Doubling Cube and forced move to shorten games

Backgammon has the doubling cube.  

In a match of more than one game, it allows a player to 'double' the value of the current game iff the other player accepts the 'double'.  If the other player declines the double, then the decline counts as a resignation. 

This shortens the game by allowing a clearly won position to not be dragged out to the bitter end.

Much of the frustration in chess is a slow player taking a very long time to make final moves in a clearly losing position.  Also, if there is only one move to make, the chess.com computer could, after a pre-agreed time, go ahead and make the move for the forced player.  The computer could 'wait' x amount of time so that the forced player could make the move himself in a reasonable time, but not drag out the moves just to slow down the game (or, perhaps, if he's a new player). 

One aspect of backgammon that is missing in chess is the judgment brought by the doubling cube.  Offering a 'double' means giving up the 'control' of the cube, such that the acceptor of the double has control over the cube.  At first, either player can double.  But once doubled, only the recipiant of the double can double back (making the game worth 4 points) thus giving sole control to the other player.    It should be noted that one should be hesitant to double too early.  If Mr A. only has a 51% chance of winning and doubles, it's best for Mr B. to accept the double and gain control of the cube.  It works out that it's very unwise to offer the double with only a 51% chance of winning, because if the tides turn then the other player has powerful leverage to turn a 2 point game into a 4 point game if he, as often happens, gets the slightly better (58% likely) upper hand.  If you read the books, it's known that one shouldn't double with a very slight (under 55% chance of winning) advantage.

There is a 'luck' in chess.  Having a bishop on the right color to stop a pawn, having a king within stopping range of a pawn trying to queen, any situation that helps you that you didn't plan boils down to true luck.  I don't mean you developed and it paid off later, rather, the many situations where it comes down to a race or some random factor plays a critical difference.  How many moves in advance to you plan for a pin or fork?  Surely not twenty moves earlier, so there is a true luck in chess and also, slow moves are a drag on chess, the doubling cube in match play, where you play the same player multiple games, could be an option.  With computers, it would be easy to program and the better player would want it. 

Cool dice!

Just what exactly are you wagering in chess? Backgammon requires players to play matches because any one game can be decided by dice rolls. Chess is fundamentally different.

If you are playing a match, it may make the slightest sense to add a doubling cube to determine the match, but you can't wager rating points without ditching the current rating system.

 "...the doubling cube in match play, where you play the same player multiple games, could be an option..."

Imagine if you are playing a match of the best 3 out of 5. 

I admit that whatever 'luck' there is to be found in chess, it's less obvious than the roll of dice.   But I do describe the notion of a kind of 'luck', situational luck that you didn't plan on and such that you can't really ascribe to simple development, such as happening to have a bishop on the correct color for your needs, or a fork set up more than 10 moves earlier (I don't think that far ahead), or perhaps a king which happens to be one square closer to stopping a pawn than the opposing side - imagine after a heated multiple exchange which you started but did not take into consideration the pawn race.  Luck, in such a case, is a reasonable construct to describe the victor.  As in backgammon, pure luck rarely decides match play.

The doubling cube reduces the luck element and speeds up play.  If you don't believe in luck in chess, at least motivating someone to resign with no chance of winning is enough to consider it as an option if both players agree.  Like Chess 960, just an option.   Even if you don't play the same player multiple games, usually the only thing keeping in a stubborn player is pride.   The doubling cube might indeed motivate the losing player to resign already rather than know he lost 'two' games.   You've got 10 points more than him and have outplayed him the whole game, plus position, why not have the doubling cube so you can motivate him to resign and you can both start fresh games and get back to learning something rather than watch him kill a small part of your few precious moments on this earth, watching him run out the clock taking up maximum time to hope you will either die of old age or forget to log in and make your move on time?  The doubling cube would at least give you the satisfaction that you beat him 'twice'.  After all, nobody is getting any cash back under any circumstances, we don't get anything for just one game, so we all care about how many games we lose.  I'm not saying it should impact rating, but all the same, I'd rather not be beaten by someone with five queens on the board.  So, I think it would be a very useful tool, a powerful motivation for losing players go ahead and resign and release the better players.

