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BGonline.org Forums
Unified rules: aspiration vs. reality in the USA
Posted By: Rich Munitz
Date: Thursday, 17 August 2017, at 6:41 a.m.
The topic of international convergence on a unified rule set has come up in many threads. The question has been raised on how the proposed USBGF rules fits in with that goal (it seems to move away from it), and why the USBGF seems to want to go it alone on this. This seemingly simple question has a very complicated answer. I was hoping to just focus on our proposed rules. It has been an exhausting effort and I wanted to avoid getting sucked into the politics. But sucked in I have become and there are lots of statements being made, and I feel I simply need to lay out the situation - the big picture - as I see it for everyone's benefit.
My personal opinions here, and my personal knowledge of history. I am not speaking for the USBGF.
I think everyone believes that a unified international rule set would be beneficial for the game of backgammon, and for the players. That is an aspiration. It is a goal. It is something we will work toward. It is something I intend to work toward. But just because we all agree on the goal doesn’t make it easy to achieve. Reality has a way of interfering with aspiration. People and governments everywhere share an aspiration for world peace, so why don’t we have it?
Some people seem to think that the USBGF can simply make a decision to adopt some internationally agreed set of rules and magically, we will all have one set of rules everywhere. That is just not reality. The USBGF can announce any rule set it wishes, but that doesn’t mean it will be used. We tried that last year, with a rule set that was very close to the one in use in Europe; it was a non-starter as it turned out – and not because it made dice-on-checkers valid. That is because the reality of backgammon in the USA is quite different than in any other country in the world – not because the USBGF didn’t want to move toward a unified set of rules.
The real issue is one of governance over tournaments, and whether a body such as a federation like the USBGF has both the authority and the legitimacy within the community, to impose a set of rules on the nation’s major tournaments. In every other country on Earth, governance did not exist. Individuals might hold tournaments, but there was no organization pulling them all together in a cohesive manner, establishing standards like rules, master points, etc. So, into that void of governance and lack of organization, a federation is formed and easily establishes itself as the governing body. Such a federation may even create the tournaments and run them. But that is not at all what happened in the USA. When the USBGF was founded in late 2009, the USA already had governance. The American Backgammon Tour had by that time already existed for nearly two decades. It had a standard set of rules. It had a master point system. It had a governing body. That governing body was a consortium of the ABT’s tournament directors. They collectively established policies for the ABT. While Bill Davis did all of the heavy lifting regarding running the ABT, when there were proposed changes to rules, master points formulas, tour participation requirements, etc. to be considered, all of the directors voted.
So, when the USBGF was created, there was no void of governance to be filled. There was no need to get organized in order to run tournaments. Some aspects of what a federation might normally do were already in place. The tournament directors were the de-facto government; self-appointed, reasonably well organized, running many successful tournaments, and therefore holding all the cards. So, when Phil began to talk about the USBGF creating a rule set in 2010, the tournament directors all but told the USBGF to stay out of the tournament business. Who the heck were we to tell them what to do? The USBGF was a few months old at the time. We needed the support of the directors. We needed to be welcome at their tournaments in order to begin our work. We decided we needed to work to help them, help the game, build the organization, gain respect in the community, and that if this was successful, we would then be in a position to earn a seat at the table with the directors as a strong and credible representative of the players. But until that time, in order to survive and grow and serve our mission, the USBGF had to leave the business of tournaments to the directors and focus on other things. Reality interfered with aspiration.
Fast-forward to 2016. The USBGF has been well established, has democratically elected leaders, and has earned respect in the community, and with the directors. A rule set derived from the more robust and detailed European rules was developed, and the USBGF acquired the ABT when Bill Davis wished to retire. The USBGF had an improved set of rules and now had the ABT. The USBGF was now the governing body. It seemed like a pretty simple situation for a corporate acquisition – we won’t mess with operations for the next year while we figure this ABT thing out, but here’s our rules, we encourage you to try them this year, and obviously the following year they’ll be used everywhere. Well guess what? The directors didn’t see it that way. Some questioned the premise that the ABT was something that the USBGF could even acquire. Others simply took the position that nobody was going to force a set of rules on them. They put up the money. They took all the risk for running a tournament. They had to deal with the fall-out if players had problems. Nobody had consulted with them. Nobody had included them in the process of developing the rules. More than any single issue with any single rule, the most universal problem that the directors had with this rule set was that it was long and unwieldy. The directors for half of the tournaments on the ABT, outright refused to use this rule set.
So, what should the USBGF do when faced with this situation? This question resulted in a great deal of debate and reflection. A few felt that a hard line should be taken with the directors. Grow a backbone. People expect strong leadership from us. Let these directors leave the ABT if they won’t comply. Others, like myself, felt that deeply dividing our community over a set of rules and allowing the ABT to disintegrate was not in the best interest of backgammon, nor did it serve the USBGF mission. In the end, the path that we have actually taken was chosen by our Board overwhelmingly – to take a step back, engage the directors and the public as partners, and collaboratively develop a set of rules that can achieve consensus and universal usage in the USA. It is the path of good public governance – starting with the most fundamental principle of American philosophy on government – that the legitimacy of a government derives from the consent of the governed. And that is what it seems likely we will achieve – legitimacy, along with a set of rules having overwhelming support and universal adoption. To me, earning this legitimacy and the mandate from the community to govern is the single most important goal. If a compromise on a set of rules is needed to achieve that, then it is the right thing to do. Would I have preferred a rule set close to the 2016 version, which is closer to rules used by other federations? Absolutely. Could I in good conscience support severely damaging backgammon in the USA to get my way? Absolutely not. Reality again interfered with aspiration.
So, here we are in the USA – where we must be as dictated by our unique reality. What about that aspiration of a unified international rule set? The aspiration is alive and well. Here’s how I see it. The USBGF is in no position to work with other countries on unifying a rule set if it can’t unify the USA and have a mandate by its community as their legitimate governing body and representative in order to do so. So, it must be first things first for us. Let’s let this process run its course. Let’s be patient. Let’s let the dust settle and see some good results with what we have done and the changes we have made in how we do things. Let’s see what works and what doesn’t and let’s fix the problems. Let’s allow our divisions and our wounds to heal. And then we can all talk. And then, maybe, if reality does not insert itself again between us and our aspirations, we will be in a position to finally reach our shared goal.
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