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BGonline.org Forums
Clarification, please
Posted By: mamabear In Response To: Touch moves (Bob Glass)
Date: Tuesday, 9 March 2010, at 1:16 p.m.
Bob Glass is the most recent marcher in a long procession of players over many years proposing that "touch move" be adopted for backgammon as it has already been in chess. In chess "touch move" means exactly that. If you touch the piece, and you can legally move it, you must do so. You must say "I adjust" if you are centering a piece on a square or smacking a mosquito that has landed on it.
In backgammon, "touch move" doesn't have to mean that. It would make for many fewer arguments and director calls if the "touch" wasn't considered to have occurred until the person actually picked up a checker. Then there would be no dispute whatever that the piece had been "touched". If backgammon adopts a touch-move rule, this is the form I'd rather see it take.
Another variation would be that the "touch" occurs when the player has not only picked up the piece, but has put it down someplace it could legally go. The move would be binding at that point. I don't care for this idea because someone who realized they were about to blunder, could then make an illegal move to avoid having to make the play. Of course, since the opponent could condone it if it were still far worse than the play that had been missed, the player would make a completely ridiculous (and highly favorable) move, such as going backwards to hit a checker, to avoid that outcome. Let's not go there!
But regarding the original question, I personally won't have a problem adapting to touch move even though I often set up moves, especially with doubles. I played chess for years without "touch move" being a problem for me. I wouldn't mind seeing it tried in Masters divisions, but I sure don't want to see it become customary in doubles or chouette regardless of the level of the players. Discussion and consideration of multiple options is part of the experience of multi-person games, and touch move would chill it quite a lot IMO.
I wouldn't recommend any form of "touch move" for the lower divisions either, because those players need the help that setting up positions gives them until their visualization skills improve. However, if some form of "touch move" is adopted, a director should have the discretion to impose it on a lower-division match where a player is overdoing the privilege of setting up plays, or is consistently moving the checkers back to more favorable locations than where they actually started.
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