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BGonline.org Forums
Fast-roll tournament ruling?
Posted By: Matt Ryder In Response To: Fast-roll tournament ruling? (Phil Simborg)
Date: Thursday, 10 December 2009, at 4:16 a.m.
I have always believed that it should be written into the rules that when in doubt, any ruling should clearly go against the party who initiated the action that caused the problem, and your solution clearly seems to fit that dictum.
I quite agree. But the problem I have is in determining the severity of a given penalty. Should it be a slap on the wrist? A verbal warning? A points penalty? An order to centre the cube? An order to miss a turn or reroll? An order to restart the game? An order to concede the match? Ejection from the tournament? Public flogging and/or tarring and feathering?
To my eye, the only section of the US Rules that seems to mandate a penalty of any kind is in fact the premature actions injunction:
4.6 PREMATURE ACTIONS. The opponent of a player who rolls prematurely shall complete his turn and then either let the premature roll stand or require a reroll. The opponent of a player who doubles prematurely shall complete his turn and then pass or take.
Can anyone provide me with the background to why the rule was recently changed to include the modifier "... or require a reroll"? What was the motivation for this proviso? It seems arbitrary and unjustified to me. Worse it seems to contradict the flavour of the section on random rolls:
4.1 RANDOM ROLLS. Dice are strictly a means of obtaining random numbers; any other use violates the rules and the spirit of backgammon.
The recent 'premature actions' modification requiring that the dice stand or that they be rerolled (at the opponent's whim) suggests they may be used as a punitive measure, not merely for randomness.
Your thoughts?
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