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BGonline.org Forums
Why We Love the Game -- Atlanta Version
Posted By: Barry Silliman In Response To: Why We Love the Game -- Atlanta Version (Bill Riles)
Date: Wednesday, 2 May 2012, at 9:49 p.m.
Hi Bill,
to borrow a cliche, "it's all good"...
I did not mean to imply that you questioned the randomness of my rolls. I know you didn't. I just mentioned that I always shake vigorously because I always want to shake in such a way that when I roll that 35-1 joker nobody questions the roll. I try to teach new players at my club to shake that way too. Not everybody shakes as vigorously as I think they should.
I also never felt you were upset at me, just the dice, and, to your credit, you were not complaining and whining at all during the match. You vented a bit at the match's conclusion. Not sure if you even remember it- you said something to the effect of "I f***king can't stand it, this sh*t pisses me off". I don't begrudge you at all being upset- in fact my goal for every match is that my opponent is more upset at the end of the match than I am. That is the only thing you said or did during or after the match that some might consider less than gracious. I didn't take it personally. And excepting Karen Davis, who never once complained, whined, or cursed (not sure if she is even capable of that really) I consider your statement to be the least unsporting of the three wins, since it was a single comment restricted to after the match ended.
Unlike one of our favorite American heroes who has been known to throw chairs around, who never hesitates to complain during a match when he's losing (at least that's been my past experience when I jumped out to leads that I was unable to hold on to), and who after our match was quick to point out what was probably a small mistake on my part on a recube to 4 I made down 9-away 5-away that I got away with, but failed to talk about a probably heinous cube he took at 5-away 5-away that got him gammoned to put me up 1-away 5-away- a cube that Ed O'Laughlin said he couldn't believe he took. To his credit Ray did apologize after the dinner break for getting upset.
I don't blame people for getting mad when they lose, most people at the Open level are fiercely competitive, and nobody likes to lose.
I don't worry about how others carry themselves but I pride myself on remaining pretty stoic and even-keeled during a match, whether I'm winning or losing, - I guess UBK is my role model in this regard- and I always congratulate my opponent when they win. I'm not sure if Stuart Thomson follows this site, but anybody is free to ask him how many times I complained during or after our match when he jumped out to 8-0 lead to 9 and I fought back to 8-4 before giving up the ghost. I'm pretty sure he had some good dice to go along with his 8-0 lead but I'm not taking anything away from him, he played very well.
I'm not trying brag on myself or puff myself up or make anybody look bad in comparison- I'm just trying to be an exemplar of sportsmanship. I agree with Neil Kaz and, admittedly, most others, yourself included Bill, that backgammon should be a gentleman's game. Heck, I'm the all-time losses leader at my backgammon club (well, since we started keeping statistics starting in 2001) and I know a lot of my players read this site, and I'll go out on a limb and say none of them has ever witnessed me losing my cool during or after a match. (I do lose my cool slightly when my players fail to promptly report match results).
I also brought up the story of my opponent who misplayed the score as a lesson to new players to always keep their head in the game and not lose focus. My opp was muttering and cursing to himself several times during the match when I was rolling well. I could just feel the steaming and knew that was impacting his game; I'm sure it had an impact on him playing that last game as if I was 2-away instead of 3-away.
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