I've just played a UK tournament semi-final against a player who snookered a lot (no problems with that), and so the match took a long time. As I potted the black to make it 1-1, the 3 minute warning came up. I was all for trying to speed through it, but my opponent (not naming names) decided to settle for the draw! He waited as long as possible to take his shots. And so we were both DQ. I was just wondering what people's opinions on this are and if anything could be done to prevent this. I'm not bitter about it, I just believe it's poor sportsmanship. Cheers.

individual timing rather than group
each player gets a certain amount of time

Yep, another shining example of why we need a chess clock for tournament games.

The 1 flaw with a chess clock for tourny games is that some players are naturally slower than others and think more about their shot.

this particular player knew exactly what he was doing and even said he wanted the draw, plus he'd already been a very bad sportsman in the two previous games

The quarter-final round finished at 14:16.

You went 1-0 up at 14:27 and he equalised at 14:35, The time limit was 14:38, I think. But the first frame took 11 mins and the second took 8 mins, which is ages. Still, playing for a draw is ridiculous, cos you can't win the tournament if you don't win the the two (or 3, etc) frames to eliminate your opponent. So I'm on your side here, mach_3.

However, recently and im sure a good few people would back me up...There has been a lot of lag causing players not to be able to hit their shot or their computer, and timer freezing or just slow play overall.

This player MAY have had lag and once the second game levelled it to 1-1 and he realised there was no chance of winning even if rushing then he/she could have thought a draw is better than a loss which in my view it is.

This player MAY not like losing and may have thought that by playing safe and sensible rather than wacky and wild in the 3 minutes there was less of a chance of losing.

There could be many reasons behind why he done it, most people dont go out entirely to draw in a tournament although I myself have done it to see how id do for those interested it was 0-0 after the 22 mins

But yeah there could be any 1 of a million reasons they played that way if just noted a few

Ahem. Most people take part in tournaments to win the tournament. There's no honour in deliberately slowing the game down to as to prevent the opponent to win the winning frame. If one deliberately and premeditatedly denies him/her this, one is unsporting and doesn't deserve to have been allowed take part in the tournament in the first place for such a dishonest display. No-one likes losing, true; but most people counteract this by attempting to win, NOT by acting the coward and holding up the game to get the opponent eliminated, like mich_3's unnamed opponent whom I neither will name.

Like I said, there's no honour in this, only shame and a bad name. And there is nothing at present to legislate for this, which is unfortunate. Presently, players can receive sanctions for taking part in contrived 40- and 50-0 whitewashes to inflate their rank, because their actions are obviously unfair and unsporting. Deciding not to win a tournament match is one thing; thereby taking your opponent out with you, however, is equally as unfair and unsporting as...

...the previous example, and I'd love to see some day someone being booted for unfairly and unsportingly delaying a match, trying to make it end in a DQ-DQ result. The offender could have no complaints.

I never condoned it i was just giving examples as to how he may have been thinking. As i said i have done it before but completely experimental and i dearly apologised to my opponent.

As i say i dont condone it but we will never know the reason the player done it until you speak to them directly so I think it would be wrong to go saying this that and the other, as you stated earleir the previous 2 games took 19 minutes between them, an average of 9 and a half minutes per game it would have been very tough to have finished the game in the given time limit and for all we know (not saying it happened) mach may have laid a sweet snooker on him so he may have been returning the favour or mach may have played a safety break.

We have only heard one side of the story at this moment in time so im not taking sides however if he did play for the draw purposely to knock both him and his opponent out i dont agree with that!

Zante, how do you know this?

Because i was the person in the quarter, where when shooting for the black to win the frame he pm'd me delibrately saying i was lucky then pm'd me again saying miss.
I asked the person he played in the last 16 and he said he'd done it to him aswell so we watched him in the semi and when the 3 mins warning came up he said 'i'd take a draw'

Deliberately slowing the game down (he waited till he had about 3 seconds on his shot then played a safety) is technically trying to get the other player disqualified.

I played 'him' in a UK speed tourny earlier and to his credit, he played averagely fast and the game was completed with plenty of time remaining.

I 'queried him' about this particular incident and 'he' retorted saying he knew nothing of it.

Did either/neither of you send a complaint?

I've played the "time waster" before under his other similar name and he is a very bad sportsman.

He even has the same display pic and has a weird fascination for a certain tv show.

yes we did clooney

Could you tell me what a chess clock is please ?

I see no problem with that. The total, individual time allotted would have to be based on some kind of average number of shots per frame times 20 second shot clock.

It's entirely fair in every way that the user having spent the most time is the one getting DQed when the time runs out IMO

As much as that sucks for those who suffer from it, it should never ever hurt the opponent - who is even more definitely not to blame for the slow game progress.

Simply a two part clock where each player has his/her own time pool (both players starting with equal time pools obviously)

Only the clock for the active player runs, while the clock for the passive player is frozen.

Any player who runs out of time loses the frame.

And it's called a chess clock because... *drum roll* it's the time system used in chess for decades.

Edited at 22:25 Sat 6/06/09 (BST)