Ruling — Checkers

You asked

How do I set up the game?

Answered counted as answered

1. Players must be seated at their designated playing table prior to the starting time for the round [1]. 2. Players shall shake the hand of their opponent prior to the commencement of a round [1]. 3. One player has 12 dark-coloured discs (Red) and the other player has 12 light-coloured discs (White) [2]. 4. The Red pieces shall be set for beginning play on the first 12 squares of the player playing the Red pieces starting right to left, Nos. 1 thru 12 [2]. 5. The White pieces will be on the last 12 squares, Nos. 21 thru 32, with No. 32 being the nearest double corner square [2]. 6. All clocks should be wound up prior to play commencing, and each clock face should register the same time [3]. 7. The tournament controller decides where the draughts clock will be placed before the start of the game [3]. 8. Players decide which colour they will play by random selection [2]. 9. The player whose turn it is to play shall have their clock started at the beginning of the game [4].

[1] RULEBOOK Checkers — Rulebook · p.14 · Section Four: The Conduct of Players

[2] RULEBOOK Checkers — Rulebook · p.3 · ` DRAUGHT PIECES AND THEIR ARRANGEMENT · ORDER OF PLAY · THE MOVES

[3] RULEBOOK Checkers — Rulebook · p.8 · Equipment and terminology: · Using a clock:

[4] RULEBOOK Checkers — Rulebook · p.10 · Time Controls: · Absent players: · Interrupting clocks. · Quickplay Finish

🔧 debug — where this ruling came from

outcome: ANSWERED — Answered
corpus profile: live
answerer pin (deploy-frozen, attribution only): gemma4:26b think:false 5571076f3d70
timings: search 264 ms · ask 5502 ms · total 5776 ms
single-flight (PR-5): queued 0 ms · generation 5776 ms
retrieval refs (raw): [{"page": 3, "score": 0.032018, "snippet": "1.8 At the beginning of a game, one player has 12 dark-coloured discs (referred to as 'pieces' or 'men'), and the other player has 12 light-coloured discs. 1.9 The official draught pieces shall be of RED and WHITE colours for the dark and light pieces, respectively. These are sometimes referred to a", "headingPath": "` DRAUGHT PIECES AND THEIR ARRANGEMENT · ORDER OF PLAY · THE MOVES", "sharpsignalDocId": 150}, {"page": 1, "score": 0.031319, "snippet": "Draughts is a board game of skill played between two players who, following a fixed set of rules, attempt to win the game by either removing all of their opponent's playing pieces from the draughts board, or by rendering their opponent's pieces immobile.", "headingPath": "Rules of Draughts (Checkers)", "sharpsignalDocId": 150}, {"page": 15, "score": 0.029958, "snippet": "4.9 Players are forbidden to distract or annoy their opponent in any manner, such as making any sounds or signs, pointing or hovering over the board. This includes unreasonable claims or repeated offers of a draw. 4.10 During the course of a game a player is forbidden from addressing any other perso", "headingPath": "Section Four: The Conduct of Players", "sharpsignalDocId": 150}, {"page": 7, "score": 0.029828, "snippet": "Notes: i Traditionally there have been two methods used for random selection. The first method entails the 'toss of a coin' where the person winning the toss may select the colour they wish to use in the 1 st game. The second method entails one player taking a playing piece of each colour and placin", "headingPath": "Definition of a Win", "sharpsignalDocId": 150}, {"page": 9, "score": 0.016129, "snippet": "player shall be cautioned for the first offence, and shall forfeit the game for any subsequent offence. 2.10 Every indication given by the clocks is considered to be conclusive in the absence of any evident defect. 2.11 A draughts clock with an evident defect shall be replaced. The tournament direct", "headingPath": "Using a clock: · Time Controls:", "sharpsignalDocId": 150}, {"page": 10, "score": 0.015873, "snippet": "2.20 If a player does not complete the prescribed number of moves in the allotted time, the game is lost by that player regardless of the position on the board. 2.21 If a player is not present at the start of a session, their opponent, in consultation with the tournament controller shall start their", "headingPath": "Time Controls: · Absent players: · Interrupting clocks. · Quickplay Finish", "sharpsignalDocId": 150}, {"page": 12, "score": 0.015625, "snippet": "3.1 A 'score-sheet' is a sheet of paper that is prescribed for the recording of a game of draughts in a competition, and is the property of the organiser of the event. 3.2 Each player shall be furnished with a score sheet for every scheduled game. 3.3 All players are obliged to record each game play", "headingPath": "Section Three: Recording of games:", "sharpsignalDocId": 150}, {"page": 14, "score": 0.015385, "snippet": "4.1 The players shall take no action that will bring the game into disrepute. 4.2 Players must be seated at their designated playing table prior to the starting time for that round. 4.3 In the spirit of friendship players shall shake the hand of their opponent prior to the commencement of a round. 4", "headingPath": "Section Four: The Conduct of Players", "sharpsignalDocId": 150}]
citations (raw): [{"page": 14, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Section Four: The Conduct of Players", "sharpsignalDocId": 150}, {"page": 3, "quote": null, "headingPath": "` DRAUGHT PIECES AND THEIR ARRANGEMENT · ORDER OF PLAY · THE MOVES", "sharpsignalDocId": 150}, {"page": 8, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Equipment and terminology: · Using a clock:", "sharpsignalDocId": 150}, {"page": 10, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Time Controls: · Absent players: · Interrupting clocks. · Quickplay Finish", "sharpsignalDocId": 150}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3): no registered errata card matched this query; base-rulebook boost: not recorded (this ruling predates it); rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base-rulebook boost: not recorded (this ruling predates it)
answered-before recall: this ruling was answered, so past rulings were not offered
similarity threshold in force: 0.55 (rulesage.answered-before.similarity-threshold; the exact-question tier is not gated by it)
debug row retained until: Oct 31, 2026 14:21

