This is probably obvious to those reading this thread, but one reason you cannot substitute a 30 second delay for a 30 second increment is that the increment is additive and the delay is not. Consider the case where the players know the opening very well and they blitz through the first 10 moves in very short order. Players employing a 30 second increment would have 300 more seconds on their clock than when they started the game; however, since the delay starts over each time the players employing a 30 second delay would have no more time on their clock than when they started the game.
I’m sure we all realize that, but that wasn’t my question.
The question is, what do you do in an increment tournament, in a game in which an increment-capable clock is not available?
There are (possibly) two cases: (1) The clock is neither increment-capable nor delay-capable. (2) The clock is delay-capable, but not increment-capable.
In case (1), you could use a different time control. For example, the organizer of a game/90, inc/30 event could specify a control of game/120 in games played without the increment.
In case (2), another possibility exists, and was suggested by a couple of posters: Just use a 30-second delay instead of a 30-second increment. Of course, they’re not equivalent, but a delay is better than nothing.
Of course, a player who furnishes an increment-capable clock would have the right to insist on the increment. Such a clock would be preferred equipment compared to EITHER a clock with delay only, OR a clock with neither delay nor increment.
If, in case (2), the organizer adopts the policy suggested above, then a delay-only clock, while less preferred than an increment clock, would still have priority over a clock with neither.
Bill Smythe
I think the better ones (Chronos, Excalibur, DGT, Duel) all support increments, with the exception of earlier Game Time specimens. Probably not so with some of the “off brands”, such as Precision. Increment is sometimes called “Fischer”, “bonus”, “FIDE”, “progressive”, or “cumulative addback”, so check your manuals for these terms.
Can’t help you there.
Sicne delay, rather than increment, is the USCF default, you’d have to announce the increment in all pre-tournament publicity. Unfortunately I don’t think Chess Life has adopted a standard abbreviation for increment. I’d suggest something like “G/90, inc/30”.
30 seconds seems to be, by far, the most popular increment. With an increment, there should be only 1 main control (such as game/120) rather than two (such as 40/120, SD/60). The only reason tournaments were ever played with two (or more) controls was that increment didn’t used to exist. (Also, some increment-capable clocks can be set only for a single control.)
This is the first I’ve heard of anybody wanting to try increment in a quick-rated event. The standard delay (non-cumulative) for a quick tournament is 3 seconds, so I doubt whether an increment of any more than 3 seconds would be considered acceptable by the powers that be.
Bill Smythe
Yes, this is a good question and one that will be around for some time since all clocks won’t all be increment-capable anytime soon, if ever. From a USCF perspective, I suspect someone on the rules committee may need to weigh in since your case No. 2 sets up a situation where similarly situated players have fundamentally different time controls. From a player perspective, I would prefer G/120 + 5 sec delay to G/90 + 30 second delay because if the game was played very quickly it would essentially be G/90 since the delay would have little effect.
You are talking to someone from the rules committee (Bill Smythe). 
Well, it’s been almost a year since I contributed to this topic’s thread. I have quit the WA Chess Federation organizational role that I previously had. I quit mainly because I felt that the local players do not recognize their role, and won’t contribute to complete the many tasks that have to be done to make good tournaments happen. We do have some player/workers, but far too few. I worked hard in making many of the things happen that I will be listing below, but I like to share in the duties, and feel that I am part of a team… and feel that others are going to pitch in. A personality fault maybe, but that is my make-up. I am appreciative of the support from the state federation officers who let me implement some of my ideas in these tournaments.
Moving on… After our 2005 WA Class Tourney, held Thanksgiving Day weekend, that this forum was helpful for, in Washington state in February over two weekends we held two ten-player round robin FIDE rated tourneys(one was the2006 WA State Championship), and over the Memorial Day weekend we had the 2006 WA Open, a six round swiss, in which the top section of 26 players, was FIDE rated. All of these events were held using 30 second increments per move…These events all have a tradition of being quality events. My changes were to include the increments into the time control, and shorten the overall time controls slightly.
Also now the USChess League has expanded to Seattle. This event is played with 30 second increments per move also. And we have an organizer, Clint Ballard, a wonderful, energetic guy, who frequently also uses increments in his events, along with his BAP scoring procedure which may be examined further by seaching at slugfest.org.
Well, the WA Chess Federation has returned to the usual time control format for the 2006 WA Class event to take place at Thanksgiving again, and I presume that they will continue in this same vein for the State championship. It’s like “One Hundred Years of Solitude”, Mocondo has returned to the previous, as if you’d never been there.
I hope organizers in other localities will examine how they could implement the use of increments into their time control. My new efforts will also be to get organizers to use 10 seconds time delay in their time control, if they really feel time delay is the way to go. I hope some of you will reply to this.
It’s been so long since the 2006 WA Open that I conveniently forgot an important detail. There had been some grumbling from some players about the increment time control, so we only shortened the time control to 30/90, SD/60 instead of the usual 40/120. SD/60. We did not use increments at all in that one. And we had over 40 players in the FIDE rated section. Nevertheless, I do hope to stir up the interest by other organizers and directors interest to use increments in their tournaments.
One problem is that there apparently is STILL no standard TLA abbreviation for increment, while there is for delay. Chess Life lists “T/Dx” for a delay of x seconds, but no such code for increment.
USCF should be more delay-vs-increment-neutral by having standard codes for both of these. I would suggest “inc/x” for an increment of x seconds, and “d/x” for a delay of x seconds.
One reason I’d like to see “T/Dx” changed to “d/x” is that I hate the atrociously redundant phrase “time delay”. Why not just say “delay” instead?
For example, “G/90, inc/30” would mean game in 90 minutes with an increment (cumulative addback) of 30 seconds, while “G/60, d/10” would mean game in 60 minutes with a delay (non-cumulative addback) of 10 seconds.
The “Information for Players” page in the Chess Life TLA section also fails to mention that a 5-second delay is the default, e.g. that a control listed as “G/90” really means “G/90, d/5”. Thus “d/5” is redundant and will usually be omitted.
Maybe the publications department could work on a solution to these problems.
Bill Smythe