Here's a position from an online match today between two players rated in the high 1700's.
White trails 0-2/7. White trails 7-away 5-away. White on roll.
| White | 50 |
|---|---|
| |
| Blue | 63 |
Position ID: u20LAgAAAAADAA Match ID: AQHgAAAAEAAE | |
While watching part of this match, I'm thinking of the recent thread about time controls. A question was raised whether better players should/could be handicapped by giving worse players more time. It was suggested that a better idea in theory would be to give better players less time. It was also suggested that generally players play worse when forced to play faster -- better when they play slower -- but only to a point: if you don't know what you're supposed to think about during your extra time and how you're supposed to think about it, what good will more time do you?
Here, over the board, all you need to figure out is, if you're White, whether you should double and, if you're Blue and White doubles, whether you should take.
Seems to me that the key factor in doing whatever figuring you think you need to do over the board is whether you know how often Blue wins with a closed board vs. 2 on the bar. A better player will also know -- have memorized or be able to quickly recall -- his 7-away match equity table, 4-cube take point at 5-away 7-away, and 8-cube cash point. But does he need to apply all that to this cube decision? On the other hand, a worse player may have no idea of the closed board win percentage, or of or how to apply match equities.
So, should the better player have less time or the worse player more time? Will that "even things out" timewise without reducing the better player's "due advantage"?
Seems to me, here, that a worse player will either have little idea of what to do with his extra time, or use it haltingly and very prone to error, or use it well to figure out the best action. But in this last case, has a time handicap really only adjusted for the better player's supposed only-to-time-related advantage, or is that really rather inseparable from the better player's superior preparation and training, which is what allows him to use his time more efficiently and wisely?
I can add, without giving the over-the-board action away, that one player took about 2 seconds to decide, and if that gave the other player a decision, so did he.