Forum Archive : Tournaments

Clock rules--Digital clocks From:   Chuck Bower Address:   bower@astro.indiana.edu Date:   2 October 2003 Subject:   The time for digital clocks/rules is NOW! Forum:   GammOnLine David Montgomery wrote digital clock rules a few years ago. They have since been adopted (with possible minor mods) by others, including Carol Joy Cole in the US and Liz Barker in Great Britain. I have done quite a bit of experementation with digital clocks+rules in the past year. I also was 'required' to play two matches in Novi (Mich Summer Champs) with digital clocks and rules. Without clocks I am in the bottom 50th-percentile of players concerning speed of play. (Not sure exactly where -- maybe 25th percentile.) I have no problem with digital clocks and rules. If it works for me, then it should work for most players. If the debate is "analog rules vs. digital rules" then the referee should stop the fight mercifully. It's no contest. In my experimentation I've been playing with digital and analog clocks simultaneously. The digital clock records number of moves as well. So I have data (which I haven't analyzed) which correlates digital times, analog times, and number of moves. (BTW, Liz Barker has provided me similar data and I will use those as well when I do an article.) Not a single match (out of ~50) has ended with a digital clock running out (although one had 2 seconds remaining!). A handful of times the analog clock time has expired. The obvious reason for the difference (which I will chronicle when I get the time to write it up for FABN) is that some matches take many more *moves* than others. Digital clock rules allay this misfortune while analog rules don't. One former objection to digital clocks is their cost. That is no longer relevant since a company in Florida makes digital clocks which CJC sells for $40 (same as her price for analog clocks). I've been using one of these for over a year now. There has been a minor problem of the display not showing good contrast -- an intermittant malady. (I don't know if this is simply a problem with my device or is characteristic of this model.) The main difference between digital clock rules and analog clock rules is that in analog, the allotted time is constantly being decremented during a game (only stopped between games). You lose time for shaking, rolling, cocking, thinking, moving. With digital rules you are given 12 *free* seconds per move to conduct your actions. After that you have bonus time which is decremented. The current analog rules allow (typically) a player 6 minutes per point of matchlength (e.g. 42 minues for a 7-point match). The current analog rules allow 12 free seconds per move (which *cannot* be "banked" for later use) plus two bonus minutes per point of matchlength (e.g. 14 bonus minutes per player for a 7 point match). If you can perform all required actions within 12 seconds, you would never need any bonus time. Some players can probably do this! The point is that even the "slow" players get bonus time to ponder tough decisions. The other big difference in analog vs. digital rules is that the "penalty" for running out of bonus time under digital rules is the loss of the match. Period. No penalty points, no adding time, no special strategy ("I'll play a backgame which will take forever and run my opps analog clock down to zero...") With digital clock you are simply playing backgammon by the rules of (non-clocked) backgammon. It may sound as though the time penalty in the digital rules is harsher than in analog, but in reality it doesn't work that way. You can avoid ever running out of time just by playing within your 12 free seconds each move. And you only have to do that after you've burned up all your bonus time. Under analog rules, if a bunch of long games (e.g. backgames) occur, even the fastest players can run out of time. That just cannot happen with digital rules. If there are advantages to analog clock rules over digital, I'd be interested in seeing/hearing them. To date I don't know of a single one. David Montgomery  writes: The clock rules that were available for use at the 2002 Michigan tournament are here: http://www.sonic.net/~monty/michiganclockrules_100.htm I don't know of any other online digital clock rules. These rules were for a combination of analog and digital clocks. They were developed to give the benefit of digital clocks without their expense. That is no longer a real concern, so now one should go directly to the digital (Bronstein or Fischer) time control. I haven't seen any clock rules that I don't think could be improved (including, especially, those I've written). To me the first priority is bringing clocks -- with any sane rules -- into the mainstream of championship backgammon. My second priority is to use digital clocks with a per-move time control. Digital clock rules avoid many of the strategy distortions that analog clock rules produce. Things like the one-sided/two-side five-extra-minutes issue that have been being discussed here, and whether you can just sit on your six prime until your opponent's time runs out. The third priority is getting the details of the clock rules right. This is an area that I'm sure is going to need work for years to come. Regarding the balance between time per move and extra thinking time, I really think it is up to the backgammon community to reach a consensus. I do believe that you absolutely have to play with the controls in question to see how fast or slow they are. I enjoy playing money games at 10s/move, or less, but I'm pretty certain that is too fast for people's expectations of the pace of tournament play. You can always trade off between the extra time and the amount per move, but if the amount per move becomes too small, the rules come to have the defects of analog clock rules. At some point it becomes advantageous to simply lengthen a match because your opponent will not have to time to think about (or, at some point, even to make) his or her plays. On the other hand, if the amount per move is too high, play is simply too slow. So we have to search for the right balance.   Did you find the information in this article useful?           Do you have any comments you'd like to add?

