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Fritzlein
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World Championship Time Control
« on: Aug 6th, 2005, 10:12am » |
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Last year the time control topic deserved a whole thread of its own, so let me kick it off early this year. I'm going to advocate for a long time control of 90 seconds per move in the early rounds and 120 seconds per move in the late rounds.
To reiterate both sides of the debate from earlier, the problem with a slow time control is that the games can take a long time. This was especially an issue when the number of moves per game seemed to be stretching out longer and longer. If games average 60 moves and are 90 moves in the worst case, then at 90 seconds per move games will take an average of 3 hours and up to 4.5 hours at most.
These days, however, the prevalence of aggressive play has kept game lengths shorter. For example, the six Player of the Month games so far for August (excluding my loss on time) have averaged 36.5 moves per game. If we consider 40 moves an average per game, then at 90 seconds per move games only take two hours to complete. That still might seem too long for the preference of some people, but I think it is worth it.
There are two main advantages of a long time control. First, the time control for the Challenge Match is long. It seems odd to say that humans, when playing against each other, only need 60 seconds per move to play a high-quality game, but when humans play computers we need to give the humans 120 seconds per move in order to get a high-quality game. Why are blunders acceptable in one context and not the other? I submit that the Challenge Match should be played at the same time control as the late-round games of the World Championship, simply to be consistent. Otherwise it looks like we are handicapping the Challenge Match to favor humans.
The second main reason to have a long time control is that it rewards sound strategic judgement, whereas a fast time control rewards making tricky moves that can induce a blunder, and rewards avoidance of blunders. In slow games the outcome is determined by things like: "I judged it would be worth sacrificing a cat to gain a camel hostage", whereas in fast games the outcome is determinged by things like, "Oops, I didn't see you could take my cat."
From my recent experience playing 45-second games in the PotM contest, I can attest to blunders being relatively common at that time control. My rough estimate is that the games are about 50% decided by good strategy and 50% decided by "oops, I didn't see that". In 90-second games I feel it is more like 85% strategy to 15% blunder, a much more acceptable level. That's just my own perception of the difference, but I think everyone can agree that longer time controls (at least to some degree) cut down on the number of large mistakes.
I'm just throwing this out because I'm interested both in whether there are additional arguments on each side, and in what time control people would prefer to play at for their own comfort. I hope it doesn't seem like I am simply trying to make the terms of the World Championship more favorable to me. Robinson, Omar, and Belbo all benefit from slower controls too, although I expect 99of9, Naveed, and Kamikazeking would have the best chances at 15 seconds per move. I won't call it "unfair" if the time control is faster than I like, and I'll gladly participate no matter what rules Omar settles on.
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PMertens
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Re: World Championship Time Control
« Reply #1 on: Aug 6th, 2005, 11:24am » |
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I support this - even though I am certainly not among those who profit from such a timecontrol.
A World-Champion should not be made by blunder of the opponent but by his own strength.
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99of9
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Re: World Championship Time Control
« Reply #2 on: Aug 6th, 2005, 9:52pm » |
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I am also happy with 90s-120s, but I would argue against anything longer. The tournament already requires a large time committment, and with the large number of rounds we are considering, this will be very important this year.
Remember that sometimes even the people who vehemently argue for ever longer time controls are the same people who are later unable to fulfill their time committments!
One other argument is that with something like triple-elimination we have built in extra safety/blunder-protection into the tournament. So in that sense it is ok to trade off a little blunder-protection in individual games.
But on the whole I agree with your points.
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Fritzlein
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Re: World Championship Time Control
« Reply #3 on: Aug 6th, 2005, 11:13pm » |
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on Aug 6th, 2005, 9:52pm, 99of9 wrote:Remember that sometimes even the people who vehemently argue for ever longer time controls are the same people who are later unable to fulfill their time committments!
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I'm afraid I'm guilty on this score. My life has been fairly unpredicatble. But I think generally I would rather have the tournament be a serious one which may be too time consuming for some people to participate (perhaps me!) than to have it be watered down to make participation easier. There's a tradeoff, obviously.
