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BGonline.org Forums
Legal Moves (Re: Non-gin positions)
Posted By: Steve Mellen In Response To: Legal Moves (Re: Non-gin positions) (Daniel Murphy)
Date: Wednesday, 7 September 2011, at 10:39 p.m.
I'm not sure exactly what Tom meant by "you are not permitted to resign the match." I think it is possible to resign the match-ending game just like any other game. I would agree, though, that in the midst of the match you cannot simply declare "I don't want to play any more, you win." I think most people understand this as a function of common sense; no one suggests, and Tom probably did not mean to imply, that the final game must be rolled out until the last two checkers come off the board even if the result is gin long before that.
I agree with Tom's point that a resignation only counts if both players agree on the result (how could it be otherwise?) but I would quibble a little bit with his statement that you have to physically agree and write down the score before it becomes official. That could be taken to imply that a player has the right to retract his resignation up until the moment the score gets written down.
In my match with Jason, there was an ambiguity because it was not clear whether he was resigning a single or double game. (He thought at the time that it did not matter, but he was mistaken.) I agree that the resignation cannot be effective yet until we know whether he is resigning a gammon or not. This is the sense, I think, in which Tom's "you cannot resign the match" is relevant; you can resign a game even if it ends the match, but the match must end because one player has conceded the required number of points, not merely because that player has conceded the match. To state that more plainly, if I need a gammon in order to win the match, then Jason's resignation can only end the match if he intends to resign a gammon. If he intends to resign only a single game, the match is not over even if he mistakenly believes that losing a single game loses him the match.
But to return to my quibble, let's say you resign a game, failing to notice that you can save the gammon with 6-6. In that situation, it is clear (one would hope) that your intent is to resign a gammon, so I would say that your resignation is effective as soon as you announce it. If you suddenly realize before writing down the score that you missed a chance to save the gammon, I would not say that you have a right to take back the resignation just because it is not "official" until we write down the score. (Whether I would allow you to take it back out of sportsmanship is a separate issue.) I hope it is clear why I think this is different from the situation where it is unclear whether you are resigning a single or double game.
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