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BGonline.org Forums
Clock concerns - your thoughts please.
Posted By: Steve Mellen In Response To: Clock concerns - your thoughts please. (Rich Munitz)
Date: Wednesday, 3 March 2010, at 1:45 a.m.
I think there is a philosophical debate here. Some people want the clocks to enforce a pace that they consider reasonable, and some merely want the clock to serve as the outer limits of what's permissible so that no one plays egregiously slow. To use your testing analogy, if the final exam period is 2 hours, some teachers want to give an exam that they feel should fill up all 2 hours, and some want to give a shorter exam.
I'm not suggesting either position is necessarily correct, but answering this question tells us something about where the clock settings ought to fall, within the broad spectrum of opinion that surely exists about the "right" setting. For example, let's say I prefer fast setting X, you prefer slow setting Y, and the rest of the backgammon community falls somewhere in between X and Y.
If a director thinks the purpose of the clocks is to set an outer limit without overly affecting the game otherwise, they should prefer time control Y or something close to it. On the other hand, if they think the purpose is to serve as something of a test, they should prefer a time control more towards the middle of the range. (I suppose if they think the clocks should impose a very rigorous test, they could go with X, but I doubt that will be a popular position.) A setting that is too fast makes the tournament less fun, but if you subscribe to the test theory, a setting that is too slow makes the test worthless.
I'm sure this will all be sorted out over time with the benefit of feedback from the increasing number of clocked events.
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