I'm thinking back to the time requirements of the Postal Championship. Playing ten games at a pace of one move per day requires 35 moves per week. If one were to think 5 minutes per move on average, that would be a time commitment of almost three hours per week. So it seems about on a par with the playing one long game per week for the World Championship.
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One other argument is that with something like triple-elimination we have built in extra safety/blunder-protection into the tournament. So in that sense it is ok to trade off a little blunder-protection in individual games.
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I disagree. Having triple elimination builds in protection against upsets, but doesn't protect against blunders. If we were to play the games at blitz speed, the games would be full of blunders regardless of the number of rounds. It seems to me that the quality of the games is a separate issue from the number of games.
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99of9
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Re: World Championship Time Control
« Reply #4 on: Aug 7th, 2005, 8:18pm » |
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on Aug 6th, 2005, 11:13pm, Fritzlein wrote:| I'm afraid I'm guilty on this score. |
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Well, only in the lightning tourney, and I'm hardly proposing we reduce the time control for that!!!
Quote:| I'm thinking back to the time requirements of the Postal Championship. {snip} So it seems about on a par with the playing one long game per week for the World Championship. |
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Yes, and many of us found that very taxing. But admittedly I think it's probably easier to find a single 3 hour block once a week than it is to find a dedicated half hour every day.
Quote:| I disagree. Having triple elimination builds in protection against upsets, but doesn't protect against blunders. |
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Ok sorry, I didn't explain properly. I mean protection against the blunders affecting the overall tournament result (via the upsets they can cause).
Player A has an 80% chance of beating player B in a "long" (blunder~5%) time control, and a 70% chance of beating player B in a "short" time control (blunder~20%). The chance of an upset tournament result is worse for a single-elim at long time control than a triple-elim at short time control.
But I take your point that the aesthetic and theoretical quality of the games would be higher.
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BlackKnight
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Re: World Championship Time Control
« Reply #5 on: Aug 7th, 2005, 8:50pm » |
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I played some Blitz games recently against bots. I can only survive with 15s per move if I have a concret idea how to finish the bot off.
For 30s games I'm fighting more against the time than against the opponent. Blunders are still quite frequent.
In games with 45s per move blunders become relatively rare if I really use the whole time. But as soon as I want to think of a plan or need to make strategic decission between different moves I need to make heavy use of the reserve time. 1:15m to 1:30m are used up quickly.
Also complicated positions that require more tactical calculations need more than 45s.
This forces me on the other hand to make other moves faster trying to fill up the reserve time again, which might be another source for blunders then.
While I like those 45s games for a friendly match that does not take too much time, for a championship game I would also prefer a longer time control.
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Fritzlein
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Re: World Championship Time Control
« Reply #6 on: Oct 1st, 2005, 11:05pm » |
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I have been a spectator to the Internet relay of some of the 2005 FIDE World Championship of chess. Those games make me realize that Omar's time controls are much better for the spectators. These chess players play the opening very fast (too fast to comment and discuss in chat) and then they stop and make about two moves in the next half an hour, so you have to wait forever for things to start happening again. Then as the time cutoff for 40 moves approaches, there may be another flurry of moves that is too fast to discuss, followed by a long think on each side which is boring for the spectators, etc.
The Arimaa time controls with an emphasis on the time per move and de-emphasis on the bank of time are much more spectator-friendly. Someone with a full reserve has an incentive to think for the full time for each move, and even someone with an almost empty reserve never has to move faster than the time per move, so spectators will almost always have some time to think and chat. On the other hand, the wait for any single move is limited by the size of the reserve, so spectators never have to wait around wondering whether anything will happen in the next hour.
Also, although I prefer 2 minutes per move as a player, I would have to say that 1.5 minutes per move is better for spectators. The FIDE time control of 3 mintues per move is too long to make for good watching.
One thing I think would be interesting to import from chess is to have computer evalutaions in the chat room while the games are ongoing. Much of the time the computer suggestions will be silly (whereas they are quite good for chess) but in tactical situations in Arimaa it would be interesting to see what moves the home version of Bomb is suggesting.
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omar
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Re: World Championship Time Control
« Reply #7 on: Oct 2nd, 2005, 1:08pm » |
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In my opinion chess time controls are too player friendly at the expense of being spectator unfriendly (as you mentioned). There is definitely a tradeoff and it's very hard to find a middle ground.
