Life In 19x19

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).

willemien wrote:

richardamullens wrote:If this were two 20 kyus playing in their first tournament, one might sympathise with this loss on time.

But the game was between two 7 dans who, one imagines, would be well aware of the idiosyncrasies of various clocks - or, at least, one would expect, would take the time to become familiar with such.

How?

1) you cannot buy them for yourself (so play with it in your own time)

2) the full instructions are only in chinese. (so they cannot read them)

3) modern digital clocks are quite complicated and need a study of their own.

So how can you become familiar with them?

Well, I have an ING clock which I bought at a tournament in the UK I believe. It is the earlier IK-02 version and came with two instruction manuals, one English, the other Chinese. But, I would say that they are not so easy to come by.

The newer version has a USB connection so that it can, I believe, be used to record the time at which a move has been made.

My recollection is that, at the Marseille EGC, printed instructions were provided so that participants could set their clocks.

Clocks come with instruction manuals and it is a pity, I think, that tournament organisers do not provide them.

The volume control on an ING clock provides a visual indication of the volume setting, but participants will in any case hear the volume at the start of the game when the clock says "Black time counting begin".

At the start of a tournament when there is a chorus of "Black time counting begin", "White time counting begin" I smile as I know I'm at home.

From the EGF General Tournament Rules:

# Timing error
Players may agree to reset an incorrectly set clock before the game has started. They may not, however, restart a correctly running clock started by an official.

Once the game has started, any apparent non-trivial mistakes in the recorded elapsed time can only be corrected by the referee.

A clock found to be malfunctioning is replaced and set by the referee. If an analogue clock does not show a time excess immediately, then this is replaced by interpreting what should have been the clock's correct indication.

(...)

# Loss on time
If there is no overtime, a player loses on time if the current move is not completed before the basic time expires. If there is overtime, the player loses on time if not all of the given number of overtime stones are played in the prescribed overtime period.

Thus, following a literal interpretation of the rules, there are two questions:
* Can the clock in question be considered "malfunctioning", since it was designed to not count if the volume slider is turned down?
* If it's considered to be malfunctioning, does that void the "loss on time" section?

Since there is some doubt here, one could argue that this is a "gap in the ruleset", in which case it is entirely up to the relevant EGF bodies (in order: AGM, EGF committee, EGF rules commission) to make a decision. In such a situation, I think the rules commitee should follow the most forgiving interpretation of the rules. Clarity first: if they want to make the rules strict, then first let the AGM approve of a clear, unambiguous ruleset!

Since Japanese byouyomi causes lots of confusions, we should use absolute time controls with Fischer (or preferebly bronsteinian if available) increments. If i recall correctly Ing clock can even handle Fischer time control. It is just ridiculous that we have had in EVERY major tournament (that I know) where Japanese byouyomi is used some problems with accidental time losses. Some are just losses for righteous winners, other has more difficult aspects that cause lot of harm for social relationships (i.e. rules are intentionally broken).

Since Japanese byouyomi causes lots of confusions,

European byoyomi.

Liisa wrote:Since Japanese byoyomi causes lots of confusions, we should use absolute time controls with Fischer (or preferably Bronstein) increments.
(...)

No preferred time setting can take away the fact that (usable) "time will be up" at some point.
This causes stress, inherent and normal to playing games.

Furthermore, the discussion here has shifted to the usability of (different kinds of) ING clocks.
This causes an unfairness for the first player to encounter the mal-design of particular clocks,
resp. other particularities of tournament settings/rules/etc.

Liisa wrote:Since Japanese byouyomi causes lots of confusions, we should use absolute time controls with Fischer (or preferebly bronsteinian if available) increments. If i recall correctly Ing clock can even handle Fischer time control. It is just ridiculous that we have had in EVERY major tournament (that I know) where Japanese byouyomi is used some problems with accidental time losses. Some are just losses for righteous winners, other has more difficult aspects that cause lot of harm for social relationships (i.e. rules are intentionally broken).

Not the byoyomi itself causes the losses but the lack of a time warning while the clock seamlessly goes from "main time" to "byouyomi time". This problem is the same with all systems where the transition does not make itself known to the player. It would even occur when the clock automatically went to canadian byoyomi, counting moves by itself. When using analogue clocks, players get their time warning because of the requirement to fiddle with the clock when the main time is over.

Besides, Bronstein timing (delay timing) is inferior to Fischer timing (bonus timing), because under Bronstein timing, unused time is spilt and players thus have an unnatural incentive to delay a move they already have decided on. Estimates of the overall game time are also more imprecise, because the additional factor of time spill has to be included. So, it is inferior in time management flexibility for the players and inferior in overall time estimation.

Overall, I think that the main point is, independently from the used time system: We need guaranteed time warnings.

I dislike fisher time. I think canadian byoyomi with chess clocks is the best... Ing clocks are just too lame.

LovroKlc wrote:I dislike fisher time. I think canadian byoyomi with chess clocks is the best... Ing clocks are just too lame.