retrieval — what the search arm returned

score = the fused retrieval score (reciprocal-rank fusion over the search arms) — NOT a cosine similarity. How many arms fused this ruling was NOT RECORDED (it predates the boost trail, ran on the path that stored none, or stored one that could not be read), and the ceiling depends on that count (ceiling = arms/(k+1) at k=60): 2 arms top out at 0.03279; 3 arms top out at 0.04918. So a score above 0.03279 here is not an anomaly: it is arithmetic proof a boost arm voted, and the measured band 0.016–0.033 (taken on two-arm asks) is what does not apply. A chunk only one arm ranked highly lands near 0.016 (that one arm's #1 vote), so 0.03 here is an excellent hit, not a 3% match.

per-arm ranks (the rank each search arm gave a chunk): NOT DISCLOSED by the gateway. Fusion happens gateway-side and only the FUSED score crosses the wire, so rulesage cannot show them without a gateway change. The rank column below is the FUSED rank (position in the returned list), which is real.

token count per chunk: NOT DISCLOSED — chunk token counts are not reported on the ask path. The character counts below are of the bounded snippet/quote rulesage actually received — a real measurement of what we hold, never an estimate of the chunk.

fused rank	document	heading	page	fused RRF score	snippet chars
#1	RULEBOOK Checkers — Rulebook (corpus doc 150)	` DRAUGHT PIECES AND THEIR ARRANGEMENT · ORDER OF PLAY · THE MOVES	p.3	0.032018 (inside the measured healthy band 0.016–0.033 (measured on two-arm asks; this ruling's arm count was never recorded))	300
#2	RULEBOOK Checkers — Rulebook (corpus doc 150)	Rules of Draughts (Checkers)	p.1	0.031319 (inside the measured healthy band 0.016–0.033 (measured on two-arm asks; this ruling's arm count was never recorded))	254
#3	RULEBOOK Checkers — Rulebook (corpus doc 150)	Section Four: The Conduct of Players	p.15	0.029958 (inside the measured healthy band 0.016–0.033 (measured on two-arm asks; this ruling's arm count was never recorded))	300
#4	RULEBOOK Checkers — Rulebook (corpus doc 150)	Definition of a Win	p.7	0.029828 (inside the measured healthy band 0.016–0.033 (measured on two-arm asks; this ruling's arm count was never recorded))	300
#5	RULEBOOK Checkers — Rulebook (corpus doc 150)	Using a clock: · Time Controls:	p.9	0.016129 (inside the measured healthy band 0.016–0.033 (measured on two-arm asks; this ruling's arm count was never recorded))	300
#6	RULEBOOK Checkers — Rulebook (corpus doc 150)	Time Controls: · Absent players: · Interrupting clocks. · Quickplay Finish	p.10	0.015873 (below the measured healthy band (< 0.016) — a weak fuse on a two-arm ask, and this ruling's arm count was never recorded)	300
#7	RULEBOOK Checkers — Rulebook (corpus doc 150)	Section Three: Recording of games:	p.12	0.015625 (below the measured healthy band (< 0.016) — a weak fuse on a two-arm ask, and this ruling's arm count was never recorded)	300
