As a player, I would find the 10 am and 3 pm round format acceptable. Some games are going to last less than four hours, with plenty of time in between the rounds for rest and refreshment. A few players, especially kids, might get antsy with so much free time. A 4.5 hour game still gives a half hour to grab some grub and relax. If I play a really long game, I feel it is partly my fault for having it drag on so long. The second round of the day finishes at 7 or 7:30 pm latest. That still gives the player time to get a late dinner, see a movie, and get to bed early. My experience is that a round that starts late and drags on into the deep of the evening to be the most tiring. When they finish earlier, I feel more comfortable.
The concern of an organizer is to find the sweet spot for setting up the sections so that you get around 16 players per section for a 4 round tournament. Is a 1900 cutoff best or would it be better set at 1800? Should there be an U1000 section basically for the kids? How best to deal with the players in the 1200 to 1700 range; one section or split them up into two? Would some of the players prefer there to be a scholastic section? These are the kinds of questions to consider when looking at the number and kinds of entrants for a tournament. I hate to have to combine sections. Players often hate it, too, and are disinclined to come back to a place when they are unsure if and how the sections are going to be changed because of a low entry. Fortunately, you were able to basically guarantee the prizes. If you reduce prizes all of the time, players drift away from those tournaments.
For the events I run, there are several practical issues which are why I am opposed to using increment
The popular blue Saitek clock doesn’t do increment (I know that for an increment time control you can use delay if the clock can’t do increment but I don’t think delay is inferior to increment so why not just use delay so everyone is playing under the same conditions?)
Some of the popular digital clocks add the increment time at the beginning of the game (before move 1) while others only start adding the increment time after move 1, giving different overall amounts of time for the game. Trying to get half of the players to adjust their clocks so the conditions are equal for everyone would be almost impossible (I know the same is true for the Bronstein form of delay but I very rarely see people using the Bronstein form of delay).
There is a greater chance with increment of a game going on long and disrupting the start time of the next round
For top level tournaments with the best players in the world, none of the above applies since clocks are generally provided and there is only one round a day.
All of these reasons have some merit. I consider #2 more theoretical than practical, since both players in any given game are on equal terms and the maximum difference is the increment amount. #1 is also true if an analog clock is used, only more so, so unless the organizer provides capable clocks (many do) it’s not a compelling argument either. But it has theoretical validity.
#3 is the best argument. In setting time controls there is always a balance between providing maximum thinking time to enhance quality of the games (a position Mr. Smith has advocated) and a desire to make sure rounds start on time (a position Mr. Smith advocates here). Of course this only applies to long games. All organizers who think about it balance risk/reward between these two values.
Increment can lead to longer games because you get the extra time whether you used it or not (applicable primarily to the opening and totally forced moves) and because people are more likely to blunder in time pressure because they never get a chance to build up their time bank with instant responses. In those time scrambles, increment gives the players a better experience and a chance to let the game be determined by the game and not the clock. As a quality of play factor, increment is vastly superior. As a control to force premature endings to games, delay is superior. But then, no delay or increment is superior to both if that is your prime consideration.
I played in this event…and I’d like to make a few comments…I also have directed events, and you will see if you look at my TD history that I prefer events with 30 seconds increments, I also played in the inaugural event the year before. I will support an event that seems to be going in a direction closer to my preferred scenario of 2 rds per day with roughly 4 hours of play per game…as long as we have moderate entry fees and prizes…bigger prizes and fees, then yes… Lengthen the playing time for a round to maybe 5 hours… But for us amateurs 6 hours playing time per round for two rounds a day is too much…I feel the problem is partly, as at least one person has said in this discussion: that you have kids and their parents who probably can’t stand to go more a few minutes between rounds… And then you have the oldsters who might like to discuss the game… And decompress, and have a good meal before the next round…somewhat antagonistic preferences… I am probably one who was involved in the longest game… All my games were hard…Rd1 43 moves… Rd2 54 moves …end of day 1, no need for a break…Rd3 56 moves…definitely would have preferred a longer break time…Rd4 45 moves…end of the event no need for break …time to get out of there…should have resigned sooner… I am a bitter ender, and so were most players…
When you offer sections in an event it makes it better, I firmly believe… But then you may have a problem of odd numbers of players in various sections… And we quickly became evident that we had that scenario, and I volunteered to play up and smooth away two sections…As a director, you should realize that possibility…
I think this club… Should offer one or two tourneys a year like this event … I would ask for another 15 minutes added to the break between the morning and afternoon rounds…I did not complain about it then… And here is another pitch which seems to do no good at this club in Portland…and the one in Seattle, …when you run a 4-rounds in one-day tornado… How about having a dedicated one-hour meal break after the second round…? I hope I have added something concrete to this discussion… relyea , doan, mulfish, are commenters I value…and to Micah… Give a break to the oldsters sometimes. I appreciate your work.
