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ruling regarding touching checkers

Posted By: Chuck Bower
Date: Thursday, 28 July 2011, at 5:13 p.m.

In Response To: ruling regarding touching checkers (Art Grater)

1. For most players, backgammon is a GAME. It's not the practice of law, where we need, or at least have, endless written codes. It's a game. We all want to win, but we're there to have fun, not begin serving time in a penal colony. New players will especially be intimidated at seeing tournament rules that look like the internal revenue code.

I have on my shelf the official rules of (NFL) football, (MLB) baseball, and (ACBL) bridge, all of which are books. Do you think these intimidate new players of those games? (I assume you mean intimidate to the point of discouraging them from learning the game.)

2. ??

(Apparently we agree that your point #2 wasn't good. :)

3. TDs have the power, within reason, of barring players. They don't need a rule book for that. Speaking of TDs, what's more fun than eavesdropping on a dispute between two stubborn players and an even more stubborn TD?

Rules aren't about barring players. They are about maximizing agreements (or minimizing disagreements, if one prefers double negatives) and about creating a uniform playing field.

4. Few if any directors are going to be in 100% agreement with anything you create, no matter how fair and reasonable it is. (Except at any tournaments you run.) If you include a provision that TDs can override the rules, then you are back to the status quo with respect to a set of rules players can depend upon.

In golf there are usually "local rules" which override or append the rulebook. It has not been unusual in the last few years for backgammon directors to override even the current (brief) rules. Has that caused them undo inconvenience? The guide Phil talks about is going to be consistent with the vast (>95%) majority of directors' opinions/beliefs/practices worldwide. (I don't mean >95% of directors; I mean > 95% of rulings.)

5. While each individual rule will have merit if not best intentions, the sheer weight of them will be an anchor, and I don't mean the 20-point.

All three of the rulebooks I mention above fit into a jacket/coat pocket. I will be very surprised if the guide Phil talks about will be nearly as voluminous as those.

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