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Feedback from Patrick Gibson
Posted By: Bill Riles In Response To: Clocks (lengthy) (Stick)
Date: Friday, 17 October 2008, at 4:55 p.m.
Great work! The retail price for clocks is $40, but when you buy 12 or more, I know that they can be discounted (perhaps $10-12?). Using clocks definitely contributes toward "making the tournament schedule" more do-able.
I am about to run my 62nd Invitational event (30 years worth) and we have had lots of challenges resulting in "late evening matches (running past midnight) even when we recognize that a particular match is "behind" and insert a clock.
Number 62 is will be the first time I have made clocks "mandatory" for the MASTERS (our Super-32 event). I have used clocks optional, by either player's request, and perhaps 25% of the field have requested them.
I probably have lost a long time player (LTP), due to our last June event's incident. A round-one match, with 100 players in the room, got way behind and someone finally brought it to my attention. I inserted a clock in their next game, but the damage was already done. LTP got the winner and their match was clocked as was the next round's players. LTP was very upset that: (1) he had to wait so long to play his 2nd round match,. (2) his match was clocked --feeling that it was not due to his play, and (3) that we (the tournament staff) had NOT identified the problem earlier.
As the TD, I do walk the room and observe the players, matches and scores, but it is not a continuous process, as it would need to be for the tournament staff to find the anomalies that may-be/are holding things up. Certainly, having all Championship matches clocked would be very valuable in keeping the tournament on schedule.
Possibly charging a small fee ($5?) for a tournament or two (to the Championship/Masters players) should easily allow the recovery of dollars necessary to obtain the 30-40 clocks needed for most tournaments. I do not think that shipping them around the country is desirable --cost, setup times, damage, non-owership concers (or lack of concern). Let's say that $30 per clock is the price, then 32 clocks is $960; with a 50 player Championship event and a 16 Masters you would collect 66x5 = $330. That's about 1/3 recovery at the first event.
Wouldn't it be great if all events were scheduled like the Indy-Swiss --e.g. rnd-1 starts at 1pm, rnd-2 at 3pm, rnd-3 at 5 pm ? that only works when each round's players finish on time, but then the early finishers are free until the POSTED next-start-time. Just a thought. (;-))
Most of us TD's already have some clocks, so purchasing the additional ones should not be too expensive and like Coolrey said in his thread, some players might put up the initial money to assist, but I suggest that the TD's refund those monies once the clock purchases have been "recovered" through the $5 fees.
YES, there is extra burden on the tournament staff to handle the clocks and any clock problems. Yes, I do have mine all set ahead of time for the match lengths that I will be encountering. NO, I do not think that 15 seconds is necessary or desirable in order to get aclimated to their use; the 12 second delay (free time per move) has proven to be very reasonable through my experience with "clocks optional" and the Indy-Swiss that I use in the VIETOR CUP each year.
I like the indea of a forum to be held in Vegas next month to discuss these issues with the TD's and the players.
____________patrick (the MFIC) Bill, please consider posting this at Stick's site, I do not have the time to learn how right now, family medical issues.
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