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BGonline.org Forums
Please be careful if clocking breaks
Posted By: Rich Munitz In Response To: Please be careful if clocking breaks (neilkaz)
Date: Wednesday, 15 September 2010, at 3:12 a.m.
Agreed, this is not an easy question.
Seems to me that the person's clock that runs is the person that proposes the break. It doesn't matter if their opponent wants to pee also. It also seems to me that you call a break, your opponent has the choice of sitting at the board waiting for you to return to play, or getting up and leaving and taking a break on your time. They do so at their own risk. If you are breaking, you are not signing a contract to take some minimal time. If you get back first and they're not there, it has become their break and you start their clock. This will get people to take the minimal time they need to do whatever they need to do and get back to play. If the clock is running, I also see no problem getting up and taking a break mid-game, as long as it is not mid-your-decision.
I agree that there are many other things that cause events to run slowly. For example, people finish a match and don't bother reporting a result for 15 minutes because they'd rather sit gabbing for 20 minutes with others about all the interesting positions from their last match. People enter a side event knowing they are still alive in 4 other events. People decide to watch another interesting match rather than start their own match or return from a break. People decide to head off to dinner rather than start their match because the dinner break starts in 30 minutes and we won't be able to finish anyway. People agree its late, so we'll just play tomorrow without asking the director if they can leave. These kinds of things take cooperation from the players and sensitivity to their potential effect on the overall tournament. Directors need to be vigilant to head off these kinds of problems. Not all causes of delays can be easily addressed without effort.
The case could be made that we don't need clocks at all, because if only people would be reasonable with the pace of their play and if directors would pay attention to slow matches, clocks would be unnecessary. We know that is a poor solution and clocks just do a much better job of proactively imposing discipline. I'm sure everyone says "I'm not a long break taker". Abuse of breaks are certainly something that can be readily addressed with the match clock. Like reserve time for thinking in matches, the amount of break time allotted is up for debate, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be clocked.
There are people who like to take lots of pictures or write down positions during their matches. It slows down play. But if they're on the clock, who cares if they want to spend their clock time doing this, and the player does not feel guilty for slowing play. Spend your allotted time however you like. Breaks are the same. I drink way too much coffee. I might want to take a 2 minute break 3 times during a match. I might sit and suffer because I don't want to abuse the privilege. But if I can simply get up and go for a 2 minute break on my own clock time, I will just do it and my opponent will be just fine with it.
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