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Repairing illegal moves in non-clocked play
Posted By: leemo In Response To: Repairing illegal moves in non-clocked play (Phil Simborg)
Date: Monday, 26 March 2012, at 3:30 a.m.
It may be tiresome to restore the start position, lay down the dice and correct an illegal move before picking up the dice to signal the end of play, but it's valuable protection for both players. It's also good disciplne, and one that could settle a dispute in favour of the person that enjoys that discipline.
While you and your op in the scenario you described may enjoy a high standard of integrity, the position probably wasn't critical and your correction pretty much straightforward. But consider the situation with an unknown op (or worse, a regular op) correcting his illegal play in a critical game or match. You point out his illegal move, he apologises and slides a checker to the next point as you did, you roll a joker, he says wait I haven't finished my play, I was just looking at it. Then he corrects his play with a bizarre move that turns your joker into the Creature from the Black Lagoon. What do you do? You have rolled prematurely and he has brought out the rule book.
Most games and chouettes are conducted informally, within the spirit of the game though not strictly by the rules, by players that know each other and also just how far they can step over the line without upsetting anyone. Now you can simply shift your checker, and the game continues. There are also times and situations where players should be alert, not specifically against gamesmanship but perhaps a plausible claim arising from what may seem to be an innocent enough move, remark or action. Or of course, opportunistic gamesmanship.
A bit off topic, but an amusing lesson worth keeping in mind in regard to rules and rules...a strong player met a weak player in the final of a tourney in the early 80s. The strong player was patient, attentive and tolerant of his op's obvious inexperience, and did not take advantage of premature rolls, rolling on the wrong side of the board, cube mishandling and honest misplays. He had just about won the penultimate game, except for rolling an instant prematurely due to his op picking up but having not actually lifted his dice from the board. Nobody could know if this action was deliberate or just a convenient window of opportunity, but the weak playe asked if he could insist the roll stand, the TD affirmed, he changed his play to take advantage of the situation, won a lost game and the match ended at DMP with the weak player bearing off his closed board against two checkers on the bar and others scattered around the outfields. With 5 checkers off he had cleared his 6 and 5 points when the strong player entered both checkers with a 65. Weak player offered his hand, strong player asked, "are you resigning?" weak player said no, I've won, strong player said no you haven't, you have 5 checkers on the bar. Well, he did have 5 checkers on the bar, having placed there whilst bearing off, which he had been doing on and off throughout the match.
Epilogue: The weak player won it.
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