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BGonline.org Forums
Back to Clocks
Posted By: Barry Silliman In Response To: Back to Clocks (Stick)
Date: Thursday, 23 October 2008, at 4:27 a.m.
As I've said before, some players (moi) will not be attending certain events if they aren't clock starting 2009. It goes both ways, or at least I'm going to make it go both ways.
Right, Stick, and I stated as much as well on a post on Thursday when I spent my vacation day prior to Baltimore not studying Trice or Ballard/Weaver or Woolsey's Backgammon Encylopedia as I had originally planned, but instead spending all day on this forum posting about clocks.
It's hard to get empirical, unbiased data. E.g., If you ask a tournament attendee at registration time if clocks would make them more or less likely to attend in the future, the answers are likely to be biased to the downside, because they're already at the tournament without clocks. Now I suppose you could also ask, "if clocks are not at future tournaments, would you be more or less likely to attend". Then you could weigh those who would stop coming if clocks are used against those would stop coming if clocks are not used. But still you've only polled those already at the tournament, not those on the outside who might potentially join the base; although presumably there isn't a vast throng of non-backgammon tournament players aware of the great backgammon clock debate.
Your approach is reasonable, and I also suggested that as well in an earlier post. Just as when Neil said he was tired of the "political bs" posts this caused a stoppage of these posts, the threat of a boycott (perhaps boycott is the wrong word) by Neil, yourself, and other prominent players over clock policies may carry a lot of weight.
One thing I thought about as well is this...I've heard some say that at the very least all semifinals and finals matches should be clocked. Actually I think it should be the opposite. I now think the earlier rounds are more important to be clocked than the semifinals and finals. After all the number one complaint driving the push for clocks is slow and clogged brackets, so usually by the semifinals and finals this isn't a problem. I'm not saying semis and finals shouldn't be clocked - there are flights and other things to consider on the last day. So really, ideally, in a perfect world, and I know it will not be this way in 2009...Clocks MANDATORY in the early rounds, and Clocks ALLOWED in the semis and finals.
I have Jeb's tourney brochure for Carolina and 2009 and I see it is Clocks ALLOWED at the Open level. That's a really good start.
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