On Mar 24, 1:10 pm, "David Kane" wrote:
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.

The idea of the doubling cube was not a way to get someone to resign
soon, but a way to deal with draws, and monotonous scoring that
happens during a multiple game match. It is also meant to add a way
to show the psychological and emotional states (confidence level) to
people who are watching. It makes manifest a meta-element so there is
something beyond just the players and the board to watch for. It is
something people can relate to who don't follow chess. That is the
reason why I suggested it, not to make someone resign.

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.)

I have looked at that also. Now, is there a way to make adjustments
in a game to this formula, in order to give specators something to
watch besides the game they can relate to?

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!

One of my large lists I have to do with IAGO/IAGO World Tour is get
chess (and other abstract strategy games) on TV and somehow get them
decent ratings. This is part of a larger strategy to recruit people
into the games involved. I have to give thoughts to the spectators
and people who don't know the game. The idea of a variation on a
Bronstein clock is done to have the pacing be more favorable to people
watching live, to keep the action moving. The accelerating the clock
was an alternative to the doubling cube. All this is meant to give
people who don't know chess a hook to keep watching until they can
figure it out. And yes it is dangerous to fall too far behind on
time. But the consequences is playing for draw rights. Now you stall
too long, you could end up running out time and lose that way. Well,
this is like running out of time in chess, right? It is just changes
the time to be more spectator friendly.

The other way to fix the pacing issue is with reality TV style
editing. You chop out the dead spots, and have the moves come in
regular and predictable intervals, while providing enough of a gap so
people understand what is going on who watch.

To show an example of a time edit, you can see how this YouTube video
for Beyond Chess (a chess variant) works:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwj-XL9Ql_w

This should also give people here who know chess, and haven't seen
this game before, what people who don't know chess look at when they
see chess going on. This is why I say pacing is important. I believe
the pacing there is pretty good for this video. It runs around 2 1/2
minutes.

- Rich