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BGonline.org Forums
Clock concerns - your thoughts please.
Posted By: Rich Munitz In Response To: Clock concerns - your thoughts please. (Frank_N_Stein)
Date: Tuesday, 2 March 2010, at 10:20 p.m.
These are excellent questions.
Backgammon is a game of skill. Tournaments are a test of your ability to apply that skill in a fair contest on a level playing field with others. In my opinion, giving every contestant the same budget of time to use according to their abilities and best judgment for time management is another means of creating a level playing field. The only question is what should that amount of time be to best balance the desire to minimize occurrences of severe time pressure for players playing at a "reasonable" pace with the desire to have tournaments run on time? The goal should be to create the best overall experience for the player population as a whole. Players lost due to the use of a clock should be less than players lost due to boredom and unbearable tournament delays due to slow play.
Bottom line, I don't know the best time that should be given. I am fine playing with the 2/12 in use today, but I am aware of enough situations where time has gotten tight to question if it is optimal. I think only more events and data will give that answer. But I do believe that the answer is based on what I said above - play at a "reasonable" pace. It is subjective, but people know slow play when they see it. And if in order for someone to have a "fighting chance" against a top player, they must play at an "unreasonable" pace, then sorry but I do not believe that they should be permitted to do so.
Lets use an analogy. Everyone pays their tuition to enroll in a college course. At the end, everyone has different abilities and different levels of understanding. To some the material is second nature and easy. To some it is a struggle. Some obtain proficiency with massive study and practice and memorization. Some just have an innate ability and can do it in their sleep. Some can solve problems instantly, some can grind through it and eventually arrive at the answer. Some never quite get it right no matter what they do. But in the end, there is a final exam. Everyone gets the same 3 hours to do the same task. Some will breeze through it effortlessly. Some will grind through it. Some will run out of time. Some will finish in an hour and fail anyway. But everyone is tested using the same measure with the same constraints, and their final performance is based on their overall knowledge, experience, talent and ability to manage their time. Yes, some will score poorly because they ran short or out of time. Had they been given more time, perhaps they'd have done better. But what you are capable of in the time given is ultimately a fair test of your abilities, both absolute and relative to others. Imagine if students were given an unlimited amount of time to complete their exam? Imagine also if every other student were required to sit and wait at their desks until the very last student handed in his exam. Imagine if that last student takes 8 hours to complete his exam while the others were all finished in 3. That is exactly the system we now have at backgammon tournaments without clocks. Perhaps as a remedy, after 5 hours the instructor might walk over and tell the slowpoke "you're taking way too long; you've got only 30 more minutes". But the damage is done. Everyone else has already lost 3 hours of their day and no time limit set after the fact will ever recover that lost time.
Playing a backgammon match on a Bronstein clock is actually like taking a multiple choice exam. NOBODY should ever run out of time. Manage your time, pay attention to how much time remains, and if things get tight or if you're just not sure, GUESS!
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