 

Tournaments

Adjusting to face-to-face play  (Paul Epstein+, Feb 2006) 

Adjusting to face-to-face play  (Daniel Murphy, June 1999) 

Avoiding disputes  (Kit Woolsey+, Oct 2007) 

Baffle box to roll dice  (Ken Bame, Mar 2012) 

Calcutta auctions  (David Moeser, Nov 2001) 

Calcutta auctions  (Roland Scheicher+, Dec 1998) 

Calcutta auctions  (Anthony R Wuersch, Oct 1994) 

Calcutta problems  (Marty Storer, Dec 2002) 

Clock ethics  (Patrick Gibson+, Mar 2009) 

Clock rules--Digital clocks  (Chuck Bower+, Oct 2003) 

Clock rules--End of turn  (Carlo Melzi+, July 2001) 

Clock rules--How do they work?  (Gregg Cattanach, Oct 2002) 

Clock rules--Illegal move  (Brendan Burgess+, Feb 2000) 

Clock rules--Why forfeit instead of penalty points?  (neilkaz, Sept 2010) 

Clocks and older players  (Stick+, July 2010) 

Clocks--Arguments against them  (Timothy Chow, Jan 2011) 

Clocks--Common arguments against  (Chuck Bower, Feb 2006) 

Clocks--Losing on time  (Jason Lee+, Mar 2004) 

Clocks--Pros and cons  (Michael Strato+, Jan 2004) 

Clocks--Should they be part of the game?  (Kit Woolsey, June 1995) 

Clocks--Why use them  (Stick, Jan 2011) 

Compensating for byes  (Hank Youngerman+, Dec 1998) 

Factors that affect attendance  (Stick, Oct 2009) 

"Fighter's bracket"  (Chuck Bower+, Sept 2010) 

First backgammon tournament  (Mislav Radica+, May 2007) 

First backgammon tournament  (Ed Collins+, Dec 2006) 

Hedging  (Jason Lee+, Apr 2009) 

Hedging  (Marv Porten+, Feb 2009) 

Hedging  (Tad Bright+, Jan 2003) 

Hitting clock instead of rolling  (Bob Glass+, Mar 2010) 

Keeping score during a match  (Gregg Cattanach, June 2007) 

Links to tournament rules  (Daniel Murphy, Oct 2009) 

Major tournament attendance 1998-2008  (Daniel Murphy, July 2008) 

Making notes during play  (Randy Pals+, Aug 2008) 

Manually recording a match  (Kevin P+, Apr 2007) 

Manually recording a match  (gammonus+, Feb 2006) 

Manually recording a match  (Daniel Murphy, Aug 1999) 

New U.S. Rules  (Gregg Cattanach+, Dec 2007) 

Newbie questions  (Donald Kahn, Oct 1999) 

Playing at Monte Carlo  (Achim, July 2007) 

Playing-off 3 remaining players  (Gregg Cattanach+, Apr 2007) 

Recording matches  (Robert Maier, May 2009) 

Recording matches  (Chuck Bower+, Sept 2003) 

Recording matches  (Sean Dakin+, Aug 1999) 

Round robins  (Hank Youngerman, Nov 2001) 

Rules for doubles play (with a partner)  (steve+, May 2012) 

Seeding  (Roland Scheicher+, Dec 1998) 

Skill level  (Kirk J. Rupnik+, Nov 1998) 

Skill levels  (Leonardo Jerkovic, Aug 2012) 

"Stop pots"  (Chuck Bower+, Sept 2010) 

Swiss format  (Osman Guner+, May 2001) 

Swiss format  (Osman Guner, Oct 1998) 

Swiss format  (Hank Youngerman+, Mar 1998) 

Tournament formats  (MikeMadMonk+, May 2003) 

Tournament rules  (Daniel Murphy, Apr 2001) 

Tournament rules links  (Daniel Murphy, Oct 2009) 

Types of events  (Daniel Murphy, Nov 1997) 

Uniform rules and procedures?  (Michael Crane+, Mar 2003) 

Variable side pools  (Art Grater+, July 2011) 

Vegas trip report (fall 2004)  (Gregg Cattanach, Nov 2004) 

Vegas trip report (spring 2005)  (Gregg Cattanach, May 2005) 

Videotaping matches  (André Nicoulin+, Nov 2000) 

What is a "Monrad format"?  (Daniel Murphy, Sept 2000) 

What is a "side pool"?  (Daniel Murphy, Nov 1997) 

From GammOnLine         Long message         Recommended reading         Recent addition

 

Book Suggestions Books Cheating Chouettes Computer Dice Cube Handling Cube Handling in Races Equipment Etiquette Extreme Gammon Fun and frustration GNU Backgammon History Jellyfish Learning Luck versus Skill Magazines & E-zines Match Archives Match Equities Match Play Match Play at 2-away/2-away Miscellaneous Opening Rolls Pip Counting Play Sites Probability and Statistics Programming Propositions Puzzles Ratings Rollouts Rules Rulings Snowie Software Source Code Strategy--Backgames Strategy--Bearing Off Strategy--Checker play Terminology Theory Tournaments Uncategorized Variations