pwaldron wrote:HermanHiddema wrote:I think it is unreasonable to expect players to study the various clocks in use. They are there to play go and decide the championship. Matters of equipment should be dealt with by the organizers as much as possible, and I think it is reasonable for players to expect that such matters are taken care of.
It appears they were. Elsewhere in this thread eyewitnesses are reported to confirm that they were award that van Zeijst was in byo-yomi. Clearly the clocks were functioning as timepieces.
They were functioning as timepieces, yes, but were they functioning in performing byoyomi, i.e. seconds reading? No, the clock did not read the seconds, which it would have done were the sound on. Hence it was not doing what it should.
Also, eye-witnesses are not usually deeply reading variations and focussing on the game, which the players are.
I would have some sympathy for van Zeijst if this had happened in the first round or two of the tournament. But this incident occurred in the ninth round of the event. van Zeijst had eight prior games to observe and use the clocks. If he wasn't comfortable with those clocks by then, he should have asked for a lesson in their use.
On the contrary, I would expect a player to be wary of a new clock in the first round or two. But if the clock has been doing what you expect it to do, counting down the seconds in byoyomi, for eight rounds already, why on earth should you expect it to behave differently in round 9?
The volume argument seems a bogus to me. van Zeijst would have heard the clocks (either his own or his neighbours) making noise in previous games, so there is no way he could credibly claim ignorance. He should have noted the speaker volume at the beginning of his game and adjusted it to a level that was comfortable for him. If there was no noise, it should have been a tipoff to an incorrectly set clock or a defective speaker.
Van Zeijst had heard clocks counting down byoyomi in previous and/or other player's games, therefore he should have known they can be silent? I don't follow that argument at all
With the volume at its lowest, the Ing v2 clock will make a sound all through your basic time, when you push the button, but it will not make a sound for byoyomi. Anyone using the clock would have been reassured that the clock is making sounds as expected all through their basic time, only to be surprised by a lack of sound in byoyomi. Bad design, especially since the previous Ing clock, which looks quite similar, was never completely silent.
It should be noted that the congress didn't report an epidemic of malfunctioning clocks. The visiting tourists, who would also be using the clocks for the first time, seemed to have no trouble.
It is not claimed that the clock was malfuntioning, but that the clock was set incorrectly. And it is well known that many people have trouble with the Ing clocks when first using them, but such reports rarely get out when it does not concern top players. Other people in this thread have already reported similar experiences (e.g. entropi once won on time in a similar way).
