Ruling on illegal moves

Kleinman · Joined: 14 Jun 2007 Posts: 19

What happens when a player is certain that his opponent has made an illegal move in a tournament but his opponent denies it? The issue it brought to the attention of the tournament director but both players refuse to give in. There are no witnesses, the only people who saw the play were the two disagreeing players. How would a dispute like this be solved?

Fiona · Joined: 14 Jun 2007 Posts: 16

Situations like this without evidence are tough. I only witnessed a situation like this once in a tournament and the tournament director solved the problem by having the player with the questionable roll move his checkers back to the position the were in before the roll and replay the whole move from the beginning, with a new roll.

If the player had moved legally and it was his opponent’s mistake (which is very likely) then this ruling is hardly fair, especially if the new roll isn’t as good. However, there isn’t really any other option. It starts to become a little scary when you think about how a player could use this to his advantage by calling out illegal moves after the opponent picks up his dice in situations where the player simply had a good roll that moved him ahead in the game. Most good tournament directors keep an eye out for repeat offenders to keep something like this from happening.

One way to avoid situations like this at all is by requiring players to call out their roll before making their move, to guarantee that there are no disagreements. Players can also be required to leave their dice on the board for a couple of seconds after making their play to make sure that there are no disagreements as well.