wrote in message
...
On Mar 23, 9:25 am, Guy Macon http://www.guymacon.com/ wrote:
help bot wrote:

David Richerby wrote:

wrote:

[...] given the determination of organizers to
use sudden-death, it was the best anyone could
come up with.

Well, you want there to be a fixed time when the next
round starts, right? The only options are sudden-death
time controls or adjournments.

Wrong. There is another possibility which
still yields a "fixed time" for the start of the
next round; it's called adjudication.

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

Back in the old days, there were serious
problems with adjudication, including bias
on the part of the adjudicator which might
have him granting, say, Jose Capablanca a
draw where he has given Joe Patzer a loss.
But today, we have the answer to personal
bias: computers. It also just so happens
that the /strongest/ chess players in the
world are reasonably inexpensive programs,
and many tournament directors already
have a notebook computer handy, for their
pairings program. In addition, there are
sites on the internet which give easy
access to some basic endgame table-
bases (although of limited use for now).

You would have to factor in ratings.
If a game between two 1500-rated players
is adjudicated as a win using a line that
only a 2500-rated chess computer can find,
that wouldn't be fair. But if you factor
in ratings, what of the player who is
playing his first rated game?

I wonder if some variation on the backgammon
doubling method of forcing a losing player
to resign might work...

I have toyed around with the concept, looking at a lot of different
approaches to the issue, and saw some ways it can work. It always run
into issues, and lack of acceptance. I hear people use a doubling
cube for chess in some European countries as a way to wager.

I believe the issue here is mostly handling draws, and also having a
way to pressure one's opponent to fold. I believe using an offshoot
of a a Bronstein clock could be an answer here. Instead of just a
time delay, before you have your clock eaten into, you do it
differently. Each time a delay period (say a minute or 30 seconds)
passes, your opponent scores a point. If game is drawn, whomever has
the most points, wins the points for the draw. You can put pressure
on your opponent by reducing the amount of time each player has
between moves. You an also have it so that, if a player is going to
drag too long between moves, they can do a time out, to get extra
time. The end game can be reduced, by this time pressure method, to
10 seconds a move, causing the player worse off collapse. Of course,
you can also offer this version of preventing stalling. If a certain
number of these time periods passes without a move, a player can lose
the game.

Is this a heretical idea? Yes it is. Might it be worth considering?
I hope so. Part of it came out of the need to figure how you could do
time control for live chess that would make it more suitable for
spectators to watch.

Another way to do this, would be players periodically during the match
could reduce the amount of time left in the game. You look at how
much the person who has less time on their clock is left, and whomever
has control of the decision to reduce time, can reduce the time left
on the clocks by half what the player with less time on their clock
has. Think you have the game wrapped up? Well halve the time each
player has. That player then manages to get to decide if they want to
reduce time later. You could also set this time reduction up so that
players end up having to decide whether to quit or not. Maybe you
double the points the match is worth, like the doubling cube.

I have never seen any merit to the doubling cube idea, because
the problem it solves, players taking too long to resign, doesn't
seem to exist. If anything, GMs resign too soon from the point
of view of an audience, because the weaker audience doesn't
understand how to win from the final position.

In general, chess' meta-game could be improved by trading
off time, color, and points. (For example, instead of having
colors be assigned, giving one side an advantage, you could
give both sides an equal opportunity to have White, depending
on how much time/points they are willing to pay for it.)

Your idea here of having on-the-fly clock adjustments or using
clock to break ties seems original and worthy of experimentation.
My gut reaction to your point scheme is that it would be too
dangerous to let yourself get behind on points. But it is
certainly an intriguing idea. Keep them coming!


- Rich