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BGonline.org Forums
comparisons to other games?
Posted By: Jack Edelson In Response To: comparisons to other games? (Casper Van der Tak)
Date: Monday, 17 July 2017, at 8:52 p.m.
In the 19th century, analysis of adjourned games was considered improper, but this is no longer the case. For many years, adjournments were common in top-level chess, and it was understood that players would analyze their games. In World Championship play, each competitor would have a team of assistants helping them analyze. This shift points to the problems in having unenforcable rules when the stakes are high; I suspect that if there were a way to easily enforce the old rule, this would not have changed. From Hans Ree's "The Human Comedy of Chess" (p. 300-1):
"In 1886, Steinitz and Zukertort played a match for the world championship. ... If they adjourned one of their games, they had to go to dinner together, so each could make sure the other player didn't sneak a look at a chessboard. ... An exception was made in the case the game did not resume until the next day. Sleeping with one's opponent or his second was not required in that case. At night a gentlemen's agreement was in force: Both players were expected to voluntarily refrain from analyzing the adjourned position. It is unlikely that they really observed this agreement. In the long run, these rules of decency disappeared, becaues it was impossible to enforce their observance. Since the 1930s it even became customary that the players would ask others for advice in analyzing the adjourned position."
In backgammon, however, there is less to be gained from analysis during a break, as it's between games. Perhaps this fact reduces the incentive to break an unenforcable rule against, say, looking up a take point. And high-stakes matches -- which might otherwise encourage such behavior -- tend to feature players who are more familiar with equity tables and take points. But how many players would feel guilty looking up a position from earlier in the match that is unlikely to reoccur? I know the proposed rules have a guiding principle of presuming that players will act with integrity, but this would be something honest players are likely to do. So I second the comments of Bob, Phil, Mochy, and Rich on this matter.
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