H. G. Muller wrote on Sun, Sep 18, 2016 08:17 AM EDT:
It would be a problem in the following sense: If one engine exceeds time on, say, move 30 (for 40 moves/min), even if WinBoard does not forfeit it (Auto-flag switched off), that engine would still play 10 moves without thinking before its time gets positive again. This almost certainly means it will be slaughtered by the opponent, even if it was significantly ahead before.
Basically this means that the outcome of the game is decided by a coin toss, independent of the material balance, as it is not clear at all whether the tendency to think long correlates with being ahead or behind. If too large a fraction of the games has a random result, this will produce noise that will mask the effect of the material imbalance, and would strongly drive up the number of games needed to average out the noise.
It would be a problem in the following sense: If one engine exceeds time on, say, move 30 (for 40 moves/min), even if WinBoard does not forfeit it (Auto-flag switched off), that engine would still play 10 moves without thinking before its time gets positive again. This almost certainly means it will be slaughtered by the opponent, even if it was significantly ahead before.
Basically this means that the outcome of the game is decided by a coin toss, independent of the material balance, as it is not clear at all whether the tendency to think long correlates with being ahead or behind. If too large a fraction of the games has a random result, this will produce noise that will mask the effect of the material imbalance, and would strongly drive up the number of games needed to average out the noise.