Every time a lower rated player would reach a drawn position against a higher rated player, the lower rated player would offer to double that way they get two draws.

There is a 'luck' in chess.

Not true luck.  Forks and pins are natural results of having pieces positioned well (centralized, bearing down on the opposing king or some critical backwards pawn, or what have you).  Pressure from multiple threats are established by better positioning and gains of tempo that build up until something has to break...that's what the middle game is all about.  A king being too far away to stop a pawn promoting can be the result of the tradeoff they made earlier in the game by castling their king out of the center...whenever a chess player castles they are implicitly making this trade off even if they do not think about it, and it is normally a good one, but not always.  

I have won a game or two over time this way ;)...the game is already transitioning into the endgame and there are few ways to mount a threat but someone castles anyway because they are conditioned to do so, and they end up losing when the other king centralizes faster in the endgame.  It's not luck, though :).

Good point about the draws.  Unless someone smarter than myself comes along, I would suspect the doubling cube should not matter to draws, nor to ratings at all.  

As for luck in chess, if one truly looks at the board and exchanges bishops based on the square color, and places his knights exactly based on the specific forks that will present themselves, then luck is a factor.

How would even the greatest chess player know what mistakes his opponant is going to make, such that he knows to keep his black squared bishop instead of his white squared bishop twenty moves in advance?

I've won many games, perhaps most, through errors of the other player.

He leaves his queen exposed or king subject to a pin.   Having the knight at the right spot, in advance, before the queen is moved into becoming a victim is not the result of the brains of the better player, but the lack of by the lessor player.  If three great players are all playing slightly weaker opponants at three separate tables, it's pure luck as to which bad player makes which bad mistake throwing the game away.  To make the luck stand out, let's imagine the weaker player happened to have gotten the advantages in each game, and only one of the stronger players was 'given' the 'luck' of a free queen via a pin / fork / etc which the weaker player manufactored.  Let's also agree that not all mistakes are a result of the better player somehow 'making' the weaker player make the mistake, sometimes he just forgets this or that.  Forgetting isn't the result of some super genius using brain waves to make the other forget, sometimes in some games it's the weaker player making the mistake.  Will he err in my game or the next?  That's "luck".  Of course, not all games are 100% luck, I'm only arguing that luck is a factor... unless both players play perfect chess, luck is a huge factor.   As big a factor as in backgammon?  Well, since backgammon is usually played with multiple games, then the more games, the more luck is factored out.

So, which has more luck, a match of equal players playing 7 games of backgammon or one game of chess?  Probably backgammon.  Probably. 

But make it 7 matches of 7 games of evenly matched backgammon vs one game of evenly matched chess?  

At that point we need to ask ourselves if we have perspective. 

lets just keep both awesome games as they are

@SWRN, when most people talk about luck in games, they’re referring to an element of randomness that is outside the control of both players. Yes, if your opponent makes a blunder and loses the game, that is lucky for you. However, that blunder wasn’t outside of the control of your opponent. He didn’t get unlucky, he just made a poor move. He had an opportunity to make a better move, but he chose not to. If you hold to the position that bad moves are the result of luck rather than bad decision making, then that leads to the conclusion that there is no such thing as bad players, only unlucky players.

"...when most people talk about luck in games, they’re referring to an element of randomness that is outside the control of both players."

But, in life, we use the word "luck" to include things controlled by other people.  For instance, getting a "lucky break" or two people arbitrarily chosing each other instead of others.   Car accident?  Bad luck, even though both cars were being driven by people.   If I'm looking for my child and spot him by looking at just the right moment, luck. 

