| |
BGonline.org Forums
Time controls and error rates
Posted By: Stick In Response To: Time controls and error rates (Tom Keith)
Date: Tuesday, 25 November 2014, at 5:16 p.m.
Leaving as much time on your clock as your opponent is an overly simplistic (poor) way of managing time. Imagine both extremes. First, that you're playing someone who always moves within' the 12 second delay. You finish the match and both of you have used up no time since you kept pace! Second, you're playing someone who takes way too long and now you're both under threat of losing on time!
Each player will play at a different pace and should figure out their own time management. I won't linger too long on what I've said before, if you're a world class player (or really anyone, but I have more sympathy for others) and you time out you're an absolute donkey. Any world class player can play a decent game of speed backgammon. It is unacceptable to not be able to, in the absolute worst case scenario, play on the delay alone.
With that being the case I suggest that stronger players take time on the decisions they deem important. Don't dilly dally in general and you'll be fine. Plays or decisions with augmented cube values should be given more weight and you should be smart enough to realize along the way if the match is progressing quickly meaning you have more time to spare or taking longer and perhaps you should slightly quicken your pace in order to not land yourself in hot water later.
I will stipulate that for the purposes of never timing out as a world class player you need to be an agile dice roller. In other words, you should be able to pick up the dice, shake, and roll cleanly and legally without wasting any time. If you're perhaps an older player this may not be as simple. There are some people who exist who also can't roll dice into the empty area of a board or don't know their own strength and roll off the board way too frequently.
Stick
| |
BGonline.org Forums is maintained by Stick with WebBBS 5.12.