with him. That's not an easy pill to swallow.
So what is the answer? What is the solution?
Again, because of the gray area for how games should be played and officiated when you do and when you don't have a referee, I am convinced that in Backgammon, when we have a responsibility to self-officiate, we do have to have some very strong principles of good sportsmanship, and since everyone differs on what that should be and where to draw the line, rather than leave these things totally up in the air, it is a good idea to try to instill and spell out as much of these things in the rules. So I am not entirely against the way the rules are now written, and I agree that especially in lower divisions, we don't want rules that turn people off on the game and make them feel unduly "punished" for silly mistakes. At the same time, David Todd made a great point to me in Chicago: when you cut people all that slack they are not learning to be responsible for the actions. If someone makes a bad illegal move and it stands, they will learn to be more careful and it will happen less often. Maybe we are too worried about lower-level players being hurt? We can apply the rules fairly and strictly without animosity. But again, the problem is that we don't have an official telling the other player what to do, we have to do this ourselves.
I also believe that I do want to have a friendly and fair atmosphere in Backgammon, but when I'm playing for $5,000 or more in the Open Division, a player like Steve Brown should know better than not to hit the clock and if he doesn't he should suffer the consequences and blame no one but himself if he loses as a result. (I'm not saying that is what should have happened in Chicago, because that was not the rule set the director decided to apply to this tournament.)
Back to the solution. First, in ALL MAJOR MATCHES in the Open Division and the finals of Masters, Doubles, and Intermediate, there should be an official appointed to the match and he should enforce the rules. And the rules should be strict and clear and because there is an official, the burden is off of the opponent to help or police his opponent. If a player doesn't hit his clock, that's his problem. Or, if you want to put in the rules that the official will give him one warning, and after that he's SOL, I like that rule very much. If he makes an illegal move, and it is to his disadvantage or not, the official makes the call that it was an illegal move (if the official misses it, the opposing side can point it out if they wish and it is to their advantage to do so.) The burden of responsibility is off the players, and you play to win.
Now, this sounds like I am in favor of non-legal moves, and as many of you know, I was an advocate of legal moves. Let me explain.
First, the major problems with legal moves was not about leaving an illegal move in place, it was the difficulty of enforcement. You couldn't call your opponent on an illegal move until after he picked up his dice, at which time it would be impossible to prove that he made an illegal move if the players disagree on what the roll was. Second, the "other rules" that were affected by illegal moves concept were "ethically" unacceptable to most players: putting your own checker on the bar, doubling at crawford, redoubling when you are 2-away...top players and directors felt this was too much of a penalty and nasty to "win that way" and wanted those kinds of things removed. They also felt it "wasn't nice" to win if your opponent forgot to hit his clock, or if he forgot it was his turn to roll when he was on the bar and you suddenly opened up your board.
With a single pair of dice, enforcement of illegal moves is no longer an issue. The illegal move is made, the player hits the clock (or taps the table when you play without a clock), and the dice are still on the table. With a single pair of dice, I have no problem with illegal moves and I actually think it is fairer and why the hell should I help my opponent with his mistake? One reason it is fairer is that with legal moves how the hell can I be sure he will help me if I screw up? Also, I am trying to win...why should I help him?
We can still have illegal moves and still make a rule, if we wish, that if he puts his own checker on the bar it must be corrected. Or if he forgets to hit his clock we warn him. I don't know why the hell I should have to do that for him, but since many people think that should be a part of the rules, fine, and I'll live with it.
Back to the solution, here it is:
1. There needs to be an International Backgammon Federation with a rules committee that sets a single set of rules for the entire world. That committee should be people with great knowledge and experience, and the rules should be written clearly, posted at every tournament, and enforced the same everywhere in the world. (One of the major problems in the Chicago problem was a difference of culture, a difference of rules around the world, and changing rules around the world. Another problem with the Chicago situation is that Rory screwed up by not giving the players a chance to be heard by a committee and have a committee make the final ruling, not just Rory. Rory didn't handle that part correctly, he admits it, and it might have helped Michel understand better that he was ruled on fairly and properly.)
2. There needs to be a separate set of rules and values for officiated matches, and there needs to be more officiated matches. When you are in the finals or playing for big money or an important title, the players should not be charged with officiating their opponents.
3. While we all agree that people should be good sports, that should not mean helping our opponent win. It means making sure we follow the rules ourselves and take responsibility for our own infractions and not putting that burden on our opponents. It means being a good sport whether you win or lose. It means not bitching about your rolls or calling your opponent lucky. It means trying to help the hard-working tournament director and his staff instead of giving them all kinds of crap because you had to play late or because you don't like pizza. But when you are playing a match, you are playing to win, and the rules should not stop you from doing that.
| |
BGonline.org Forums is maintained by Stick with WebBBS 5.12.