It all happened earlier today at the California State Championship.
In the middle of a game with the score 10-8 (post-Crawford) in a match to 11, Ed O’Laughlin and Matt Cohn-Geier discovered that Ed O’Laughlin only had 14 checkers. And Ed had not yet had the chance to begin his bear off.
Uh-oh. Now what? What would you have done?
Cue co-tournament director Ergin Bayrak to the rescue.
After review of the video from the stream, Ergin discovered that only four checkers where on Ed’s midpoint at the start of the game. There should have been five.
Ergin made his ruling: The missing checker gets put back onto action on the midpoint. Both players accepted the ruling., resolving the Case of the Missing Checker.
Would you rather start with 14 checkers? Do you think that’s an advantage or disadvantage? Let us know in the comments below.
