Final Decision Dinerstein - van Zeijst

[RobertJasiek]

Liisa, if you want to get rid of Ing clocks, then please initiate a motion for the EGF Annual General Meeting! Players do not need to be convinced - still quite some politicians with their so far different opinion need.

Since there have been three different interpretation approaches (majority reasinong, minority reasoning, chief referee), your statement that there could not be different interpretations is somewhat doubtful.

Liisa, Harleqin, since you think that Matti's reasoning is correct, how do you fill its gaps? It fails to address various EGF Tournament Rules related issues, which the majority reasoning discusses, entirely. E.g., it does not even cite §§5.3+4 to then argue why that must be overridden. IOW, why do you think that not existing rules (about volume setting) must override existing rules (about loss on time)? More generally, when would you allow not existing law to override existing law?

Monadology, organizers cannot foresee each potential problem in all games; there is not enough manpower for that. E.g., they would not notice when a third person would alter another board's volume.

You wish different rules but as long as EGF tournament practice is different from your wish you would actually need a change of the written rules. You call it intuitive that a player must inform the opponent about a volume change but EGF tournament practice is different again. Change all players' behaviour first to agree to your wish, then afterwards you can call it intuitive more easily.

There are already enough papers floating around - introducing yet another per board is thus a very bad idea. Rather I would like to see tournament advertisements prohibited on playing tables; they are like litter and distracting.

kokomi, Ing clocks are so wrong that it is easier to identify what is right with them... Bugs, mechanical / electric malfunctioning, early battery failure, bad electric low power management, ugly, noisy, ugly voice, hard to set, hard to check, hard to press button, impossible to see opposing time at a glance, causing 75% (what an incredibly high number!) of all tournament disputes, not enough time modes etc. It is really hard to design worse clocks.

[Hicham]

One thing that struck as being quite silly is Dinerstein complaint that a French referee cannot judgge impartially about a Dutchman as their countries are "too close together" . First of all their is a whole country inbetween(well, if you think of my country as a real country ), secondly it is not like French and Dutch are always on the same side in every debate.

It almost feels like he insinuates that Western Europeans would stand with Western Europeans and Eastern Europeans with Eastern Europeans and so on. If this is is then it shows that Russians still see the world in a very geographical way.

[kokomi]

kokomi, Ing clocks are so wrong that it is easier to identify what is right with them... Bugs, mechanical / electric malfunctioning, early battery failure, bad electric low power management, ugly, noisy, ugly voice, hard to set, hard to check, hard to press button, impossible to see opposing time at a glance, causing 75% (what an incredibly high number!) of all tournament disputes, not enough time modes etc. It is really hard to design worse clocks.

I feel a very strong subjective attitude here ugly, noisy, ugly voice, hard to press...

how did you get the number 75%. Even though this number does not have much information. Other than ING clock, what other major clocks are used in big tournaments? It would be convincing that you give the number of dispute due to ING clock/number of time ING clock is used and the number of dispute due to a better design/number of time this better design is used. Also you can not dispute your opponent does not give you exactly 5.00 minutes with an analogue clock. So it should really be comparasion of similar products.

Do you consider the dispute between breakfast and his opponent this time is causing by ING clock? is this part of your 75%?

Can you name some other designs that covers its right and doesn't have its worng? Mobile application seems to be the only one I know for the moment.

[Ingo Althofer]

One thing that struck as being quite silly is Dinerstein complaint that a French referee cannot judgge impartially about a Dutchman as their countries are "too close together" ...
It almost feels like he insinuates that Western Europeans would stand with Western Europeans and Eastern Europeans with Eastern Europeans and so on. If this is is then it shows that Russians still see the world in a very geographical way.

One more observation that may be somehow related to this:
In Tampere there was a voting on the place for the EGC in 2014
(in Romania or in Russia). "Russia" had installed Russian representives
for Russia (of course) + 4 other federations, to have better chances.
Despite this manouvre (or just because of it ?!) Romania got the majority
of votes.

Ingo.

[Ingo Althofer]

... I would love to see a photo of the board at the time of the timeout. I know that the board state should not influence the ruling, but it certainly influences my opinion about the players.

I have tried a lot to get sgf of the game or at least a snapshot
of the crucial position. No success. (I even contacted RvZ
via Twitter, but he does not seem to use his account there any longer.)

According to the first level decision the game was played on after
the timeout. At the end of the playout Dinershteyn had a loss by 27.5 points.

Ingo.

[RobertJasiek]

As written earlier, the 75% number I got from a referee for the EGC 2010 top boards, who acted as a referee during all rounds.

Other clocks used regularly in EGF tournaments include DGT and Garde.

In tournaments without Ing clocks, the percentage of clock related disputes is much lower, as I have observed but I cannot give precise figures.

