Seattle Sports Insider

Playing the Game vs. Playing the Clock

A (completely!) feeble attempt to segue a chess question into a baseball article.

Posted by

1/7/18

I'm not going to even pretend this is a deep post, nor am I seeking validation from y'all on my currently feeble chess skills. But I've run into something during my 3,727 games played over on Chess.com, where my rating currently sits at a woefully inadequate 1324, and I had the glimmer of a thought that it *might* have some bearing on this MLB offseason, so here goes: at what point is playing the clock, rather than the board, uncouth or otherwise socially/morally/ethically deficient? To broaden the question: is it possible for playing the clock to be in bad form, or is it always acceptable to leverage a 30-seconds-remaining-on-your-clock advantage at the end of the game, to stall--even sacrificing pieces to protect the king--in order to run your opponent out of time and thereby secure a W? (this question would be a great one to have Doc, the resident SSI chess expert, answer if he's inclined)

Obviously this question tells you, the discerning reader of SSI, quite a bit about my clock management skills (or, more acutely, my lack thereof!) since we generally only inquire into things that concern or irritate us. I often find myself up by 4-6 points in the end game, with advantageous position and an obvious win, but only 20 seconds to close the deal while my opponent's still got a minute or so to burn (I play almost exclusively 3:00 games precisely because I'm working to tighten up my game in this regard). I honestly don't think that poorly of my opponents when they turn their total attention to the clock...well, not usually ;-) Hey, I'm only human! But I do sometimes wonder how the world at large, and the chess-playing community in specific, views the strategy.

But it got me to thinking about all the free agents still sitting around without 2018 contracts. And not just free agents, but most of the creme de la creme of this FA class is unemployed as of January 6/7 (depending where you live). A bunch of quality relievers have flown off the board (mostly in the direction of the Rocky Mountains) and Carlos Santana signed, and I'm sure I'm forgetting some others but the Big Dawgs are still on the sidelines.

Are the owners no longer playing the board? Are they now focused 100% on the clock, hoping they can wait out the free agents, sign them all to pillow contracts, and (essentially) cause a deflationary chain reaction starting with next year's free agent class? I know everyone wants to take a crack at Bryce Harper and Manny Machado, so for the teams pursuing them they would want to keep as much powder dry as possible, but the amount of powder being conserved at this point is alarming from a variety of angles (and I say that as no friend to Labor, philosophically speaking, when it comes to collective bargaining disputes or other Union conflicts).

Losing a game to a 1420 ranked player recently, who had smartly used his clock more efficiently than I had--even though I was up a rook and had blown out his castle--made me wonder if that's what's happening to this free agent class. They know when spring training starts, and they know how much money these players stand to lose by not signing contracts before then. I honestly don't see anything wrong with ownership leveraging their pocketbooks like this, just as I (usually ;-) ) don't see anything wrong with my opponents making me pay for my often poor clock management skills, but I was wondering if the mainframe had any thoughts on the issue--or, for that matter, on whether or not I've completely missed the mark in my pattern-recongition-firmware-run-amok analogy.

Tags:

Chess

Etiquette

competition

Advantages

2018 MLB Free Agency

Moldy Cheese

Fine Wine

Comments

Legitimate Flagging

I vote that flagging is completely legitimate. Here's why:

1. Flagging is the point of 3 minute blitz. If you are going to complete a chess game in 3 minutes, you are going in with the intention of making snap chess decisions and abiding by a three minute clock. The slower players or those with bad internet have many other formats to choose from.

2. Flagging is fun to watch. If you are spectating, it is fun to see someone win a losing position because of clock management and good scrambling ability. This is different from basket ball, football or soccer where the winning team runs down the last five minutes of the clock in a big yawn fest. The most exciting time in a blitz game is the last minute.

3. Flagging is its own skill. There are many three minute blitz players who are just as good at flagging as they are at chess. Hikaru Nakamura is probably the best flagger. Also, it is a special kind of soul crushing defeat to be flagged when your position is better.

For these reasons, I vote flagging as legitimate.

Here is a dirty chess trick that ought to be banned:

This is one of my games. I had black. The rules were 15 minute time limit plus 10 seconds per move. Move 48 was the last move something interesting happened. Depicted is move 50. After that, I asked for a draw, it was declined, and we moved the pieces around the board for the next twenty minutes. He couldn't checkmate because my bishop was too strong, and I couldn't advance my pawn because he had too much control. After move 108, we were in the same position, and there was more time on the clock than when the game started. I got bored and quit. My opponent, a very bad man from Mexico, won. There should be a draw rule where a game is considered drawn if nothing happens for 50 moves.

I don't think that the free agent market is wrong to strike or refuse to sign, but it seems like holding out is a double edged sword. Wasn't it Boras stall tactics that cost James Paxton first round money and kept him out of baseball for a year? Kendrys Morales also springs to mind as someone who went jobless for half a season because he held out too long.