While Ing clocks might be "lame" in certain aspects, I think that digital clocks are in general more fair (and useful) than chess clocks, especially considering byoyomi.

Canadian byoyomi (for instance, 25 moves in 5 minutes) can actually mean that one player has 4:35 minutes for making his plays, and the other one 5:12... Not to mention that on digital clocks it is clear at a glance how much time is left (in seconds!), while chess clocks with their flags provide only vague approximation.

So I cannot agree that this would be "the best" option.

Harleqin, your reasoning is little simplistic. Japanese byouyomi is itself awful overtime. And causes __lots of__ troubles and accidental time losses no matter what clock it is used and how well it alerts. I myself lost one EGF-A class game on time and _ the only reason_ for that loss was that there were used 1x30 sec Japanse byouyomi. Accidental timelosses are ALWAYS bad thing and they must be prevented. Time pressure is of course ok. And for that Fischer time or even progressive Canadian overtime is is possible to adjust in good balance so that tournament schedule does not get affected too much and players do not suffer accidental timelosses.

It is just bare fact that some people think on main time for the first 60 moves and then play the rest of the game on overtime. If we make sluggish overtime that prevents accidental timelosses, it is bare fact that tournament schedules loses meaning. Thus we need to disable overtime altogether and introduce Fischer approach.

Bronstein is better for lightning and rabid games than Fischer (because it does not allow accumulation of time), but for slow tournament play, Fischer is perhaps better system, like you argued. The very idea of Bronstein is that it does not allow instant moves. Thus it slows the pace of game and increases the overall quality of the game. In tournament settings however optimal delay is perhaps too long. Thus I think that Fischer is better for slow tournament games. But for rapid games delay is superior.

I usually play club games using 20 mins main time + 12-18 second delay. This gives very pleasant experience for rapid game. Japanese byouyomi is for KGS-blitz, however decent (because it gives lots of accidental timelosses usually for the opponent =)

Overall, I think that the main point is, independently from the used time system: We need guaranteed time warnings.

I totally disagree with that! The main point in this issue is Japanese byouyomi. Poor Inc clocks are just extra salt for the mix. Too bad if people opinions are blurred and they are unable to see real reasons behind the easy target of Ing clock.

I like Japanese byo-yomi. It's my favorite system. To me, it is very clear what the requirements are. You have X seconds per move for some value of X.

You can improve tournament smoothness by ensuring that all clocks act in a predictable way. But I think that getting rid of byo-yomi would be a mistake. I like it much better than any other time system.

Kirby wrote:I like Japanese byo-yomi. It's my favorite system. To me, it is very clear what the requirements are.

Is it really not clear to you what the requirements of the other time systems are? None of them are rocket science.

Fischer is simpler than byo-yomi in that:

• A clock needs to display only one number - the time remaining - instead of two numbers - the time remaining and the number of periods remaining.
• There's no transition from main time to overtime - the timing is the same throughout the game. There can't be any confusion about not noticing that you have entered overtime, because there's no overtime.

Not that I'm advocating Fischer; it just seems odd to praise the "clarity" of japanese byo-yomi in the context of this thread.

Kirby wrote:I like Japanese byo-yomi.

It is completely irrelevant how much you love Japanese byouyomi, but the fact is that 7-dans do not have enough experience so that they could place hundreds of stones in single tournament on go board within 5 sec marginal (that is factual requirement for 1x20sec etc. Japanese byouyomi (e.g. in EGC). Accidents happen and they are very likely, because there are about million things that can go wrong and cause immediate loss by time. Some of them are separate from the player's themselves.

Also, accidental timeloss is complitely different thing than loss because of time pressure. Time pressure is of course what we want so that people finish within schedule. But we do not want accidents, when people are quarter second too slow in placing go stone AND pressing the clock.

Liisa wrote:

Kirby wrote:I like Japanese byo-yomi.

It is completely irrelevant how much you love Japanese byouyomi...

It's not irrelevant if a majority of players would prefer to play with Japanese byoyomi. The same can be said it is irrelevant how much you love bonus time. You can bring it up with the EGC if you want to change the time rules used at congress and see if a majority support it.

Personally, I agree with Kirby.

palapiku wrote:

Kirby wrote:I like Japanese byo-yomi. It's my favorite system. To me, it is very clear what the requirements are.

Is it really not clear to you what the requirements of the other time systems are? None of them are rocket science.

Fischer is simpler than byo-yomi in that:

• A clock needs to display only one number - the time remaining - instead of two numbers - the time remaining and the number of periods remaining.
• There's no transition from main time to overtime - the timing is the same throughout the game. There can't be any confusion about not noticing that you have entered overtime, because there's no overtime.

Not that I'm advocating Fischer; it just seems odd to praise the "clarity" of japanese byo-yomi in the context of this thread.

Perhaps I was thinking mostly of Canadian time. I don't like Canadian time because it is hard for me to schedule my time correctly.

I've never played with Fischer time, so I have no real objections to it. However, I still like Japanese byo-yomi better. My comment was mainly in response to somebody's suggestion to get rid of byo-yomi... And I don't think that byo-yomi causes a problem.