I agree completely about the 5 seconds vs. 30 seconds difference. But that’s also a de facto delay vs. increment difference, because in a “regular” OTB TC (as opposed to quick or blitz), 30 seconds seems to be the standard increment, and 5 seconds is by far the most common delay (although I have seen d10 a few times, and I don’t like that either – 5 seconds is plenty for the basic purpose of delay).
Something else in your post also caught my eye, regarding your (perhaps facetious) adjournment procedure:
What if nobody is stalling? In the tournament I was referencing (keep in mind that it’s the first round, so all games are theoretically mismatches), we had the same basic situation in all 3 games: the higher-rated player is winning, and knows that he’s winning, so he’s not about to concede a draw. But it’s the sort of win that’s going to take some time to convert, and to the (usually) less-experienced eye of the lower-rated player, it’s not an obvious win. He’s proud of having hung in there this long, and is not ready to resign – in fact, he still hopes to draw the game (although this was an over-optimistic hope in all 3 games). They both have every right to want to continue playing, and I have no right to do anything to force or coerce them to finish the game prematurely.
The only solutions I can see are (1) adjournment (problematic in the computer age, and not really designed for weekend Swisses with multiple rounds per day in the first place – and, as Alex Relyea noted a while back, a large part of the rationale for sudden death time controls was to render adjournments obsolete), or (2) harmonizing the TC and the schedule in such a way that games will virtually always finish before the start of the next round. I choose #2.
In other words, it’s superior because the game is not actually adjourned. It is played to a conclusion, then and there. Meanwhile, the TD makes the pairings, based on the assumed result – typically a win for one player and a draw for the other. The next round starts on time for all players except these two and their scheduled next-round opponents.
Of course, the TD must be careful not to put any players on the board already being used to finish the previous round game. On the pairing sheet, a simple penned-in cross-out of the board number, along with a penned-in new board number, will handle that situation.
I had the experience of being on the worse side of a philador position in a r and p ending. i was moving on increment.; there still pawn moves left. the TD AN EXPERT ruled affter 35 moves i had shown the technique declared draw. comments
I think most TDs would be reluctant to rule that way, because there doesn’t seem to be a direct rule (50 moves, triple occurrence, etc) that allows this. If it was FIDE rated then maybe you could claim that your opponent was not trying to win “by normal means”, but that still sounds extremely iffy.
From a TD standpoint, that might be a perfect situation for my Draconian method, at least if it is getting to be time to pair the next round. If your opponent thinks he can win, let him say that to the TD so the TD can pair him as a win. And / Or, if you think you can draw, you can say THAT, so the TD can pair you as a draw. Whichever player turns out to have guessed too optimistically will be punished in next round’s pairings with an opponent who has 1/2 point more than he “should”.
Or, who knows, maybe your opponent will back down and agree to a draw, or you will back down and resign, to get an easier pairing next round. Heh heh.
Yeah, I don’t see it. If the players both agree that they’re playing for a draw then you get the same result. If not, you’re making a big mess. You’re not limiting the time, you’re not preventing any player from winning after he offers a draw, and you’re necessarily giving one of their opponents an unnecessarily easy (by scoregroup) pairing in the next round.
It is my considered opinion that with a 30 second increment, and likely any delay/increment at all, any player refusing to accept a draw offer is attempting to win “by normal means.”
This sounds similar to the original Kashdan option where if both players indicated they were playing for a draw then the game is immediately ended as a draw. It is only continued if at least one player is trying to win and the other is trying to at least draw.
A player would only win after offering a draw if the opponent did not agree to a draw (same as in normal play - I’ve won games after an opponent refused a draw offer).
If the game was actually adjourned then one of the opponents would still be getting an unnecessarily easy (by score) pairing in the next round.
The delay for their opponents is a noticeable annoyance. That only becomes an issue for their opponents if the amount of time to make the pairings, post them, players to read them, and players to go to their boards so the round can be started is still not enough for the delaying game to finish.
On the plus side there is no need to schedule the adjournment and the following round’s game may finish quickly enough to be back on schedule (or maybe the following round is the last one that day).
On the minus side if one player will always have long games then that player’s delays can accumulate throughout the day and prevent the player from ever having a break for lunch or dinner. Also, the noise involved in starting the next round may impact the delaying game.
Heh heh.