With Arimaa I wanted the time controls to be able to achieve the following:
1. Keep the game moving, by not allowing a player to
take forever to make a move and bore the spectators.
2. Allow a lot of flexibility in specifying the time controls.
3. Allow for a fixed upper limit on the total game time
for practical reasons.
4. Attempt to prevent a player from losing the game due
to time while imposing these time limits.
5. Preserve the quality of the game while imposing
these time limits.
6. Allow for the most common time controls used in Chess.
My other opinion is that slow time controls are actually hurting the chess community. If the time controls are spectator unfriendly then there will be fewer spectators, resulting in less sponsorship interest, resulting in difficulty finding sponsors and less money for the players.
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MrBrain
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Re: World Championship Time Control
« Reply #8 on: Oct 3rd, 2005, 9:42am » |
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I would strongly suggest 2 minutes per move, AND an overall time limit for all moves for each player (rather than the max time cutoff for both players, which has serious problems.) You could have a 5-hour game limit by having each player have 2-1/2 hours for all their moves.
Before objecting to the 2-1/2 hour cutoff, please consider the fact that there's already a cutoff, but it currently hurts the player with fewer "points", rather than the person who hogged too much time.
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Fritzlein
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Re: World Championship Time Control
« Reply #9 on: Oct 3rd, 2005, 10:35am » |
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on Oct 3rd, 2005, 9:42am, MrBrain wrote:| I would strongly suggest 2 minutes per move, AND an overall time limit for all moves for each player (rather than the max time cutoff for both players, which has serious problems.) |
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I agree. If Omar has the time to implement it before the championship begins, then games which reach the max time cutoff should not be decided by "score". A much better idea is to award the game to whoever has used less total time. As we discussed last year, however, this would require a displayed clock counting down each player towards half the max time.
It's not a huge issue, though, since games decided by time cutoff have been about as rare as draws.
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| « Last Edit: Oct 3rd, 2005, 10:37am by Fritzlein » |
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omar
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Re: World Championship Time Control
« Reply #10 on: Oct 6th, 2005, 6:05am » |
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I haven't forgotten about the changes we discussed earlier for the time control. My todo list still has the following:
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Change the G parameter in the time controls to add the following additional options:
* If the number ends with 'k' then the time per move is linearly decreased with each move until it get down to 30 sec per move by the move number given by G. For example if G=60k and M=90s then after each move the M parameter is reduced by one second. After M gets down to 30 it does not decrease any further.
* If the number ends with 'b' then the first player to use up this much total time in all the moves loses.
* If the number ends with 'x' then after the game time limit is reached the player who has used less total time in all the moves wins.
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I haven't done this yet since it requires changes to the flash client and I don't want to tinker with it until I have a good streatch of free time. I was planning to do that this past summer, but I got too involved in the tournament format simulations and used all my free time on that. I think the tournament format was a more critical issue than a game being decided by score; which is a rare occurance.
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MrBrain
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Re: World Championship Time Control
« Reply #11 on: Oct 11th, 2005, 12:24pm » |
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Sounds complicated. Perhaps if we just add a timer to show the time used per player, then we could use existing time controls to implement 2 minutes per move (10 minute maximum bank), and 5 hour game maximum. If we reach 5 hours, look at who used the most time, and override the scoring decision.
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Fritzlein
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Re: World Championship Time Control
« Reply #12 on: Oct 11th, 2005, 2:45pm » |
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on Oct 11th, 2005, 12:24pm, MrBrain wrote:| If we reach 5 hours, look at who used the most time, and override the scoring decision. |
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This would be more fair than deciding the game by score, except that if the Flash client isn't modified to show total time used, then the players wouldn't know whether they were going to win or lose at time cutoff, and that's not fair at all. So even for this simpler change, the client would need to be modified.
I agree with Omar that modifying the tournament format was a higher priority, since time cutoff games are quite rare. That said, I stand by my position that he could get help with some of these coding issues if the server code were open source. Then Omar wouldn't have to feel pressure to do everything himself, and wouldn't have to be the only one resposible for choosing which one feature to fix while another dozen wait in line.
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