Re: Can we keep experimenting with scoring changes please?

[EMAIL PROTECTED] (John McCabe) wrote in message news:<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>...
> On Tue, 18 Nov 2003 06:09:50 -0600, Bruno Wolff III <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> wrote:
> 
> >> Yes - I remember reading that. It's unfortunate really, especially as
> >> the only real justification I can see for RPS is to reduce the number
> >> of service errors!
> >
> >Changing from Sideout to Rally scoring doesn't have any first order effects
> >on how you should serve. You are still playing to win each rally so you
> >still have the same incentives on how you should serve.
> 
> Not exactly. The incentive is to get the ball in play or lose service
> *and* lose a point. In the old scoring system the incentive was get
> the ball in play or lose service.
> 
> At the end of the day if everyone is willing to throw away points by
> trying too hard with their serve then I guess it balances it up. Makes
> for a very boring game though.
> 
> Best Regards
> John McCabe
> 
> To reply by email replace 'nospam' with 'assen'

     Even under the current rally score system, there is still the
"win by 2" rule.  When two teams are tied at "game point minus 2" (or
any other higher score), the "win by 2" rule becomes--in effect--a win
on serve rule.  Think about it.  :-)
     It seems reasonable to add a true "win on serve" rule to make the
game more exciting by allowing the losing team a chance to catch up. 
Actually, the losing team will have even greater chances to catch up
under the new system since they can catch up by merely trading
sideouts with the winning team, which is now "stuck" at "game point
minus 1"; whereas, under the old "scoring only on serve" system, the
losing team had to score "real (serving)" points in order to catch up.