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An additional ambiguity

Posted By: Chuck Bower
Date: Wednesday, 9 March 2011, at 3:28 a.m.

In Response To: An additional ambiguity (Steve Mellen)

if you actually think about the purpose behind the Jacoby Rule - which I might paraphrase as "let's not waste a lot of time playing on for a gammon with the cube on 1" - I think (A) is the more logical answer.

I agree. As with the rules of backgammon, I find it helpful to try and reconstruct the purpose of a rule in the first place to determine how to interpret it. As far as the definitions by Magriel and Deyong in their books, here is verbatim what they say:

Magriel:

Players can agree before the game begins that gammons and backgammons will count only as 1 point if the cube has not been doubled by a player during the course of the game.

Deyong:

The Jacoby Rules prohibits either player from wining more than 1 point in a game unless the cube has been turned.

It's far from obvious either of these even consider automatic doubles. I interpreted the specific number '1' in each to indicate automatics would negate the rule, but that might not be the proper interpretation, particularly for Magriel's where he may have been referring to the gammon/backgammon multiplier being 1. But for the most part I don't think they recognized the ambiguity/confusion that I bring up.

Jacoby-Crawford (as quoted earlier) and Martyn explicitly mention automatic doubles and how they affect the rule (and the two books take the opposite view). Jim and Mary Zita say "...Unless a double has been made and accepted, either player can concede a single game at any time." Although this throws another issue into the mix, it seems clear that as written, automatics don't negate the rule. Of course some lawyers :) could interpret "made and accepted" to include an automatic double -- even if accepted without discussion by previous agreement.

Pragmatically, IMO, unless you know how your opponent interprets the rule it should be discussed beforehand when you are playing automatics.

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