Mark, this is egoistical and subjective argument where you present that you like Canadian, because you do not need to count stones by yourself. I do not see what is the relevance of this argument.

However "I don't take the game that seriously", is for me that you are saying that you are not taking go that seriously. It is not personal insult aimed towards you. But some people do take go very seriously and those are those who will be on the top of the rating list and will gather all the prize money.

I take go also very seriously, but for me it is impossible to have fun if I and my opponent does not give everything in given time limits.

Mark, having not enough digital clocks is of course one problem, but it is not a problem in Finnish tournaments for example, because here is enough digital clocks for any local tournament. Last game that I played with analog clock was perhaps on year 2008 (I do not remember) and I do play go every week in tournaments and go club.

In general, Mark, it is not relevant to express your personal likings and dislikings, but to evaluate how fair the system is and how difficult given system is for those humans to handle who do want to squeeze every second that is given for them. It goes without saying absolute timecontrol may be fair for both, but it is almost impossible to play serious go with it, because squeezing every second for reading and calculating is practically impossible.

There are of course severe problems if applied to analog clock, but I clearly stated that problems are approximately same sized than are with Canadian overtime. And later you did support your claim with egoistical argument and started meta discussion.

In argumentation of timing system it is required to take in account that there are valid objective arguments and invalid subjective arguments.

Valid arguments are:

* How well tournament schedule can be maintained.
* How likely is the loss on time in winning position.
* How much there is time spilled.
* What is overall frequency of time losses.
* How equally timing system treats players.
* What is the availability of digital clocks.
* How much given timing system gives restrictions players how to allocate their time.
* And how smooth and how severe timing system is

These are objective criteria for timing system. And they are completely independent of subjective arguments such as, "I like Canadian because I am used to it, when I play in KGS."

Subjective arguments are nice, but they are completely overdriven by any of these objective criteria that were given above.

There's no such thing as a valid subjective argument?

This is good and non-obvious question.

If subjective argument is valid, then we see it's impact in increasing time losses in statistical sense. But then subjective is no longer subjective, but we may measure it in objective sense. If we do not see this impact in statistics, then that particular argument is not valid argument.

It might be nice, but it's importance is always less than objective criteria for timing system.

Add:
Subjective arguments are also morally wrong, because they are always inherently egoistic. That is because it is irrelevant information, what you like, but according general moral principles it is relevant for you to consider what does your opponent want for timing system.

Well it had to happen eventually, even in our friendly new digs here at 19x19. I have put the first user on my ignore list.

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Main Entry: zing·er Pronunciation: \ˈziŋ-ər\
1 : something causing or meant to cause interest, surprise, or shock
2 : a pointed witty remark or retort

EGF rating committee finally achieved resolution how to deal with Fischer timing.

New minimum requirements are:

class A: 45 15 (adjusted time for T240: 2×75min)
class B: 30 10 (adjusted time for T240: 2×50min)
class C: 20 5 (adjusted time for T240: 2×30min)

I have done some practical studying and I have come to conclusion that T240 is better than T300 for calculating Fischer adjusted times. From this aspect current decision is good. However, given minimum times for "basic time" are too restrictive. With Fischer timing basic time is meaningless concept, therefore it should not be too restrictive.

Current decision is still provisional and it must be approved in AGM. But it can be used before and it will appear on EGD as soon as webmaster can make appropriate modifications for EGD software and EGF rating page.

I would personally prefer minimum times continuing with moderate approach, but liberal enough that tournament organizers may freely choose their preferred time control:

Class A: 35 20 (adjusted: 75 min)
Class B: 20 15 (adjusted: 50 min)
Class C: 10 10 (adjusted: 30 min)

I have averaged the length of the last 33 of my KGS games that were counted: 267 moves. I do not think that you should base this calculation on less than that.

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A good system naturally covers all corner cases without further effort.

I think ignore lists are a dangerous thing. If a user shows unacceptable behavior they should be dealt with by the community.

@Liisa: Your behavior towards TMark is completely unacceptable. If you are unable to have discussions in a civil manner, please remove yourself from the forum until such time as you are again able to be civil.

I second that Liisa's comments are both sophomoric and silly. In particular, for someone who has such firm ideas about logic and valid argumentation, her comments about the immorality of subjective reasoning are strangely lacking in a logical justification (that's not an invitation to add one--digging a deeper hole and all that...)

Lastly, I can't help but say that the EGD has a view about TMark's seriousness.

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Occupy Babel!

You should also count kgs games, that were not counted...

