Kenneth Sloan wrote:
David Richerby wrote:
I've played a bit of backgammon but mostly against the computer. I
can't see any circumstances under which one might agree a draw --
if the game looks level, you'd just wait and not double, since
it'll surely unbalance itself after a while. Since the men can
only move forwards in Backgammon, progress of a sort must be made
all the time so I don't see a situation comparable to the sort of
honest draw in chess where neither player can make progress by any
means other than a gross blunder from the opponent. I've not
played backgammon except socially and against the computer -- am I
missing something?

Yes. To address your last point first - OF COURSE backgammon
checkers can move backwards!

Well, they can be sent backwards. I can't elect to move one of my men
backwards; I can merely leave it somewhere where my opponent can
choose to hit it and send it back to the bar.

In backgammon, I've *often* been in positions where the cube has
(legitimately) gone back and forth and the position on the board is
now dead even....except that one player or the other will win based
on the next roll of the dice. In that position, I'd much rather
agree to a draw.

Fair enough -- I hadn't realised that was such a common occurrence.


Dave.

--
David Richerby Fluorescent Sushi (TM): it's like a
www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~davidr/ raw fish but it'll hurt your eyes!

wrote:
Guy Macon http://www.guymacon.com/ wrote:
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. [...]

Essentially, what you seem to be saying is that faster games, with the
possibility of the players manipulating each other's clocks and
effectively asking each other to resign, will make chess more popular
as a spectator sport.

I disagree strongly. There are numerous rapidplay and blitz events
but these have not made chess into a spectator sport. Faster games do
not make chess any more popular with non-players and they reduce the
quality of the games and, therefore, reduce their interest to chess
players. A double loss! The game is no more appealing to people who
weren't interested before and is less appealing to those who were
interested.

You're also proposing to give the players more to think about
(strategies based on clock manipulation as well as moving the pieces)
in less time. That would seem to doubly reduce the quality of the
chess played and I don't, personally, see that allowing the players to
say `I bet five minutes on the clock that you're going to lose' will
make the game (which is, after all, an incomprehensible ritual of
shifting little pieces of wood around a table) any more interesting to
Joe Public.

All of these proposals to make chess `more exciting' fail to take into
account the fundamental problem. The supposed audience for chess
doesn't understand what chess is and why one move is any better than
any other. It doesn't matter how quickly or slowly the game
progresses.

Suppose there is a competition to read out novels in German. This
obviously isn't going to be popular in countries where German isn't
widely spoken. Changing the rules of the competition to reading out
short stories in German won't help. Messing around with time controls
and draw frequencies in chess is exactly the same thing.


Dave.

--
David Richerby Solar-Powered Sushi (TM): it's like
www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~davidr/ a raw fish but it doesn't work in
the dark!

David Richerby wrote:

Kenneth Sloan wrote:

David Richerby wrote:

I've played a bit of backgammon but mostly against the computer. I
can't see any circumstances under which one might agree a draw --
if the game looks level, you'd just wait and not double, since
it'll surely unbalance itself after a while. Since the men can
only move forwards in Backgammon, progress of a sort must be made
all the time so I don't see a situation comparable to the sort of
honest draw in chess where neither player can make progress by any
means other than a gross blunder from the opponent. I've not
played backgammon except socially and against the computer -- am I
missing something?

Yes. To address your last point first - OF COURSE backgammon
checkers can move backwards!

Well, they can be sent backwards. I can't elect to move one of my men
backwards; I can merely leave it somewhere where my opponent can
choose to hit it and send it back to the bar.

There are positions where the opponent's only move hits one of
your men, and entering such a position is electing to move one
of your men backwards.

This is an important part of playing a back game; when playing
against inexperienced players, they often don't know that such
a thing as a back game exists, and thus don't know to avoid
hitting your men, but against an experienced player you need
to give him no choice in order to have your man sent back
where it can become part of your prime.

http://www.bkgm.com/gloss/lookup.cgi?back+game
http://www.bkgm.com/gloss/lookup.cgi?holding+game

I have been mentally playing around with ways of adapting a
doubling cube to Chess, and the only way I can see to make
it work is to bet on the outcome of each individual game.
I prefer to play for a Faberge egg whenever possible...


--
Guy Macon
http://www.guymacon.com/

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

On Mar 23, 8:07 am, wrote:

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.

Nonsense. Adjudication is the worst possible solution.


Whiff! You missed the point, fella.

I was merely correcting a clumsy error by David
Richerby, who flatly stated that there were only
two options which allow for a fixed starting time
for the next round (see above).

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

I do not recommend adjudications, though I
will point out how their use is no longer plagued
by problems like personal bias, since computers
can handle the job /objectively/.


Computer evaluations are simplistic


Sounds a lot like human evaluations...


, useful evaluation might take hours or
days


Um, no. In reality, computers can surpass
the quality of human evaluations in about a
five seconds or so. Still, nobody's perfect.


and deciding the result of a game on the basis of a computer
program's valuation of .1 of a pawn plus or minus is moronic.


I agree that your jibberish is moronic. In my
experience, some top programs can normally
draw where the position score is several times
that number. Obviously, the rules would have
to be laid down /in advance/, and agreed to by
the participants. I vote for Rybka, with a win/
draw cutoff of 0.7, and analysis time of five
minutes. (Remember, while there will be rare
cases in which the adjudication is erroneous,
this is at least better than allowing human bias
to completely muck up the works.)


