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BGonline.org Forums
Why use clocks? The other side of the argument
Posted By: Henrik Bukkjaer In Response To: Why use clocks? The other side of the argument (Timothy Chow)
Date: Wednesday, 19 January 2011, at 12:36 p.m.
The latter one about the 30 second penalty imposed at the Nordic Open on a player with only 11 left, might have been too severe.
It's an ackward situation that the player have left himself exposed to, and he really should be careful not to pick up his dice early. The ruling was fine because the rules were that way.
Having said that, the situation was discussed heavily in the DBgF afterwards. I came back into the tournament and rules committee after that Nordic Open, and we actually relaxed the rules on that particular subject. Now you cannot loose your match in the first violation of the rule.
The 30 seconds was a leftover from the analogue clock rules we had before and they are certainly more severe for Bronstein time controls. It was discussed if the amount of time should be changed, but it was decided that the rules should be kept simple and clear for everybody to understand.
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I always advise players who are inexperienced in regards to clocks, to consider 1:00 as their low threshold of time, and start picking up play speed considerably if they pass this number. You never know when you roll a die on top of a checker, over the board, or even by mistake picks up the dice prematurely. You should allow time for that to happen and not expose yourself to these unlucky time losses!
BTW: I've played approx. 100 tournament matches with clocks now, and only once have an opponent run out of time - and that was with the old analogue rules, giving him a 2-point penalty and 5 minutes extra time.
I agreed completely with Stick in this thread but I think people are missing the first and foremost reason why so many players oppose clocks: Then want backgammon to be different from chess, they hate chess and bridge and the typical players of these games, and want backgammon to be like in the good old days = "Not chess". It should be noisy players taunting each other, in smokey rooms, with money on the side, not the steril form of backgammon that they consider some modern tournaments to be. I don't agree. That's the way the game can be played privately, or in local chouettes if people prefer.
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