Also it is not good to look average, but those games that are in the shortest end of typical games. I played last evening two counted club games and they were about 215 moves and 230 moves in length.

T300 will lead just too short games, imo.

http://senseis.xmp.net/?TotalAverageTiming

My great invention of adapting Fischer timing to analog clock was already invented. But I think that easiest way to adapt good time keeping system for analog clock is to allocate time e.g. 50 mins for first 2×100 moves + 30 minutes time bonus for the rest of the game. Counting stones is easiest if players write game record, as EGF rules require players to record their games.

In response to this message, I have received a private message from Liisa that makes several personal attacks on both TMark and myself. Given the tone of its content, I feel that there is no point for me to debate it any further with Liisa, because that would be fruitless.

I would like to ask a neutral third party, an administrator or moderator, to review the contents of this thread and of the private message, and to take appropriate action. I have reported the PM in question.

Hi all.
The EGF Rating Commission has approved the inclusion of tournaments played with the Fischer timekeeping system.

These are the rules for classify such tournaments:
TA = basic time + bonus calculated for 120 moves
* Class A: minimum BT 45 minutes, minimum TA 75 minutes (e.g.: 45 minutes + 15'' per move)
* Class B: minimum BT 30 minutes, minimum TA 50 minutes (e.g.: 30 minutes + 10'' per move)
* Class C: minimum BT 20 minutes, minimum TA 30 minutes (e.g.: 20 minutes + 5'' per move)


Bye,
Aldo Podavini

Unless you have a digital clock which supports Fischer Time then you will not be using Fischer Time. There would be no reason to count out 100 stones.

If only people were using Chronos... I love those clocks.

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Tactics yes, Tact no...

I have stayed away from this thread for a while, because it seemed that my personal views, always expressed as such, caused some people to have conniptions. Some cannot, it seems, realise that the personal preference of the players should intrude into the world of amateur tournament play.

I have just spent a pleasant weekend playing in the Brussels tournament, along with 75 others. I generally treat my weekends in Brussels as an opportunity to buy tobacco and chocolate and to have some good food and wine with some friends. My play is normally handicapped by the amount of wine, and in one case grappa, consumed the night before. However, my main point for consideration of simple systems of time-keeping at tournaments is that the organisers only had about 10 electronic clocks available, which meant that 28 boards were using wind-up analogue clocks. I have no objection to organisers being given the option and that they would have to be warned that only digital clocks can cope, but I worry, mildly, that people who get so het up about a tournament system, insisting that their's is the best objective system available, would start trying to make it the only one available before the infrastructure will bear it. I would also need advance warning to head for the bunkers.

Best wishes.

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No aji, keshi, kifu or kikashi has been harmed in the compiling of this post.
http://www.gogod.co.uk

Sorry, Liisa, but you are just grasping here, I think.
Your arguments seem to me as subjective as anybody's, except you are trying very hard to dress them up in 'objective' feathers.

Some thoughts below:

1) What's wrong with losing on time? The time and clock is there for a reason. Personally, I see absolutely nothing wrong with losing on time, or with statistically increasing the number of games lost on time. Time management is part of tournament play, just like showing up, being on time, and pressing your clock.

2) Fisher time is good, but so is a number of other systems. All of them are perfectly usable, all of them have pluses and minuses. To me, it is a matter of preference which timing system is used. Personally, I like one that minimizes the drag, which is NOT Fisher.

3) With timing is like with the rules - people play Go for ages with the existing rules, and for decades with the existing timing systems, and the only problems and objections you see usually come from the same small group of persistent players who just insist that things absolutely need to change.

4) Fisher time was developed for chess, and one might argue that there was a need for that - the 'byo-yomi' in chess is much less flexible and much more restrictive than in Go. Loses on time are also much more prevalent. I am not sure there is need for Fisher time in Go. I am sure there is no urgent need. So it all comes to personal preference. You clearly stated yours, but it should be ok for others to state theirs without you calling them 'egoistical'.

5) And all in all, I think that you keep pushing this issue too much. Why?

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- Bantari
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WARNING: This post might contain Opinions!!

Bantari, while I agree that Liisa's comments are at times a bit arduous to read, I disagree with your "argument" of complete arbitraryness.

Quoting Eric Naggum, though on a different topic: "The aspects you are willing to ignore are more important than the aspects you are willing to accept. Robbery is not just another way of making a living, rape is not just another way of satisfying basic human needs, torture is not just another way of interrogation. And XML is not just another way of writing S-exps."

