But honestly, is it unfair/unethical - possibly bordering on cheating - not to warn opponents about the clock?

Abraham the Mage wrote:But honestly, is it unfair/unethical - possibly bordering on cheating - not to warn opponents about the clock?

I'd say, technically, no. When one goes to join a game, the rules are there to see. i.e. I have nobody but myself to blame for the several times I've joined fogged real time games in error.

That being said, for the chess clock games (I haven't done any since shortly after I started this thread, because I just haven't had time :-)), I think it's good sportsmanship to make an effort.

In the test games that I tried out, I wrote out a quick message explaining the situation, and then pasted it into the chat as soon as the game was created. And in the game title I made it clear that it was a chess clock game.

If my opponents don't pay attention to those, well, that's on them :-)

One other thing, since many chess clock games end with one player being booted, you don't get an elimination. If there was an official chess clock setting, maybe it could be set up that under that setting, boots = elimination?

Just wondering.

There's a phrase that we use at work when people go someone invariably makes a code change that breaks something else: "One must know what one is doing."

I don't see any problems with a new game clock having a chess icon. To be honest, I quite enjoy the concept of such type.

Dave92 wrote:I don't see any problems with a new game clock having a chess icon. To be honest, I quite enjoy the concept of such type.

Other than AtM and myself, I'm not sure if anybody else has been starting any of these games.

They *are* a lot fun, but you have to be sure you're not going to be distracted by anything else -- especially since you have to watch for the game to start, lest you waste some of your time by joining late. And then you have to be hyperfocused until the game ends.

The benefit, though, is the game *is* time-limited to a maximum of 2x the clock (i.e. 4 minutes each on the clock, so the game, once it starts, is over in less than 8 minutes).

A recent opponent asked me about the fact that a vast majority of the time, the game ends because someone ran out of time, not because of an elimination. He didn't seem to like that. is anyone else bothered by that?

Though to be honest, 5/0/5 may be *slightly* too fast - it's just that a 10 minute tops game is very enticing, and people keep joining!

Abraham the Mage wrote:A recent opponent asked me about the fact that a vast majority of the time, the game ends because someone ran out of time, not because of an elimination. He didn't seem to like that. is anyone else bothered by that?

Though to be honest, 5/0/5 may be *slightly* too fast - it's just that a 10 minute tops game is very enticing, and people keep joining!

:-)

5 minutes is *challenging* -- it requires one to pay strict attention to [a] their overall plan of attack and [b] the remaining time, and they need to be ready to switch gears into avoid elimination mode when [b] reaches their personal threshold :-)

Bump it to 6 and there shouldn't be any complaints.

Well, except from the resident changeling, for whom this is just another reason to whinge.

As for people continuing to join --- I presume at least some of them (many of them?) are still joining the game seeing that it's a Fischer clock and assuming that it's at standard settings. That's on them, technically, but as we've discussed before, it would be nice if the Chess Clock games could be established as their own 'type' or generated as an option from within Fischer, and have their own unique icon. (A Knight, perhaps?)

And/or ... be able to seed a message during game creation so the potential player has a *chance* of seeing a note saying "This is Chess Clock! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!"

Took a quick look at your recent games to find the comment.

You, he, and I make valid points about chess clock games :-)

I'd posit that 5 minute games (10 minutes total, max) are decided by timing out in anywhere from 50-90% of games, depending on the players' experience with the format.

A 7 or 8 minute game would likely have timeouts deciding the game a max of, oh, 50% of the time.

I would suggest that if one wants to have a relatively quick game, with timeouts being on the very low end, a 10 minute clock would do the trick.

Tips to anyone who gets this far ... if you're playing the fast chess clock games, you can't be overly creative on placing armies on lots of territories (bulk placements are key), you need to rely on 'A'/'T' attacks more often, and keep a good eye on your elapsed time (I find it best to open a second window which shows the game details, not the game itself --- the game details page is the one where you have the Surrender option, and it shows both players with the time *remaining* on their clocks). If your clock is running low, you need to do a fast allocation of units, a fast attack (if you do one at all, sometimes going into defense mode is the best idea), and a fast end turn.

agwyvern wrote: And/or ... be able to seed a message during game creation so the potential player has a *chance* of seeing a note saying "This is Chess Clock! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!"

Yeah, I've taken to naming the games "Chess clock #." That seems to work, haven't really got any complaints.

And as for a sense of overall time, after I take my turn, I like to go back to the game details page to watch the clock from there. You can see the time winding down and still launch the game quickly when it's your turn.

Just curious: why is there a clock warning on realtime games (i.e. Warning! 10 minute turn time etc etc blah blah blah), but nothing on Fischer clock games?