| |
BGonline.org Forums
A better clock for backgammon
Posted By: Chris Yep In Response To: A better clock for backgammon (Colin Owen)
Date: Friday, 13 March 2015, at 7:06 a.m.
A year or so ago, we agreed that, in every set - including the main, longer one - one games worth of reserve time would be added. Playing 15s/21min for 20 games is next to no different; getting 15/2 for a single game is a whole lot better than 15/1!
Intuitively, this albeit simple adjustment feels right to me. Does it make mathematical sense? If so, I wonder whether something like it should apply to match play, ie any match has a points worth of time added to it?
As you've come to appreciate, shorter sets "need" proportionally more time than longer sets. An "optimal" time control for a set of N money games under these conditions (initial bank time, 12-15 seconds delay, no increment) might be fairly complex, but your adjustment seems reasonable, especially for shorter matches; as you note, for longer matches, it doesn't make much difference.
For example, a "2 12" time control generally seems reasonable for medium/long matches (7+ points). However, 10 minutes bank time is often too little for a 5-point match. At least in the U.S., 5-point matches are usually only played in the Last Chance (usually for small amounts of money) so players don't mind the fast (10 minutes bank time) time control.
When 1-point matches are clocked, players are often given more than 2 minutes of bank time. For example in the 2014 Denmark vs. The World event, players were given 4 minutes of bank time for a 1-point match.
| |
BGonline.org Forums is maintained by Stick with WebBBS 5.12.