#8	RULEBOOK Checkers — Rulebook (corpus doc 150)	Section Four: The Conduct of Players	p.14	0.015385 (below the measured healthy band (< 0.016) — a weak fuse on a two-arm ask, and this ruling's arm count was never recorded)	300

chosen chunks — what the answer actually cited

#	document	heading	page	quote chars
[1]	RULEBOOK Checkers — Rulebook (corpus doc 150)	Section Four: The Conduct of Players	p.14	no quote on the wire
[2]	RULEBOOK Checkers — Rulebook (corpus doc 150)	` DRAUGHT PIECES AND THEIR ARRANGEMENT · ORDER OF PLAY · THE MOVES	p.3	no quote on the wire
[3]	RULEBOOK Checkers — Rulebook (corpus doc 150)	Equipment and terminology: · Using a clock:	p.8	no quote on the wire
[4]	RULEBOOK Checkers — Rulebook (corpus doc 150)	Time Controls: · Absent players: · Interrupting clocks. · Quickplay Finish	p.10	no quote on the wire

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split: retrieval 264 ms · first delta 3917 ms · total 5776 ms (retrieval and first-delta both measured from the START of gateway work, so first-delta INCLUDES retrieval — do not subtract)
full breakdown: queued 0 ms · retrieval 264 ms · ask 5502 ms · gateway work 5776 ms · total 5776 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read): 3598
tokens out (what the answerer generated): 252
tok/sec: 138.9 tok/sec — 252 output tokens in 1.814 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child): answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 52s ago)
stream path: streamed — the gateway pushed at least one accumulated draft
watchdog: first-token watchdog: 30s per arming window (rulesage.table.first-token-watchdog-seconds), re-armed once by the passages frame — so the worst case before a reader falls back to polling is 60s. Whether it actually fired is a BROWSER-side decision that never reaches the server, so it is not recorded here. The stream path above is the server's half of that story: whether a delta was emitted at all.
num_ctx · think posture: both are the CHILD's settings, not rulesage's, and no ask reply carries them — an answer never states which context window or think posture produced it. The live-seat line above reads them from the running child instead, where the gateway can answer for itself; it describes the child NOW, not this ask.

disposition

outcome: ANSWERED — Answered
abstain rationale (n/a — this ruling answered): answered — no abstain rationale applies

setup-shape — why the checklist band did or didn't render

decision: NO_APPROVED_CHECKLIST — setup-shaped, but no approved setup checklist exists for this game
pattern that matched: SETUP — "setup" / "set up"
matched words (in the normalized question): set up

errata registry — what the gate above had to match against

this game registers NO errata cards (edition 72), so "no registered errata card matched" above could never have matched one

Errata scope: the gate above matched this ruling's own edition only. When an ask also reads an expansion, that expansion's own registered errata cards stay outside the match — a stated phase-1 limitation, not a failed lookup.