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BGonline.org Forums
Legal Moves (Re: Non-gin positions)
Posted By: Phil Simborg In Response To: Legal Moves (Re: Non-gin positions) (Chris Knapp)
Date: Thursday, 8 September 2011, at 2:45 p.m.
This is another of many examples where the standard rules of play do not go into enough detail for tournament play and why we are working on a separate guide to remove ambiguity, reduce conflicts, assure continuity from tournament to tournament, and provide the players with a standards for both rule enforcement and good sportsmanship so that we have a level playing field.
Right now, with ambiguous rules and guidelines, we are all put in the moral dilemna as to when to be strict about the written rules and enforce them to the letter, and risk being considered unsportsmanlike, and when to cut our opponents some slack in the interest of being fair and gentlemanly.
Many directors and experienced tournament players will completely disagree on what the rules are, and even when they do agree, whether or not they should be strictly enforced or whether it is "good sportsmanship" to let cut some slack for mis-cues, and where to cut slack and where not to are all over the board.
The answer is that our rules are unclear, and no one can give you a definitive answer given the current rules. Matches are supposed to be played to the end, but people are allowed to resign. Players are required to always do their best to win, yet when they resign a position they might win, they are breaking that rule which is a violation of the spirit of the game and may be unfair to their calcutta partners and may raise suspicions of collusion.
If my opponent resigns a gammon when he can still save it, or concedes the match when he can still win it, is it my responsibility to correct him? Why am I supposed to be "a good sport" in this situation but not tell him when he accidentally doubles me at post-crawford when he is 1-away? Or am I supposed to correct him there too? If I do correct him, then I am violating the rules by not doing my best to win.
So you can debate what you think the rules and guidelines "should" be if you like, but you cannot, in my opinion, get a definitive answer to your question based on what the rules currently are.
This is only one of dozens of situations where this applies, and the more we realize that, for serious tournament play, we need clear, definitive rules and guidelines and a more well-defined standards of ethics (or sportsmanship) that we can point to that lets us know if and when and where we can or should allow our opponent to correct an error, the more people, I hope, will get on this bandwagon and insist on adoption of such rules and standards.
I understand why people in authority have resisted these improvements and clarifications for years (though I don't agree with them), but I can't understand why any player enjoys entering a tournament and subjecting himself, year after year, to being put in the position of having to guess at what the rules really are, how they might be enforced at that particular tournament, and how he and his opponent are supposed to enforce the rules on each other when questions arise.
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