So, if you were travelling from New York to San Francisco but went by way of Los Angeles, would you say you "reached" San Francisco because you had travelled as far as as someone else who travelled directly from New York to San Francisco? Even more to the point, if you were travelling from New York to Los Angeles and went there directly, what would "reaching San Francisco" have to do with anything.bbotus wrote:I can see how it would be played as you say. What I find odd is that the authors chose the word 'reach'. The dictionary defines 'reach' as: To get to or get as far as in moving, going, traveling, etc. So each base either reaches (or gets as far as) the BG to be interpenetrated or it does not. Those that do not 'reach' are placed with the front base in contact. How can this mean anything but all bases that don't reach? There is no category described as those bases moving but off to the side and will not physically interpenetrate the intervening BG so they don't move according to this section. And the bullet paragraph we are discussing is talking about the BG not individual bases interpenetrating another BG. If they wanted only the bases of a BG that would physically interpenetrate another BG to be affected, they could have easily said that.IMO that is an odd interpretation of "reach" in this context, and certainly not how it is generally understood played in my experience where reach is taken to be actually contacts.
Just my 2 cents.
So, it is with the bases off to the side. "Reach" is irrelevant since they do not nor will not ever "reach" the other BG and hence they will not interpenetrate that other BG. So reference to the bases that do not reach is quite irrelevant. Note that the authors mentioned "bases of the moving BG that reached the BG being interpenetrated". If they had meant "ranks" instead of "bases" shouldn't they have written "ranks of the moving BG....". Therefore, the bases off to the side would move up to their maximum distance whilst remaining contiguous with their neighbouring files, which would mean dave_r's interpretation is quite correct.
In any event I agree with the sentiment that, if there is any doubt, the moving player should not get the benefit.