My larger point is that, for all intents and purposes, luck is the proper word to use, keeping it's meaning, to describe when I luckily could fork this player in three moves from now.  He obviously didn't want me to do that, he didn't have a lose-wish and subconsciously sabotage his position, no.  Rather, sometimes I have certain opportunities come up, other times, no.  = Luck.   So, I re-assert, there absolutely is "luck" in chess, it's just no so easily identified by the presense of dice...just as most luck is not from the roll of dice.  99.999% of life's luck is not from dice.   Thank you for your comments.

Chess has a clock. When the clock runs out the game is over. If you find that frustrating that people don't play real chess like a sloppy blitz game and ponder drawing possibilities or think about it or whatever maybe chess isn't for you.

Time controls are growing shorter, unfortunatly. Even FIDE has disgraced itself by adopting 90 minutes with 30 second increment blitz time controls for it's events. People seem to like to play many more low quality games than one in which they have an actual battle of minds with their opponent. 3-5 minutes per move is what it takes to play quality moves.

We had some serious chat about this one on chess.com a few months ago. Solution came out to be make the situation worse for them like going to 2-3 more Queens. Snatch all their pieces. 

This the approach we did when i was in college. That stops it quickly as they do not want to get humilated on the chess board.

For this reason Chess.com should have a button to offer rematch in which case  when you have a won an click it. Your opponent can only get a rematch if he resigns that game. 

A lot of people play, enjoy, and grow their minds with fast chess. 

Very few people want to play chess at the same speed.

One man's 7 to 10 minute per move "true chess" is another man's waste of time. 

Indeed, fast chess forces faster thinking, a different type of strategy and time management. 

Chess is a big house for lots of players. 

However, in all speeds of chess waiting three minutes for a forced move can be eliminated with the use of electronics.  It serves the Grand Master no purpose to sit and watch a child wait for three minutes to make a forced move.  Now what if he had 80 minutes left?   You gotta sit there? 

Better to resign a "won" game than to throw away an hour of your life.  

Better to resign a "won" game than to throw away three minutes of your life.  

Seriously.  Some stranger is going to "trap" you for three minutes?  For what purpose?  To prove some theory about chess?  

That's like that game show "Boiling Points" where they give you $20 if you put up with someone spitting on you for five minutes.  I considered the person who put up with that for five minutes the real loser, the "winner" was the girl who immediately left.  She didn't get the secret $20, but good grief, that's the way you should live.  Don't stand there for three minutes while the McDonald's staff curses you out, just leave. 

Imagine sitting at a traffic light that long, or waiting at a McDonalds that long when there's nobody else waiting.  

Pure waste of time, serves zero purpose and displaces the next game of chess.  I like chess, that's why I won't sit there for three minutes, I want to get on to some more chess.

That's why nobody should have to wait more than five seconds on a forced move, we all should get on to some more real chess.  Staring at a lost position for 80 minutes need not be "real chess" for anyone, given electronics.  That's not even good for the loser. 

Respectfully submitted.

You can program that out. 

I play G/10; when I do this I am basically agreeing that my opponet can do whatever he or she wants with his or her 10 minutes. My opponet is under no obligation to use that time as I want them to use it.

With this mindset I never get frustrated at having to wait for a move.

Good perspective, landloch! 

Unfortunately, such a pragmatic approach doesn't work in longer time controls. USCF and FIDE both have rules against some of the time wasting tactics seen here regularly, and they just cover standard time controls!

In correspondence chess, people often deploy the Death Gambit, whereby they slow the game down as much as humanly possible in order to try to win due to their opponent dying of old age! 

There are of course well-known remedies. One is adjudication, another is to use ICCF time controls in correspondence. I'm sure there are plenty of other fixes that don't involve destroying the rating system.

I would be less blasé about "time wasters" at long time controls, SmyslovFan; and people do time out frequently enough (2–3% of my games?) that it could get annoying. I do think chess.com's Online Chess, with per-move time controls, is a good solution for long games, however. Presumably this could even be implemented at shorter times like G/90 with a 20 min. per-move limit ... at least for non-tournament online games, which is what must of us are on this site to play.