I think holding out is legitimate, except for the Marshawn Lynch style hold outs where you refuse to play after you have already signed a contract.

Cool post Jonez.

Yeah, my baseline position aligns with yours.

Thanks for the in-depth reply :-)

I found, when playing my chessmaster a decade or so ago (where I ~legitimately ran my rating up to 1600 *against the computer), that if I play 10 min games, or sometimes even *5* minute games, my attention span slips during the inevitable 'cooldown' two-minutes-without-activity-followed-by-a-blitz-of-inhumanly-fast-moves, and my performance took a nosedive. So I settled on 2:3 Fisher time, with 1:4 Fisher time sometimes being as desirable for my brain's engagement/focus.

Playing 3 minute blitz is, indeed, outside of my comfort zone--which is why I keep playing them ;-) I'm getting better at it, and that makes my endgame scrambles a whale of a lot more effective than they ever were playing against the computer. I suspect something like 3:2 is where I'll end up after I master 3 minute and 1 minute games (my 1 minute rating is 900something, I think...).

And again, I *do* think that playing the clock is valid. It's irksome for the loser in such a game, obviously, but that's the nature of competition. Sometimes you eat the bear...

So if you think that holdouts are valid on the players' end, do you also think that holdouts on the owners' end are valid? Could we be moving toward an era where 50% of the impact free agents year-in, year-out sign contracts (pillow or otherwise) during ST (or beyond??? How big of a mid-season add would a guy like JD Martinez or Yu Darvish be? How much is THAT worth???)? Personally, I think it's a FANTASTIC way to counter the unchecked greed running rampant in pro sports: stop creating bidding wars early on in the FA and wait things out until everyone's equally desperate.

Owner hold out

I think owner hold out is fine. The owners can be prudent with their $200 million deals. I think in football, where the players have a short shelf life, and the game is more dangerous the owners are actually able to overreach and strong arm players.

In baseball, the only unethical thing an owner can do, is 1. tank a season to get draft picks, 2. cheat like the braves. 3. Abuse a pitcher.

My two bits.

10-second chess

Mojo is exactly right, as always. :- )

"Rapid chess," 10-second chess, was invented in I think the 30's or 40's when that type of clock became available. You had 10 seconds for each move, losing if any move took 11 seconds.

The idea in such a game is to either (1) checkmate your opponent or (2) set him such problems that he can't solve them within the short time frame given.

It's no more "dubious" to win by flag than it would be, say, for an NFL team to go into a prevent defense with 4 minutes left and a 17-point lead, or for an NBA team to start jumping passing lanes with 5 seconds left on the 24-second clock (since the offense has only 1 pass or dribble left).

.....

Capa said "play quickly but not hurriedly" and many times Caleb you will find you are wasting 3 seconds here, 4 seconds there, "checking" moves you already like. You can squeeze a lot of air out of your playing time by simply moving as soon as you are confident in a move. Other keys are ... getting a position within templates you know, and ... forcing play into lines that allow for relatively few sidelines, such as a simple pawn-up ending that you know like the back of your hand.

If you are not playing to get "more familiar" positions, and playing to set your opponent problems, you are not playing blitz correctly. ... likewise, if you find this type of tricky/trappy chess distasteful, then slower forms of chess are right for you.

But it's true too that you may be playing in time controls too fast for your comfort zone. If 3 0 is simply too chaotic and confusing for you (GM DeFirmian said "3 0 is not chess") then a time-add increment like 3 2 makes a big difference. Mojo actually likes to take me on at 10 0.

Though it's probably out of place for me to kibitz much, since my own blitz rating is down 300 points since my concussion :- ) you'd actually think the M.D.'s would be interested in this kind of cognition measurement in post-concussion syndrome.

Thanks for the reply, Doc :-)

I'm (slowly) learning which openings I can be familiar with enough to put most of my brain into a 3 minute game. I started out playing a bunch of Scandinavian Defense as Black, and that was fun for awhile but around 1400 ratings my opponents are able to put too much pressure on me. Had to switch to the Owen Defense as Black, which seems a little more flexible and less chaotic.

What say you about the owners in pro sports tightening the purse strings, leaving 50% of the FA's out in the cold heading into ST (as an ~extreme extrapolation of what's happening right now)? Is that a move in the direction of 'make everyone a free agent every year' and, if so, is it morally/ethically objectionable in any fashion? In the end, the owners have all the trump cards (their checkbooks), so it *seemed* to me like it was only ever a matter of time before everyone wised up and 'colluded' simply by independently coming to nearly identical conclusions about free agency.

I have very, very little doubt that Arrieta and Darvish and the other premium players out there get signed in the next couple weeks. But it's been fun for me to ponder what this hiccup might mean, long-term, for baseball free agency.

There is a draw rule.

Online chess having not implemented that rule on certain engines is problematic, but in tournament chess, if you don't clear the game in 50 moves (usually), it is declared drawn, as well as if you repeat a move twice.