Fortunately, there is zero chance of such a suggestion being taken
seriously.


No kidding. Your idiocy lacked a source
for the 0.1 figure, for starters, which you
seem to have simply pulled out of your own
hindquarters. One could do much, much
better by simply asking the programmer to
suggest a number offhand. Duh!


-- help bot

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

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?


It is not necessary to try and predict the
actual result of continuing a game between
two duffers; all that is required would be to
implement an adjudication process which
is fair to both sides; in that sense, a
computer is perfect for the job.

But David Richerby already gave two
alternatives which allow for a fixed starting
time for the next round, so if we don't want
adjudications, we don't really need them.


-- help bot

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

Guy Macon http://www.guymacon.com/ wrote:
David Richerby wrote:
Well, they can be sent backwards. I can't elect to move one of my
men backwards; I can merely leave it somewhere where my opponent
can choose to hit it and send it back to the bar.

There are positions where the opponent's only move hits one of your
men, and entering such a position is electing to move one of your
men backwards.

This is an important part of playing a back game; when playing
against inexperienced players, they often don't know that such a
thing as a back game exists, and thus don't know to avoid hitting
your men, but against an experienced player you need to give him no
choice in order to have your man sent back where it can become part
of your prime.

I'm confused. If I'm playing a back game, I have a couple of made
points in your home board and I'm trying to build a prime ahead of
them so that, when you're bearing off, you'll leave a blot that I hope
to be able to hit so I can catch up while you're blocked by my prime.
As such, the space ahead of my prime has very few of my men in it.
How, then, can I force you to hit a blot in that largely empty space?


Dave.

--
David Richerby Broken Adult Tool (TM): it's like
www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~davidr/ a hammer that you won't want the
children to see but it doesn't work!

wrote:
"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.

For once, we're in total agreement. (Well, weak players often take
too long to resign but that's not really a problem.)

The idea of the doubling cube was not a way to get someone to resign
soon, but a way to deal with draws

How does it deal with draws? Once the doubling cube has been used a
couple of times, the players are surely much more likely to agree a
draw in any sort of unclear position than to risk losing four or eight
or sixteen points to their opponent.

and monotonous scoring that happens during a multiple game match.

You think the *scoring system* is monotonous?!? Matches these days
last twelve or fourteen games. Nobody complains that a football
league season might have forty games or more, all scored in the same
old, boring old-three-points-for-a-win-one-for-a-draw scheme. I'm
sure people can cope with a fixed scoring system for fourteen games.

Dude, it's not the scoring system that stops chess making good TV.
It's the fact that it involves two people sitting at a table moving
little pieces of wood for six hours in a way that the general public
understands not one jot and people like us, who devote a substantial
amount of time to the game, understand not very much.

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.

I still don't buy this idea that we can add meta-elements to chess
that will make it appealing to people who fundamentally don't
understand chess. After all, if you can make chess appealing to the
layman by adding these meta-elements, you should be able to make any
other competitive intellectual activity appealing in exactly the same
way.

So, here's a thought experiment. Do you believe that a competition
where the players attempt to correctly multiply, say, twenty-digit
numbers would be interesting to the public? (I'm guessing `no', or
this experiment has already fallen flat on its face and you should
substitute some other boring-but-difficult activity. I mean
interesting beyond a brief freak-show gloss of `Wow, that guy can
multiply two twenty-digit numbers in only ten minutes!') Now, if
doubling cubes, fancy time controls, bidding for initial advantage and
all those other things that people have suggested are going to make
chess popular with people who don't understand chess, they should also
make long-multiplication competitions popular with people who aren't
interested in arithmetic. So, do you think that the public would be
interested in a long-multiplication match where the competitors can
use a doubling cube and bid for how much time they get? I don't think
so.


Dave.

--
David Richerby Lead Flower (TM): it's like a flower
www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~davidr/ that weighs a ton!

David Richerby wrote:


Guy Macon http://www.guymacon.com/ wrote:
David Richerby wrote:
Well, they can be sent backwards. I can't elect to move one of my
men backwards; I can merely leave it somewhere where my opponent
can choose to hit it and send it back to the bar.

There are positions where the opponent's only move hits one of your
men, and entering such a position is electing to move one of your
men backwards.

This is an important part of playing a back game; when playing
against inexperienced players, they often don't know that such a
thing as a back game exists, and thus don't know to avoid hitting
your men, but against an experienced player you need to give him no
choice in order to have your man sent back where it can become part
of your prime.

I'm confused. If I'm playing a back game, I have a couple of made
points in your home board and I'm trying to build a prime ahead of
them so that, when you're bearing off, you'll leave a blot that I hope
to be able to hit so I can catch up while you're blocked by my prime.
As such, the space ahead of my prime has very few of my men in it.
How, then, can I force you to hit a blot in that largely empty space?

After you have made the prime and his men are all bunched up against
it or against the back of his home board, sometimes you end up
having to leave a hole in the prime. Rolling a 6-5, for example.
the question is whether to jump two men over his piled-up men
or just one, leaving a blot. The thinking is that by leaving the
blot, you might re-enter while hitting a blot among his men bunched
up against the back of his home board, thus putting one more man
behind the nearly-prime* and possibly making it easier to repair the
hole. It all depends on the situation, of course. I have played
against inexperienced players that kept hitting every blot they
could until I had a prime in his home board and him with no men
that had made it past the prime.

* which is NOT the same as a nearly-IM...