Illegal move question
Peter Hawkes
following situation arises in a backgammon tourney ?
A player claims to the tournament director that his opponent made an illegal
move. His opponent denies it. There are no independent witnesses.
Chuck Bower
Peter Hawkes <pet...@ihug.co.nz> wrote:
This is a tough one. I think it illustrates why the current 'illegal
moves' rules are inadequate.
Two or three years ago this situation occurred at the Midwest
Championships. Larry Strommen related the story to me, and I hope I am
relaying it accurately. Larry rolled a number (I believe it was 32),
played a 32, and picked up his dice. His opponent objected saying the
roll was something different. (Let's say his opponent saw a 52.) The
director, Bill Davis was summoned. No kibitzers were present. It was
one player's word (eyesight?) against the others. Bill ruled a stalemate
and required Larry to replace his checkers (before the 32 move) and
reroll. The 32 (52?) roll was completely negated.
It should be obvious that this can lead to abuse. Your opponent
gets a good roll, you wait until his/her dice are up and then call a
misplay. The good roll is negated and now tyou hasve a chance
that the reroll will be worse. Certainly any director worth his/her
salt will be on the lookout for REPEATED occurrences, and quickly rule
against the frequent foul cryer. But a careful abuse of this rule could
easily go undetected, especially in the short term.
What are some alternatives? 1) Require a player to call out his roll
before playing. 2) Require a misplay to be announced BEFORE the dice are
picked up. 3) Require a player to wait a short time (one or two seconds?)
after making a play but before picking up the dice. None of these is
foolproof (cheaterproof?) but neither is the current rule, as illustrated
above.
Chalk up an advantage for online BG. And I predict this debate will
continue.
Chuck
bo...@bigbang.astro.indiana.edu
c_ray on FIBS
Hank Youngerman
bridge also prevents irregularities and other problems that can occur
in "real" bridge. It is possible that in time bridge championships
will be played by computer, although at a common site. I wonder if
this may not happen in time with backgammon.
Martin Lee
Bower) wrote:
A few years ago I started calling the roll after throwing the dice for
this very reason but quite a few players disliked this and a few found
it unnecessary and distracting. I stopped: but it seems a very good
way of combating such problems. Maybe I shall start this practice
again - esp when big $s are involved
Regards
Irentem
ml...@legend.co.uk (Martin Lee) wrote:
>A few years ago I started calling the roll after throwing the dice for
>this very reason but quite a few players disliked this and a few found
>it unnecessary and distracting. I stopped: but it seems a very good
>way of combating such problems. Maybe I shall start this practice
>again - esp when big $s are involved
>
>Regards
Perhaps I'm more fortunate than you.
When playing online backgammon , I call my rolls out loud
every time and have yet to have an opponent complain.
Mark
Julian Hayward
>Can someone tells me what happens/has happened/ought to happen when the
>following situation arises in a backgammon tourney ?
>
>A player claims to the tournament director that his opponent made an illegal
>move. His opponent denies it. There are no independent witnesses.
The tournament director can take a view as to who he believes. Which, in
the absence of any evidence, and with both players adamant that they are
right, is a sod of a task and bound to offend somebody. Or he can try to
come to some sort of compromise (possibly by rolling dice to see whose
version of events should be followed) which will in all probability
offend both. The only way to get an amicable solution is to persuade one
that he might have made an error, and it sounds like this is not
possible in this case.
Unfortunately any "standard" ruling lays itself open to abuse - if you
take the rule that the accuser must have positive evidence of an illegal
move it assists cheats to make deliberate illegal moves; if the accused
must always have a positive defence it encourages cheats to make
deliberate false claims.
--
Julian Hayward 'Booles' on FIBS jul...@ratbag.demon.co.uk
+44-1344-640656 http://www.ratbag.demon.co.uk/
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I always said I wanted to be somebody - I should have been more specific.
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David Montgomery
>>A player claims to the tournament director that his opponent made an illegal
>>move. His opponent denies it. There are no independent witnesses.
>
>moves' rules are inadequate.
> What are some alternatives? 1) Require a player to call out his roll
>before playing. 2) Require a misplay to be announced BEFORE the dice are
>picked up. 3) Require a player to wait a short time (one or two seconds?)
>after making a play but before picking up the dice. None of these is
>foolproof (cheaterproof?) but neither is the current rule, as illustrated
>above.
Use one pair of dice, with some standard signal for when you have completed
your move.
--
David Montgomery Beltway Backgammon Club
davidmo...@netzero.net Washington DC area BG Tournaments
monty on FIBS and GG www.cs.umd.edu/~monty/bbc.htm