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BGonline.org Forums
Research on the Rules
Posted By: Phil Simborg In Response To: Research on the Rules (Bill Riles)
Date: Wednesday, 11 May 2011, at 5:54 p.m.
All of these discussions about what is and what is not correct, and the fact that experienced, intelligent people disagree on what the rule is and what the intent is, simply PROVE, without doubt, that having simplified, succinct rules ARE NOT appropriate for high level, serious tournament play.
When someone opens up a backgammon board and gets a set of rules, simple and succinct is all that is needed, and more detailed and complicated rules would be counter-productive to a new players' ability to understand how to play backgammon.
But serious tournament players need a far more detailed extended guide that covers, in detail, the intent of the rule and how infractions are to be handled in detail. It continues to astonish me that both tournament directors and players are willing to live with some much ambiguity and the disagreements and understandings that occur as a result. Most could be eliminated with a detailed guide to the rules that spells these things out.
I tried to produce such a guide but had several blocks: first, there is disagreement on what the intent of the current rules truly are, and anyone who suggests rewriting any of the rules to alleviate ambiguities is very quickly shot down by those who say what we have is "good enough." Second, there are simply those who resent or hate any change. Third, when you talk about improving or changing a rule (e.g. legal moves) you get into a major debate between those who like it one way and those who like it the other way, and there is no single, overall ruling body of the game that can decide to go one way or the other and expect the entire backgammon community to follow. Forth, if I were to write a comprehensive guide with recommended rules that would not be ambiguous and would eliminate many of the problems and uncertainties (and I absolutely could, with help from some really good people out there do this), it would be resented as a sign we are trying to "tell" the ABT or anyone else how they should run their tournaments or what their rules should be. I would rather not be in the middle of that fight and try to get more cooperation, as we have been getting from all sides, for growing the game and working together productively.
But in the mean time, we have LOUSY RULES with much ambiguity and we are not about to change that until enough people agree that it is simply wrong for us not to fix it. I would hate to be a tournament director today and constantly be put in a position of making ruling based on what I happened to feel was fair, and have to bear the resentment of those who disagree with me, as opposed to a tournament director that can open to page 15, paragraph 3, and show exactly what the ruling is supposed to be. Conversely, I hate to be a player not knowing exactly what I am supposed to do, ethically, to follow the rules, and to what extent I should be expecting certain things from my opponents relative to the rules and procedures, and I resent being subject to the whims of the tournament director, no matter how good or experienced, to determine what is fair. In short, I would rather have a very clearly stated "bad" rule that applies to everyone and that everyone knows they must live up to, and an ambiguous rule that no one completely understands or many disagree about.
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