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BGonline.org Forums
Clocks in Charlotte
Posted By: Jason Lee In Response To: Clocks in Charlotte (Rich Munitz)
Date: Wednesday, 21 January 2009, at 9:41 p.m.
Obviously there is a difference between making intelligent comments and stating one's opinion vs. being a jerk. You may go to a non-clocked event and "lobby" everyone willing to listen, and ask your opponent if they are willing to use a clock, and try to explain to them all of the good reasons to play with a clock and why clock use should become standard. And as long as you do this in a non-confrontational and non-intimidating way, that's ok. But it is just as ok for a player who is being required to use a clock to make the case in the opposite direction about why forcing clocks on players is undesirable. And it is just as ok for them to ask you if you would be willing to NOT play with a clock.
I lobby for clocks here. That's pretty much it. And if I'm allowed by the rules to insist on a clock, when somebody asks me to not play with a clock, I would be polite but firm. "No thanks, I'd really prefer to play with a clock." That should be the end of it, and I won't let anybody try to bully me after that.
And, I still say I haven't heard a good argument about not clocking matches. I'm sick of hearing, "But I'm fast" as a counterargument. A lot of people want clocks because of time or speed. That is a secondary consideration for me. It's the mechanics of game play that make clocks better. So much so, that I think that using a clock that's OFF is far superior to clock-less play.
Here's the bottom line: I don't badger anybody at tournaments, because I know that my viewpoint is extreme, and I'm just going to cause problems if I get rolling. My viewpoint is simple: there is a contingent of people who get all hot and bothered about clocks, so I'm going to get just as hot and bothered about clockless play. I STILL find pretty much every single argument I've heard against clocks to be baseless and lame. Last year, I wrote in a letter to the editor of the Chicago Point something to the effect that (paraphrasing), "20 years from now, we're all going to laugh riotously at the era of backgammon where we didn't play every single match with clocks."
I know I'm being an asshole about it, and let me just say, I do not care. I spent a year and a half thankless years running a BG club, and all I got was grief from the idiots who could not adapt to the slightest change, and offered nothing but hypocritical bullshit for suggestions. In that year and a half, that BG club went from dead, dead, dead to flourishing, and after I moved away, it almost died again. So, I tried to do my part there, to no thanks.
The backgammon community as a whole does a piss poor job of marketing itself and adapting to change. It should be a wake-up call that I'm one of five or ten people in the room that doesn't qualify for the seniors (50+) event. At this rate, BG will be dead in 30-40 years. Literally. I have no patience for the sticks in the mud. Go play parcheesi.
If it's clocks optional, and you draw me, we're playing with a clock.
JLee
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