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BGonline.org Forums
The REAL difference between Intermediate and Open
Posted By: Phil Simborg In Response To: The REAL difference between Intermediate and Open (Steve Hast)
Date: Saturday, 8 September 2012, at 7:53 a.m.
This debate completely ignores the other, important reasons clocks improve the game, and why I strongly believe that clocks should even be used for the final matches when there is no longer an issue of holding up other matches. Very briefly:
1. one set of die and the clock ending the turn eliminates many kinds of problems relative to fast rolling, whether a player has moved, lifted or covered the dice or not which might have signified the end of his turn, and other problems and concerns of having separate dice;
2. there is added skill in allocating your time during the match;
3. no player may take an excessive amount of time on very many moves;
4. players no longer have the ethical problem of self-imposing on themselves what is a reasonable amount of time to make decisions in order to be courteous to his opponent and spectators and the rest of the tournament;
5. the game is more interesting for spectators, which is an important consideration if we want to grow interest in the game and in tournament play;
6. it gives Stick and others a good excuse if they blow a play--they can say they were short on time.
MOST tournament players who have tried playing with a clock know that the current settings allow plenty of time to play and take plenty of time to think about difficult decisions without rushing. And THE VAST MAJORITY of experienced players agree with the above and prefer a clock for the above reasons as well as knowing the tournament is less likely to drag on extra hours.
For those less experienced with the clock, of course they will not like it the first few times, and for those players, primarily in the Intermediate Division, I advocate the use of the clock but with more generous time settings for the first year or two so they can get used to the mechanics and see the benefits.
Yes, there are people who disagree and have taken a strong stance against the clock. We know who these people are because there are so few of them. I am truly sorry they disagree and they don't like it, and if they choose to stop playing tournaments for that reason, I will miss them. They are good people who simply don't like the game with the clock. Well, that's life. I could list a dozen things I don't like about the way we currently run tournaments but I can't always get my way and I have to go along with the majority....I also don't like a lot of the rules we have in this country for driving, for taxation, for election of legislators, and for the requirement for people to wear clothing in public, but I can't have everything I want. I believe we have to respect the majority rule and not try to stop 90% of the people from having something they way they want it, and yes, they have the right not to come ("If they don't want to come, no one can stop them.") But I resent being held hostage by a small minority. As for the other rules I don't like....I'm working on it and maybe some day I can convince enough people about those. (My No. 1 objection is long matches...I don't believe we should ever have matches longer than 7 points and even 5 is better, and a real match should be 2 out of 3 to 5 or 7--shorter matches are more challenging, exciting for the players and spectators, and require a lot more strategy in the use of the cube and variance of checker play because of the diverse take points and gammon values.)
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