Our club needed a couple more digital chess clocks. One of our players gave us $40 toward them, so I started looking online at the usual chess supply sites. What I found on Amazon was the Leap clock (marketed also as a Wholesale Chess product) for $18 ea. delivered. The same clock on the chess specific sites was around $22 ea.
The clocks are quite good for the price and what they do. The digital readout is large enough and quite clear. A friend and I tried one for a game. His eyesight isn’t the best when dealing with digital readouts, but he had no difficulties with this one. The clock will do straight time or time with bonus or delay. The only thing it won’t do is more than one time period. While it does default to the last time used, it has no presets as such.
All in all, a good value in a basic clock that does what the dgt Easy+ does for close to twice the price.
I would think the inability to do multiple controls would be a serious drawback. A more upscale Leap model would probably be preferable.
But, if you’re going to buy a bunch of them for your club, and furnish them at tournaments you run, and your club never uses multiple controls, it might be a halfway decent deal.
I bought some on Amazon as well. some from Wholesale Chess and some directly from the manufacturer in China. the manufacturer included [for the same price] a really nice cloth bag for the clock.
Out of curiosity how difficult would it be to use a clock like this for additional time controls manually? (Like with the old analog clocks, simply add time once time control has been reached.)
I wouldn’t use these clocks for any tournament with multiple periods/time controls. That said, they would be appropriate for tournaments where time controls are a anything from blitz to G-60 with delays or increments. I think that covers a good percentage of tournaments in our post-classical age.
Just try one and find out. It’d be just like a mid-game time adjustment, e.g. to apply a 2-minute penalty. On the DGT NA, for example, it’s pretty easy, but a lot of people don’t seem to know how to do it. First pause the clock (if it isn’t already paused), then press pause again but hold it in till it starts blinking, then you’re on your way.
But I still don’t know how easy it is. For all I know it might be more difficult than on the DGT NA (which allows multiple controls anyway). If you can get ahold of one, try it out and see (or maybe Micah Smith will jump in here).
I wouldn’t run any classical time control tournaments with any sort of decent pot with only one time control. But for blitz, quick… and any tournament that’s only playing a single game a week over a period of time would be sufficient, as long as the pot was minimal, like the winner getting half the sum of the entry fees.
That leaves a lot of options on the table if your not concerned with multiple time controls.
Multiple time controls are an anachronism, a vestige of the time when we still did adjournments and the analogue clock was king. They are still used in two+ day tournaments with big money prizes. However, in one day events, there is usually only one time control for a round. The trend is to speed up the game to get 4 or more rounds in one day completed and rated. On the local level, I see fewer two day events, and even these events sport only one time control session.
Back in the dinosaur days of the early 1970’s, players often were required to reset their clocks after a first time control if the secondary time control was less than one hour. Analogue clocks were easy to set, but TDs often had to set a few clocks when neither player trusted that the right time would be set by the opponent. With today’s digital clocks, some players are confused when the additional time does not automatically add when the final move of the time control is made. Players with under 5 minutes continue to rush moves because they have an incomplete scoresheet and are not sure when the extra time will be added. In tournaments with a secondary time control of only 30 minutes or less, players are frustrated that they do not have enough time to fill in the missing moves as precious minutes are spent making sure to have an exact score.
The Leap clock is fine. It is inexpensive and easier to set than it appears. It is also more stylish than some of the boxes and stubby clocks on the market. Kids seem to like it more than the other clocks. My preference is still for the DGT NA which has both delay and increment settings, uses AA batteries, and is impossible to tip. As for some of the other cheaper clocks, you get what you pay for.
If the DGT 1002 is very similar to the DGT 1001 then I’ll consider an analog clock more standard. If the Leap has the same limitations, then I’d rule the same way. The DGT 1001 should ONLY be used when there is no other clock available.
the dgt 1002 is similar in function to the dgt Easy + and the folding “pocket” timer that dgt makes. It has one period with the ability to have a delay or bonus. The 1001 is comparable to an analogue clock. I’d like to see a return to analogue clocks in tournaments. Want to organize an analogue tournament?
