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BGonline.org Forums
Legal/Illegal/Impossible moves/positions
Posted By: Gregg Cattanach In Response To: Favorable Review of Rob Maier's Pittsburgh Tournament (Casper van der Tak)
Date: Tuesday, 22 February 2011, at 3:30 a.m.
Trying to define impossible MOVES will leave you scratching your head and spending vast amounts of time creating categories and subcategories of moves, resulting in an unworkable 'rule' even if you could codify such a thing in a simple statement.
As long as the resulting POSITION is not impossible, the play should be allowed to stand as an illegal play made by the opponent. (i.e. a checker left in the field of play but not on any point, or checkers of opposite colors on the same point, two closed board and both color checkers on the bar, things of this nature must be corrected, because the POSITION is impossible.)
There are 26 places checker can be placed. A non-trivial part of the skill of our game is understanding the number rolled and physically moving checkers to a selection of those 26 places in accordance with the rules regarding checker movement and with the number rolled. It should not be the opponent's responsibility to correct and assist a player that hasn't mastered this part of the skill of backgammon. I certainly am not responsible for correcting my opponent when he reduces his equity by failing to make his 4-point when he rolls an opening 42. I have never understood why it suddenly IS my responsibility to correct his poor play when he moves the checkers not in accordance with the dice. No one has EVER given me a rational explanation why this should be MY job, and I wager it won't happen in this thread, either.
Comments like " 'Legal plays' is the gentlemanly way to play backgammon" are pure treacle.
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