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A solution to one tournament problem

Posted By: Phil Simborg
Date: Thursday, 26 November 2009, at 2:05 a.m.

In Response To: A solution to one tournament problem (Phil Simborg)

Thanks for all the responses to this situation. Contrary to Neil's observation that this doesn't happen often, I think if you talk to tournament directors you will find that it does occur fairly often. If there is some kind of penalty, everyone (especially less experienced players) will be more careful to make sure of the match length. There is disagreement on what the penalty should be, but I seem to see a general agreement with the concept.

As for deciding at what point the match should revert to the correct number, or when it is fairer to allow it to be played to the shorter or longer number if the error is discovered while the match is still in progress, I think we can trust the tournament director's judgment and let him decide, taking into account the tournament schedule, the score, etc. But right now, our current rules don't give the director that option. Also, if the error is discovered after the match is completed, the director does not have any option but to give the match to the player who reached the official number of points first, even if they were not aware of it at the time (which I believe is very unfair), or, if they didn't play long enough, they would be required to finish--also unfair since all the cube decisions made to that point were made on a faulty assumption.

So I see a general agreement to give the tournament director more freedom here to impose penalties and determine what is fairest to the players involved and the rest of the players in the tournament. Now, it's only a question of coming up with the right penalty and wording.

Which brings up the next question: who should be making the rules of backgammon. Certainly not us...not a bunch of guys on a forum. And certainly we don't want rules here in the US that vary greatly (or at all if possible) from the rules in the rest of the world. Hopefully, this is something that the tournament directors, the newly-formed USBGF, the organizations in other countries, and people like Chiva can all get together and agree on not only the best and fairest rules, but the best way to write and present them.

In the meantime, discussions like this help us all understand the issues. Richard's and Jason's suggestions about possible penalties make a lot of sense and should be considered along with my initial recommendations.

Lastly, this is just one of about a dozen rules that I believe are either poor in their intent or poorly written, but for the first time in the 20 years I have been complaining about the rules, I finally see a light at the end of the tunnel with the formation of the USBGF.

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