BGonline.org Forums

New rules used in LA

Posted By: Joe Russell
Date: Tuesday, 6 December 2016, at 3:18 a.m.

In Response To: New rules used in LA (Keene)

I was at the tournament and I overheard very little grumbling. I am not aware of a single case where there was a dispute about a die on a checker. The grumbling I did hear was; 'this joker would have had to be rolled again under the old rules'. That is human nature to blame your misfortune on your bad luck or on new rules. Those same complainers did not notice the times their opponents rolled an anti-joker which landed on a checker. That, too, is human nature.

There is something to be said about international consistency, but change requires someone or some organization to make it first. If the change is logical, and people become comfortable with it, other federations will likely follow. If not, it will be changed back at some point, most likely. I was originally against the idea of a die on a checker counting until I tried it and liked it. It just saves times and energy, two valuable commodities for a player at a backgammon tournament or in any backgammon format. It has the added, in my opinion, but main, in the opinion of the USBGF, advantage of making the playing field fair in clocked matches.

There was a huge portion of our backgammon community that was against using clocks. Same for legal moves. Some directors or federations had to be first to implement these new rules and others followed. They have been pretty much adopted by most federations and most directors. People that were very uncomfortable with clocks, now take them for granted. I believe the same will become true of the new rules.

Messages In This Thread

• New rules used in LA
  KenB -- Monday, 5 December 2016, at 4:49 p.m.
  • New rules used in LA
    Keene -- Monday, 5 December 2016, at 5:41 p.m.
    • New rules used in LA
      Joe Russell -- Tuesday, 6 December 2016, at 3:18 a.m.
      • New rules used in LA
        Ken Larsen -- Tuesday, 6 December 2016, at 3:38 p.m.
        • New rules used in LA
          Joe Russell -- Wednesday, 7 December 2016, at 1:04 p.m.
    • New rules used in LA
      Bill Riles -- Tuesday, 6 December 2016, at 4:30 p.m.
      • New rules used in LA
        Casper Van der Tak -- Tuesday, 6 December 2016, at 7:13 p.m.