Well, the 15 second delay I’ve been using at my tournaments has worked well. It’s helped mitigate time pressure better than the 5 and 10 second delays we used previously.
But the difference is that using no delay or increment is vastly inferior to having some delay or increment. In the situation I’m talking about, it’s delay vs. increment and I don’t feel delay is necessarily inferior to increment.
This statement is completely illogical. Time is a part of the game whether or not there is an increment or delay. That is why there is a chess clock. One’s approval or disapproval of increment or delay does not alter the objective fact that time is part of the game.
I’m convinced that delay should be used only for reaction time, while increment can be used to formulate a plan. Delay should keep you from losing (or let you win) a trivial position. If it is at all complicated, no such luck. Increment doesn’t have those problems. Trying for a mixture causes all sorts of problems.
This is true if you are comparing a delay of five seconds to an increment of thirty seconds. However, a longer delay mitigates this problem which is the main idea behind using a longer delay.
I see no reason why delay should be used only for reaction time. I see nothing wrong with a delay longer than five seconds and an increment shorter than thirty seconds. What problems does this create?
Many clocks do not support Bronstein mode. They treat delay in a number of ways, none of them good. Some place just the delay on the display, some flash between the time and the delay, and some use flashing colons or dashes. In none of these cases can the player or the opponent take a quick glance at the clock and know how much time there is until the next move must be made. This should be a must. It is tolerable if it is just a very few seconds of reaction time, but horrible if you are trying to use thinking time.
BTW, I occasionally use a two second increment.
Note that even on a clock like the DGT 3000 which has a separate display for U.S. Delay one has to do arithmetic to know how much time is left. Not acceptable.
Now you are talking about practical issues with how clocks handle delay which is a completely different argument. However, this hasn’t been an issue at all in the tournaments I’ve run with longer delays. Also, as I’ve stated before in this thread, there are practical issues with how clocks handle increment as well.
Having run tournaments with both five and ten second delay I prefer the latter. With ten second delay the time scrambles are not so manic, an advantage for both players and directors.
Possibly true, but the longer you make the delay the more time the round can potentially take. 10 seconds is about as long as you can set the delay and still be able to start the next round an hour after the theoretical end of the previous round while still giving the players time to rest and maybe grab a bite to eat. For example, if a round starts at 10 am, and has a G/120 time control, then you can start the next round at 3 pm if you use no more than a 10 second delay. I wouldn’t want to do that with a 15 second delay. If you can afford to push the starting time of the following round back further, then a 15 second delay might be something to think about.
If I understood Micah’s comments in previous threads correctly, he tends to favor taking the risk of inadequate rest time for the players involved in long games and address it by allowing their next round games to start a little later. I haven’t heard anyone else espouse that philosophy. Most of the games will finish on time, thereby reaping the benefits of the extra time. As one who often has long games, I am not an admirer of that philosophy. As a potential opponent of the prior round marathon, I’d find it totally unacceptable.
The Chronos supports both discrete delay and Bronstein. For a single time control of 99:59 or faster and a delay of 9 seconds or faster, CH-A1 (CH-A2 on the older models with a switch on the bottom) works beautifully. It shows both the full main time (mm:ss) and the delay time (as a discrete digit) at all times.
On the switchless models, there is another option. Mode AN-1 (or AN-2 for 2 time controls) always shows the delay time discretely, until it reaches zero. It also always shows the main time, in full (h:mm:ss) whenever the delay time has gone down to zeroorthe main time has gone down past 10 minutes, but possibly abbreviated (h:mm) when the delay is not yet zeroandthe main time is still at 10 minutes or more.
Agreed, this is atrocious.
Not quite as bad, but still possibly disconcerting.
Admittedly not great, but on the Chronos this can always be avoided (see above).
Obviously you prefer Bronstein mode over discrete delay. You are not alone. But there is also a valid reason why some players prefer discrete delay. They may wish to use all (or almost all) their delay time before moving, to maximize the efficiency of their clock use. Such players would want to see the display time discretely.
The only way to satisfy both preferences, apparently, would be with a triple display – one for the main time alone, another for the delay time alone, and yet another for both added together. Would any clock manufacturer care to step forward?
