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Post by jamestoon on Nov 16, 2008 20:55:26 GMT
This season there is a new rule for finishing games in Division 1 of the London League. Both players should try to agree whether they want quickplay or adjournment. If they can't agree, then instead of defaulting to adjournment on all boards as before, the odd-numbered boards will default to quickplay and the even-numbered boards will default to adjournment.
Looked at in one way, this favours the supporters of quickplay since they can now force their preferred finish in six boards as opposed to none.
Against that, it raises certain problems for captains who have to decide on board order. If all the team prefer quickplay, how do you decide which ones end up with adjournment? Even if it's half and half (the ideal scenario), there's no guarantee that their respective grades will justify playing them in the preferred order.
The new rule was promoted as a compromise and received the enthusiastic backing of the London League AGM in the summer.
Now that we've used it in a few matches, how is it working out in practice? Do players understand it and are they happy with it? How many games are going to quickplay and how many to adjournment?
At Athenaeum's matches the rule has prompted much shaking of heads as no-one can see the point of it. Nor does it seem to be having much effect since in the matches we have played so far, almost everyone has agreed a quickplay finish away.
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Post by shauntracey on Jan 16, 2009 9:44:26 GMT
If the new system is causing complications, there is a very simple solution: there should be no default position; rather, if the players of any particular game cannot agree on whether to have a long-play or rapid-play finish, they should simply toss a coin to decide. There will always be players with differenct preferences and none is inherently right or wrong. This suggestion is a simple and fair - players will get their preference sometimes and other times they will have to grin and bear it. Is it really so very important that it ought to be a factor in team player orders - I think not?!
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