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Favorable Review of Rob Maier's Pittsburgh Tournament

Posted By: Daniel Murphy
Date: Tuesday, 22 February 2011, at 6:11 p.m.

In Response To: Favorable Review of Rob Maier's Pittsburgh Tournament (Rich Munitz)

Rich writes:

"That said, a rule change is needed. Placing your own checker on the bar can never be legal under any circumstances. Moving your opponent's checker from its current position to anywhere other than the bar can never be legal under any circumstances. These kinds of errors should be classified as impossible moves rather than illegal moves, regardless of whether it creates a legal backgammon position."

I agree. In November 2010 I wrote:

"My current ABT rules by addendum or announcement would clarify that "impossible" moves -- "those which could NEVER be legal regardless of what the dice could ever show" -- cannot be condoned and must be corrected. Examples: putting yourself on the bar, removing opponent's checker from the bar, "bearing off" opponent's checker.

Ironically, I wrote that in a thread started by Bill Calton about the proper ruling when a player "bears off" his opponent's checker.

I went on to recommend replacement of ABT rules with WBA rules. This would make "legal moves" the rule. I appreciate Rob Maier's post explaining why he felt it best to use the "US Backgammon Tournament Rules (Jan 2009)"in Pittsburgh. However, if we imagine that those rules rules are not going to be changed any time soon, I'd suggest that their imperfect wording no less easily supports a pretournament announcement that "there is no idiot rule" (as I believe Bill Davis has been known to say) as "I don't care much for the phrase, but yes, there is."

So, if I were directing an ABT tournament with current ABT rules, my pre-tourney announcement would be something like this:

A word about "illegal moves"": You cannot put yourself on the bar. You cannot bear off your opponent's checker. You cannot bring your opponent's checker in from the bar. If you hit your opponent's checker, it must go to the bar. In fact, you cannot move your opponent's checkers at all, except by hitting, in which case the hit checker must go to to the bar. Infractions are not condonable "illegal moves." They must be corrected.

Such an old and neverending discussion! The same (range of) opinions expressed here can be found in this 2004 discussion:

http://www.bkgm.com/rgb/rgb.cgi?view+1164

A very similar problem to the one in Pittsburgh occurred in a tournament in the UK in 2000. Michael Crane discusses here:

http://www.msoworld.com/mindzine/news/classic/bg/rules/rule6.html

Much ado there about "what the rules say" as (being) opposed to "what a gentleman should do" brought to a conclusion with a extralegal settlement of the game in question.

What's changed in 11 years? Not much, except that more players have come to support the adoption of "legal moves only." Welcome to the club, Mary.

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