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Rule check?

Posted By: Tom Keith
Date: Sunday, 1 July 2012, at 5:27 p.m.

In Response To: Rule check? (AJ)

Oswald Jacoby wrote (in a 1981 Las Vegas Backgammon Magazine article):

"There were no formal laws in those days [circa 1930] and Wheaton Vaughan, secretary of the Racquet Club Backgammon and Card Committee, decided there should be some. He invited all interested clubs to form a committee and the New York Men's Clubs, the Philadelphia Racquet, and the Longwood Cricket Club all sent representatives, while many out of ten clubs such as the Pacific Union in San Francisco, wrote saying they would accept those new laws.

I got on the committee as representative of the Knickerbocker Whist Club, and the committee, largely due to indefatigable work by Wheaton Vaughan, did such a good job that current laws show practically no changes.

The big argument was whether or not in bearing off you could play 6-1 by moving a man from the six point to the five point and then bearing him off, or if you had to bear him from the six point and play the one with some other man.

Due to strong support by Vaughan, Walter Beinecke, Grosvenor Nicholas, and Phil Randolph, the right decision was made. I was the youngest man on the committee, and while I was in total agreement, I was just one minor vote on the right side."

Messages In This Thread

• Rule check?
  AJ -- Sunday, 1 July 2012, at 12:47 a.m.
  • Rule check?
    Daniel Murphy -- Sunday, 1 July 2012, at 12:58 a.m.
  • Rule check?
    Prince Barlow -- Sunday, 1 July 2012, at 4:57 a.m.
  • Rule check?
    Tom Keith -- Sunday, 1 July 2012, at 5:27 p.m.