Should we do away with extra turns?

[iamfishman]

### This was originally a post in the thread "Shuffling and round times" but I didn't want to change topics and figured this discussion could be its own thread so I felt i would start it here ###

I've felt for quite a while that shuffling effects take quite a bit of time away from what could occur in a competitive type one match.  Between this and cards which require a great deal of thinking(gifts, brainstorm, intuituion, top, etc.), I would be a strong advocate of making rounds last 60 minutes.  The obvious problem that this leads to is the length of time for big tournaments, such as Waterbury.  Some Waterburies have gone as late as 4:30 am.  The question, then, is obviously what can be changed, or eliminated to make up for an extra 10 minutes each round.

What if, and this may sound completely radical, after a 60 minute round, time is called and each player only receive one untimed turn a piece?  What about, not even allowing time past the 60 minutes at all?  Here are my preliminary thoughts on some pros and cons of having no untimed turns.

Pro- Every round ends in 60 minutes, period, end of story!  This seems like it would save time in most large tournaments.  The reason for this is that the more players that are at an event, the more likely that at least one will go more than 10 minutes into the untimed turns(ala Mykatog and Smennen). 

Con- At a smaller event though, you could potentially be allowing players to play for 60 minutes as opposed to 50 minutes with one match finishing 2 mins into extra turns.

Pro- It would be much easier to estimate how long you have until the next round starts.  I frequently have people at Waterbury ask me, "How long until the next round?" with the intention of making a Subway run.  I tell them I am waiting on one match, but that match lasts for 15 more minutes, which ends up leaving the person very hungry.  Conversely, a player may see that 4 matches are still in extra turns amd go for a smoke, but all four result slips come in in the next 30 seconds.  This person would come back in to see a room full of people starting their matches.  Definite time frames for round would help both these people make wise choices.

Con- A player could really get screwed if he does not properly track time(with a watch or nearby clock) and a TO is not conscious enough to give a 10, 5, and or 2 minute warning.  This could leave a player getting blindsided with a very sudden draw when time is announced in his second main phase, having chosen not to "go for it" with tog this turn, but rather wait a turn to be more certain of killing his opponent.

Con- Stalling could be used much more as a cheating technique.  Consider this scenario. You are playing TPS and start game 3 with 4 minutes left.  Your opponent can play slowly to keep you from killing them before you time is called.  With extra turns, however, you are able to play fast and then take as much time as you need on that "critical" kill turn.

I'm sure there are other pros and cons out there, and I would love for this thread to spark a great discussion, so I'll end here.

Discuss...

[jpmeyer]

I'd be more open to this if you had some sort of giant clock like Pastimes that anyone can see from anywhere in the tourney area.

[Kowal]

I'd be all for it if there were easier ways to prevent stalling.  As it stands though, stalling is already difficult to detect and enforce without the players calling you over themselves, so I don't think this is really realistic.

[Machinus]

I am glad to hear these kind of thoughts and considerations from an organizer of huge tournaments such as yourself. However, I think the 5 turns convention is a successful mechanism for ending matches that go to time, and I would never want to see that taken away. It is generous of you to think about the problems that players face (even if its just becasue they barrage you with requests) such as round times.

Shuffling is just one of those aspects of the game that can't be avoided. Timely and efficient shuffling is necessary for fair play. Players take this consideration into their own hands when they take certain decks to a tournament. If you are playing fish you know you are going to have more time to play the match than if you went playing something like tendrils or doomsday, and that is a choice you make before you go.

Ray - how much of problem are untimed top eight brackes as opposed to 5 turns in swiss?

[CF]

Frankly.. judges should just punish slow play more harshly. I've seen many Americans play t1 and it's retardedly slow. It's type 1 ffs! Games last few turns. If people are too inexperienced to know what the correct decision is when resolving a "difficult" spell, that's their fault. Do it within reasonable time or be punished for slow play. It's that easy.

Edit: I'm saying that as a T1 player AND a level 2 judge and registered DCI tournament organizer, just in case anyone wondered.

--
Chris

[iamfishman]

I'd be more open to this if you had some sort of giant clock like Pastimes that anyone can see from anywhere in the tourney area.

Oh, I apologize if I conveyed the wrong message.  This is by no means a "should I do this at Waterbury" thread.  This is very much just a discussion that, I assume, will either prove the neccesity of the extra turns in a round or find a suitable alternative.

I am just seeing what other people think are pros and cons of things like adding extra time to rounds or doing away with the untimed turns, solely for brainstorming purposes.

[Dozer]

### This was originally a post in the thread "Shuffling and round times" but I didn't want to change topics and figured this discussion could be its own thread so I felt i would start it here ###

No worries, as they say. I approve of covering the two things in one thread, since they supplement each other so well.

So what are the overall goals? There are two: 60 minute rounds are an attempt to give more actual "game time" to the players, and the elimination of the untimed extra turns is an idea to make rounds end more predictable. Point #1 applies more to the players, point #2 more to the tournament and the organizers.

If 60 minute rounds were introduced, tournaments would be at least one hour longer by default. That is quite a stretch since tournaments tend to go far into the night anyway, as Ray already pointed out. Personally, I think compensating by taking away the extra turns would be good. As the 60 minute mark approaches, players just would have to speed up their play speed if they want to finish a the match. When time is called, the active player ends his turn. I would propose that if the player who chose to play in that game is the active player when time is called, the opponent gets one more turn so both players have had an equal amount of turns. If the player who drew is the one that time is called upon, he ends the turn and the game ends.

(I realize that there are some timing issues here, since the player on the play could just say "go" at 59:55, just to get another turn.)

That opens the issue of stalling again, which CF and Kowal pointed out. For example, the player on the draw could stall his last turn so the player on the draw does not get another one. The current five-turn system prevents this kind of play. I just think that once there are five minutes left on the clock, the number of matches that are still on is hopefully small enough to have them covered with judges. Someone who has experience in actually running a tournament would have to say if this is possible, though, because I am not sure.

The one big con against giving extra round time is the longer duration of the tournament.
The one big con against giving no extra turns (or just one) is stalling.

If con number two is eliminated, con number one ceases to be substantial, because tournaments would not become that much longer, if longer at all. So, if tournament organizers find a way to closely watch over stalling especially in the last ten to five minutes of a tournament, players could actually get more game time with 60 minute rounds.

The one problem I see is that the five-extra-turns-rule is part of the DCI Tournament Rules and therefore has to be implemented in sanctioned tournaments... or not?

Dozer

/edit: Interesting... Here's something I did not know about PT Philly, from Sheldon Menery's "Feature Friday":

The experiment with a new time structure for a Constructed PT was a success. We made the rounds 75 minutes, leading to far fewer draws (which were bad for the players, given the prize payout structure), and still getting us out by around 8pm both nights.

Granted, they played the swiss rounds on two days (Friday and Saturday), but now we have a precedent, even if it has only  been a Block PT. Splitting up in two days plus a final sunday obviously makes room for this kind of spacious time management. Can bigger tournaments in Vintage be played on seperate days (or are they already)? Or is that to much to ask for from the players, with the need for hotel rooms and the like?