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BGonline.org Forums
Touch moves
Posted By: Bob Glass In Response To: Touch moves (Rich Munitz)
Date: Tuesday, 9 March 2010, at 9:11 p.m.
I find it more than mildly annoying. You are probably too young to remember Gaby Horowitz. Before he graduated to loaded and electric dice, he made a science of checker shuffling. I would have challenged almost anyone to correctly follow the flight path of his checkers. He could turn the worst antijoker in the world into a 6 point prime. Calling the director might elicit a warning but often by that time, the damage was already done. I have not played anyone quite like that since, but I have played many who still abuse the lax rules regarding checker movement. Steve Sax has the ability to recreate checker positions going several moves back. I think he inherited the skill form his mom who can play backgammon blindfolded. I am not one of those people. It is not meant to be part of the skill set of backgammon to recreate positions after the checkers have been butchered. It is totally unfair. All the other arguments pale in the light of fairness. You can argue all you want about the flair of experimenting with the checkers for the benefit of spectators but screw the poor shlub who has to endure the agonizing display of revolving checkers. Directors can warn the transgressor or rules could be instated with terms like "in reason" but rules like that are bullshit. Its likes saying you must shake your dice vigorously. What does vigorously mean? Let's not reward ambiguity and make backgammon fair for everyone.
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