| |
BGonline.org Forums
Peoria Update/ Clock Issues (long plea)
Posted By: Chuck Bower In Response To: Peoria Update/ Clock Issues (Chris Knapp)
Date: Tuesday, 14 October 2008, at 5:13 p.m.
Chris, I was unaware you were a boogoliner. Congrats on your LC win! You got some help in your first LC match; I can say that from first hand experience. :)
Regarding clocks in Peoria, Linda pointed out every chance she got (Ty handout, verbally during the auction) that slow play would lead to clock usage. And it did, but unfortunately that didn't help enough. I talked to one player (might have been Chris; I can't remember) who waited SIX HOURS for his next match, from 5:00 to 11:00 Saturday. (To be realistic, there was a 2 hour dinner break in there so it was ONLY four hour wait.)
At the close of play on Saturday night (Sunday AM) only one Open Consolation quarterfinal had been played, and that was Neil vs. Carter because both agreed they wanted to play late as opposed to 9:30 the next morning. I don't ever remember a TY (but probably because I'm out by then :( where the consolation quarterfinals didn't occur until the last day. Those QF's began at 9:30 AM Sunday. One of them took particularly long and since only two places were being paid in the Consy (which made sense), the WINNER of that match (or his next opp was going to fall into the LC, which had already (just begun)! That next match went relatively quickly (1 hr) but the loser started the LC an hour late (as did his opp) and in the first round (i.e. no bye, so round of 64, I believe).
OK, let me be clear that I'm definitely not picking on Linda and her staff. She is a great person, a hard worker, and VERY OPEN to ideas, as she showed by asking all participants to vote in a poll of whether they would like to see next year's LC be progressive or 'standard' (i.e. standard = all players not in the $ starting from scratch on Sunday morning). FURTHERMORE, with the exception of giving the late arrivers (dropouts from the consy semis) to get a bye or two into the LC, I don't believe she did anything differently than the rest of the US directors would have done.
So you see the problem is systemic. By waiting to clock matches only after they are behind the rest of the field by a considerably time (typically a couple hours or the time allotted for a full match), the damage has been done. There is a rough parallel example in vehicle traffic. It has been shown that even after an accident on a freeway has been cleared up it can take SEVERAL HOURS for the flow of traffic to get back to normal. It's a law of physics (no, I'm not making fun of physicists; it's true).
Another problem with the current practice is that is potentially inherently biased. E.g. two fast players get slowed down because they both played slow opp's in the first round. They are a full match behind, BUT, the director knows that they are fast players and it's not their fault they are behind, so no need to clock. HOWEVER, their first round opponents who are "known" to be slow players get clocks put on their matches. (BTW, this hypothetical has nothing to do with Peoria.) So, how do you define 'fast' and 'slow' players? Can it be quantified? Has it been quantified? Who did it??
The solution is to clock all Open matches. Period. Someone is going to have to break the ice (Gregg did for his TY, actually, but it's now been cancelled forever) and get things going. I've made several suggestions as have others here and on GammonU. I have three digital clocks and I bring them to every TY -- started doing this after Pitt. (Stick borrowed one on Saturday.) If I can bring THREE, everyone should be able to bring ONE. I'm not rich. I'm not a hero. I'm a regular guy who wants clocks to be used very badly and I've put my money where my mouth is.
But we need a lot of cooperation from directors. I'm friends with many of the US directors and I like them all (well, all the ones I know, anyway). However I must be frank that I don't think, as a group, they've done enough to move things along. Yes, there are going to be growing pains. We may even lose a few players in the process. But we also might NOT lose some who have gotten fed up with slow play, match start times delayed by hours, and having to play deep into the night only to then have to get up the next morning on ~5-6 hours sleep. I've done it all (as have most of you) and am the first to admit that at times I've been at fault. But I won't be at fault if everyone is on a clock, because it won't happen.
Please, haven't we waited long enough??
| |
BGonline.org Forums is maintained by Stick with WebBBS 5.12.