Forum Archive : Rulings

Disputed roll From:   Chuck Bower Address:   bower@bigbang.astro.indiana.edu Date:   1 March 2000 Subject:   Re: Illegal move question Forum:   rec.games.backgammon Google:   89hqk8$dv1$1@flotsam.uits.indiana.edu > 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. 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 bower@bigbang.astro.indiana.edu c_ray on FIBS Julian Hayward  writes: 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.   Did you find the information in this article useful?           Do you have any comments you'd like to add?

 

Rulings

Checker knocked off bar  (Chuck Bower+, Sept 2003) 

Clock rules and gin positions  (Chris Yep+, Dec 2007) 

Clock rules end of turn  (Jason Lee+, Dec 2007) 

Cocked dice  (Rodney Lighton+, July 2012) 

Cocked dice  (Ed Rosenblum+, Dec 2009) 

Cocked dice  (Chuck Bower+, July 2003) 

Cocked die on first roll  (Cloyd Laporte+, Nov 2006) 

Crawford game double  (Øystein Johansen+, June 2004) 

Crawford game double  (Joe+, May 2004) 

Crawford game double  (Raccoon+, Sept 2003) 

Crawford game double  (Claes Thornberg+, Apr 1998) 

Dice sliding  (Chris Yep+, Dec 2007) 

Disagreement on final cube  (Chuck Bower+, May 2004) 

Disagreement over cocked dice  (DeaconBlue+, May 2005) 

Disputed roll  (Roland Scheicher+, Mar 2004) 

Disputed roll  (Chuck Bower+, Mar 2000) 

Doubling to wrong value  (Stein Kulseth+, Nov 1998) 

Equipment changes  (Jason Lee+, Feb 2004) 

Error in setup  (Stick+, Dec 2007) 

Incorrect setup  (Ken+, Mar 2004) 

Kibitzing  (Ilia Guzei+, Feb 2006) 

Misplaced cube  (Ned Cross+, Mar 2004) 

Misplacing a checker off the board  (Sam Pottle+, Apr 2006) 

Misplacing a checker on the bar  (Jeb Horton, Dec 2002) 

Moving checkers before you roll  (Gregg Cattanach+, Mar 2006) 

Moving with two hands  (Jason Lee+, Jan 2011) 

Opening roll loser picks up his die  (Chuck Bower+, Oct 2007) 

Playing to wrong match length  (Klaus Evers+, Jan 2006) 

Playing to wrong match length  (Marty Storer+, Mar 2005) 

Playing to wrong match length  (Steve Mellen, Feb 1998) 

Playing wrong opponent  (Hank Youngerman+, Oct 2005) 

Premature actions  (Raccoon+, Feb 2008) 

Premature roll  (Chris Yep+, Dec 2007) 

Repositioning dice without notice  (Chuck Bower+, Oct 2007) 

Rerolling cocked dice too quickly  (Raccoon+, Nov 2006) 

Rolling 2 dice instead of 1 to start  (Bob Koca+, Oct 2007) 

Rolling when opponent is closed out  (Raccoon+, Nov 2006) 

Rolling wrong dice  (TarHeelFan+, Sept 2005) 

Taking photos of positions  (Stick+, Dec 2007) 

Touching the doubling cube  (Ken Bame+, Nov 2006) 

Touching the doubling cube  (Chuck Bower+, Apr 1998) 

Two cubes on the board  (Jason Lee+, July 2005) 

Video dispute resolution  (Jason Lee+, Feb 2006) 

When are the dice "up"?  (Ilia Guzei+, Feb 2006) 

Writing down positions  (Klaus Evers+, Jan 2006) 

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