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"If it (the clock) ain't broke, don't fix it"

Posted By: Chuck Bower
Date: Sunday, 12 May 2013, at 11:29 p.m.

In Response To: "If it (the clock) ain't broke, don't fix it" (Phil Simborg)

I agree with you that (the delay) should be short....

The problem with a short delay is that it encourages poor dice randomization. If we had electronic dice then it could be shortened. If baffle boxes were standard it could be shortened. But with dicecups being (currently) the overwhelming preference, it should not be shortened.

I know a lot of players who don't ever look at the clock, except between games. I look at the clock after every move. I can tell you that most of the time I use 10 seconds of the delay and its more likely I use more than less. I'm talking about plays where I'm not thinking much. Shake a minimum of three times; roll vigorously; see the result; move the checkers (with a single hand); hit the clock: 2, 1, 0 seconds on the delay.

I repeatedly return to the reason we have clocks -- to attempt to avoid the ridiculously long match. It works. It's not perfect and if some A-hole wants to find the one in a thousand match that is clocked and still goes long, if he's not as big of a lazy schmuck as he is an a-hole (multiply those two small probabilities together) I'm sure he'll find it.

If people want speed backgammon, then we should have (and in fact have already had) those kinds of events. We shouldn't be making speed the norm, unless we want to change the game. We threw out analog clocks because they changed the game more than we wanted while there was a solution readily at hand which achieved the required result without changing the game.

People can shout all they want, trying to drown out logical discussion. People can ignore all the research (the kind of research Tom did) and say the same thing over and over again, attempting to bully others into submission. I saw that kind of crap on the 3rd grade playground and learned in the 4th grade how to counteract it. Let's stop pandering to bullies who can't stand on their weak ideas so they try to stand on peoples' mouths while shooting off their own. They poison the game. They shouldn't be welcome. They drive away exactly the kind of players we want to recruit. Let's welcome the open minded people, not the closed minded bullies.

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