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BGonline.org Forums
What it actually says in the document
Posted By: Phil Simborg In Response To: What it actually says in the document (joe freedman)
Date: Wednesday, 5 December 2012, at 4:52 p.m.
It sounds like, with some discussion, that what started out with a disagreement in Joe Friedman's original post, we all pretty much agree with the intent of the this rule, and it is a good example of what Chuck and Jeb and I were trying to do with all the rules.
First, there should be a clear statement not only of what the rule is, but what the intent of the rule is. The goal, in this case, is to assure random and fair dice. The rule offers some guidelines as to how that might be achieved (vigorous shaking, dropping from a reasonable height, bouncing and rolling, keeping the cup and fingers out of the path of the dice to reduce the chance of manipulation, etc.). And then there should be some guidelines as to how to handle things when either or both player disagree.
While we will NEVER all agree on how, exactly, to state each of the above, the exact wording, and we may not even agree on what the actual rule should be, I believe everyone agrees that we should know what the hell the rule is, the intent, and what to do about it if someone thinks the rule is being violated. This is what is lacking with the current rules, and I mean ALL RULES. I think the Danish and the ABT and the WBA and other groups have excellent rules that most of us understand and can apply in most cases, but there are still many areas that are unclear and that the directors, themselves, disagree as to how to interpret and enforce, and of course, players have all kinds of different standards for what they think constitutes a random roll, or reasonable movement of the checkers, or what is capricious handling of the cube, or just about anything else.
So though we will never all agree on the specific rules and wording, if we all agree that at least there should be, as best as possible, clear rules, defined guidelines, and clear descriptions of how to handle questions or disagreement, THAT is what we are hoping you will all express to your various Federations and tournament directors and leaders, and ask that they take the rules to this higher, more complete level. And while they are at it, why not do it in a unified manner so that we don't have separate rules and interpretations from one tournament and one country to the next?
Of course many will not like the way we wrote each specific rule, and of course, the final rules that get adopted, if ever a unified set is adopted, will not include a lot of what we have recommended, but that was not our goal. Our goals was to get all the players on board with us that this work needs to be done. So let's stop debating how any individual rule should read...that's not up to us anyway. Let's leave that to an international ruling body that is yet to be formed, and hopefully, they will welcome and encourage us all to offer our suggestions before they finalize a document. Hopefully they will do what Jeb and Chuck and I did: we considered the posts over the years in BG OnLine; we talked to and listened to the opinions of top; experienced players and tournament directors; we considered each others opinions and experience in these matters, and when we completed our work, we didn't stop there. We submitted it to several top people who we know had excellent judgment and experience and listened to their comments and opinions as well. That is why it took us over a year from start to finish to produce the document we submitted.
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