Things are not arbitrary in general. Some rule systems are better suited for giving consistent answers to corner cases than others. Some timing systems are better suited for ensuring the timely completion of a game with as little hassle as possible than others. Cars are better suited for getting you quickly across a country than horse carriages (even though the latter were "good enough" for millennia).

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A good system naturally covers all corner cases without further effort.

This is true, but it needs a context to which we measure our answers/rules against.
In this particular example, some of the context seem to be 'It is good to minimize the number of games decided on time.' I see absolutely no objective reasons for accepting such context - it seems arbitrary to me. It might be that the majority of the players dislike games decided on time, but that's still a matter of opinion, and thus subjective. One can agree with it, one can not, and one is right in either case.

My opinion on that matter is this:
Liisa did a good job bringing the possibility to people attention. If the need is urgent enough, things will start happening from there. If it is not urgent enough, it will fizzle until conditions change and the need grows. Same goes for rules changes. You need a critical mass of people interested enough in changing things to start putting effort towards achieving it.

Just trying to push your own agenda like that looks slightly weird, I think. To put it mildly.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Further rambling about what you wrote: disregard not feel like reading.

Of course, you can go ape nuts with reasoning like the above, so obviously a line needs to be drawn somewhere, labeling some contexts as arbitrary and some as less so. I think that most of Liisa's arguments are sitting firmly on the 'arbitrary' side, but that too is arbitrary and a matter of opinion. To give you an example of a 'less arbitrary' context, I would say a criteria that a game can be completed without a mess. Like the board should not be out of ice which keeps melting during games, or the stones should not be out of chocolate which keeps making your fingers sticky, and so on... regardless of the fact that some people mike like the ideas.

Your rape and murder examples - well, what can I say...
There are laws governing such things, which means at some point people got together and decided it is needed urgently enough to develop, implement, and enforce such laws. The urgency seems to be strong enough to warrant huge expenditures in police force and whole judicial system, each country has them. This urgency is something that differentiates something worth pushing and something which is not.

About your horses... good example, bad context. Same thing:
It was obviously worth it for humanity in general to make the huge effort and develop faster and more dependable modes of transportation.
With Go rules the matter is different - most players don't care and would not even notice any changes. Same with Fisher time, I'd say, although it might be more noticeable. There was pressing need to develop cars and planes, it was badly needed - and this justified all the effort. Are new rules or Fisher time urgent enough to necessitate the effort? And big effort it will be indeed to push such things around the world or even around the country.

To reiterate:
For the average human - there is a HUGE others walking around killing and raping or not.
For the average human - there is a HUGE difference between traveling by horse and by bus.
For the average Go player - most rules changes will be unnoticeable. Fisher time will be noticed, but probably just shrugged of as 'whatever'.

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- Bantari
______________________________________________
WARNING: This post might contain Opinions!!

Small improvements always have difficulties overcoming the inertia of "we always did it like this". It is funny how people will ignore any argument for years, simply refusing to think about it, and then suddenly they "get it" and ask, "why didn't anyone tell me before"? I have not found a way to reliably induce such enlightenment yet.

However, going back on topic, I should like to comment this:



Very good!



I think that this is going in the right direction, but that 120 moves is too low a number, so that the time requirements to tournaments using Fischer timing is significantly higher than those to tournaments using absolute time. I believe that the move number should reflect at least the median move number of a played-out game, which I found to be about 260 to 270, so that the move number should be at least 130. When comparing with absolute time, it might even be sensible to put this at the 75% quartile of game lengths, which would mean about 140 to 150 moves per player.



Setting a basic time minimum is sensible, but I think that these basic time requirements are too high. I usually recommend a ratio of basic to bonus time of 120:1. Fischer time 36/18, which feels about like 60 minutes followed by 15 stones/5 min canadian byoyomi, should be enough for class A, considering that 60 min & 20 St./5 min are considered enough in canadian byoyomi.

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A good system naturally covers all corner cases without further effort.

When the current rating system was started, the decision included a clause that only games with 60 minutes or more basic time should be rated. Afterwards I found out that some tournaments with shorter times had been entered. I analyzed the variance in rating compared to the thinking times used and prepared a proposal with three tournament classes. Adjusted time was the measure of time used. Its relation to the times actually spend playing the games is not exactly known.

I consider picking 120 increments for Fischer time a good guess. After enough tournaments with Fisher timing have been entered to the rating system, we will be able to rerun the analysis, and see whether the rating variances with Fisher timing and other timing methods agree.

Matti Siivola