If a clock without volume had been used, then the dispute would not have arisen.

Digital clocks with much better (although not perfect) design include:
- Chronos, http://chronosdealer.com/
- DGT

[RobertJasiek]

On the board, the game was extraordinarily interesting. Let us hope that Alexander publishes it!

[Liisa]

Ing clocks are so wrong that it is easier to identify what is right with them... Bugs, mechanical / electric malfunctioning, early battery failure, bad electric low power management, ugly, noisy, ugly voice, hard to set, hard to check, hard to press button, impossible to see opposing time at a glance, causing 75% (what an incredibly high number!) of all tournament disputes, not enough time modes etc. It is really hard to design worse clocks.

This is the reason that there is not required any AGM movement, but ING clock's are already in direct violation of EGF tournament rules. Therefore current EGF tournament rules already forbid usage of ING clock in class A and class B tournaments. If rating committee has approved them in the past, that wont justify them to be qualified in class A status in the future. Therefore all tournaments that uses Ing clocks cannot be more than EGF class C tournaments.

I was little inaccurate with saying that Matti's reasoning is correct. Actually referee's interpretation was correct.

[kokomi]

So you are saying 75% of the dispute is due to clock problem. That's different emphasis from saying ING clock caused 75% of disputes. I assume you only use ING in EGC? So that's not a comparasion with other clocks. (Correct me if i did not understand you well).

The thing I don't like ING clock is what you said that one could not see opponent's time at a glance. The clock on the link you gave serves in a better way.

However in this specific case, I don't think it's anything to do with the design of the clock used. But honestly I don't know to whom/what to blame (that caused this trouble).

[RobertJasiek]

Liisa, for sure you mean the chief referee and not the referee...

Your view that Ing clocks violate EGF tournament rules is a refreshing thought. How would they violate them? Maybe §§9.2.1+2. But considering that the current decision does not interpret like that, this is too far-fetched.

[RobertJasiek]

So you are saying 75% of the dispute is due to clock problem. That's different emphasis from saying ING clock caused 75% of disputes.

In the EGC 2010, AFA, only New Ing Clocks were used. The 75% refers to the EGC 2010 only.

[Liisa]

Your view that Ing clocks violate EGF tournament rules is a refreshing thought. How would they violate them? Maybe §§9.2.1+2. But considering that the current decision does not interpret like that, this is too far-fetched.

Clear violation is that EGF rules require tournament to be well organized. This is not subjective statement, but good organization means that there is proper EGF approved rules used and there is proper referee who has adequate understanding of rules used.

Problem is that Ing clocks deprive from any head referee ability to make correct decisions according to current rules set. That means in practice that referee cannot acquire adequate understanding of rules applied to all relevant situations, if Ing clocks are used. If referee's ability to make justified decisions is deprived, it means that Ing clock violates EGF rules, because with Ing clock there cannot be well organized tournaments.

Indication for this is that there are three conflicting opinions presented. This kind of situation cannot be possible with well organized tournaments.

Rules should be ok, but used clocks were faulty. However rules do contain small miswording, because there is no such thing as Canadian byouyomi, but only Canadian overtime and Japanese byouyomi. But this is just detail. There can be however practical implications, because when EGF rules refer to a silent clock they are referring to analog clock with Canadian overtime used. When using Japanese byouyomi there should not be allowed usage of silent clocks. Situation is even worse, if sound can be easily disabled by (malicious or ignorant) players.

[Pyoveli]

In the EGC 2010, AFA, only New Ing Clocks were used. The 75% refers to the EGC 2010 only.

Excalibur Game Time II digital clocks were used for side tournaments, rapid tournament and main tournament boards 101-150. Ing clocks must be reprogrammed every time they are reset. Excalibur can hold up to five user-programmed settings in the clock memory so with preprogrammed Excaliburs it was possible save lots of work and trouble in side events.

The only reason (and really, the only reason) EGC2010 used any Ing clocks was financial. If somehow a very big stock of some better digital clock was donated to EGCC, I'm sure lots of future congress organizers would be happy.

[RobertJasiek]

Liisa, I can sympathize with your not well organized argumentation. The rules are better than the actually used playing material here. In practice this is a political problem though. Forbidding Ing clocks would imply declaring useless a stock of hundreds of clocks of the EGF etc. For for me, but to really do that you need to have a political decision. I tried something like that in the Rules Commission but without success (yet). It requires more than one active player on the political scene. Get involved!

[RobertJasiek]

Pyoveli, there is an alternative: Players attending the congress might be required to bring their own clock. This would then require great respect of all towards the clocks and reimbursement for stolen clocks.

Some of the EGC 2010 organizers told me that Finland could have organized other clocks in principle; so I don't buy the "only financial" argument.