I submitted a tounament and got this…
**Error: This time control appears to be invalid: GAME/30+INC/30
(I had already corrected the initial attempt at Dual Rating into the proper Regular).
I checked the revised rules (and this forum) and didn’t find anything to say that this time control is invalid.
Nor any box to check that implied “Yes, it may be weird but it’s true”.
What to do?
There are more ways to enter time controls than we can parse. What you entered is not a format that the program currently knows how to interpret. I’ll see if I can add that one at some point, but right now I’m not planning to work on that program in the next few weeks.
Please enter this one as “G/30 + 30 increment”, that should parse correctly.
Thanks for your speedy reply, as usual.
I was going to suggest that the proper syntax be posted on the form but then had a better idea.
Make the existing free-format field be just for human reading and add two or 3 more numeric fields, no need to parse.
"Game (or at least 60 moves) in " [ ] " total set minutes, with " [ ] " seconds per move of [D]elay or [I]ncrement " [ ].
Then compare the total of the first 2 fields to 30 and 60, the second to 15 etc.
If there is no difference D v. I, leave off the 3rd field.
Of course this could lead to very inconsistent values entered, but that’s always a problem.
I fiddled around with some additional fields for this at one point, I’m not sure it was an improvement.
What we need to know to differentiate between rating systems (based on current time control rules) is:
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Whether or not the game had a sudden death final time control (which include Game/xx events, of course.)
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If the event had a sudden death final time control, then we need to know the TOTAL TIME per player, in minutes.
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What the increment/delay was. We probably want to differentiate between increment and delay, we may not need this information TODAY, we may want to have it some time in the future.
That’s probably four separate fields or sets of radio buttons. We may also want to know if some rounds or schedules had a different time control than others. Now we’re up to at least 5 additional fields.
Depending on what happens with the Rule 5Fa stuff next year, we may need to know EXACTLY how the time control was advertised, so that we can differentiate between G/25 events that should be quick rated and G/30+5 events that were called ‘G/25’ but should be dual rated. That could add to the number of fields we need and/or further complicate what information we need to be SURE what the appropriate rating system or systems are for an event.
Not necessarily. You could have delay/increment be a single integer. Positive numbers mean increment (e.g., 30). Negative numbers mean delay (e.g., -5). Zero means neither delay nor increment.
That’s counter-intuitive and thus probably a bad design.
Fair enough. But since there will never be a game that uses both delay and increment, it makes self-evident sense to me not to use more than one field for “delay, increment or neither.” I figured, if you can combine it with the amount of the delay/increment as well, so much the better.
Oh? And why wouldn’t it be possible (and perhaps even desirable) to have both a 5-second delay and a 30-second increment?
My older-model Chronos (with a switch on the bottom) has such a mode. It’s called DL-CU (delay, move count, unlimited). It was intended for something like 40/120, then 20/60 indefinitely (no sudden death), with a 5-second delay throughout. But there’s no reason it couldn’t be set, for example, for 1/90, then 1/0:30, with d/5, effectively giving you G/90, inc/30, d/5 – and with the move-count displayed to boot.
Anyway, let’s keep delay and increment as two separate fields (but not for the above reason 
). It’s simply less confusing.
Bill Smythe
Oh, for chrissake.
Someone would do that, too, just to be difficult, wouldn’t they?
You appear to understand chess players rather well. 
If you click on the ‘help’ link toward the top of the page on the online editing form, it does give a number of examples under the Time Control field of acceptable syntax.
BTW, I checked and the validation program does recognize 30/30, SD/30 as a dual ratable time control.
Actually, I seem to remember that somebody as prestigious as Prof. Kenneth Sloan – in some post far, far away and long, long ago – suggested precisely this idea.
Bill Smythe
Exactly the sort of person I’d expect.