Most popular increment time controls

All Things Chess
1

Would it be possible to get a list of what the most popular increment time controls are?

Thanks!

2

It might help if you offered some parameters. OTB or online? Blitz, Quick-only, Dual or Regular-only? Adult or Youth event? Grand Prix only?

3

Any OTB increment time control.

4

Surely you understand that a blitz events are likely to use something like +2 while dual/regular ones are more likely to use something like +5 and time controls of +15 or more are either impossible or very unlikely in anything but regular-only events?

Maybe you can find someone else to answer your question.

5

Iā€™m aware of this.

My question was asking what the most popular increment time controls are with the base time and increment, like G/90;inc30 and G/3;inc2.

6

Now it sounds like a lot of work, and Iā€™m not sure how the information would benefit anybody.

7

Iā€™m asking for a clock manufacturer Iā€™m currently assisting.

8

Then the clock manufacturer should request that information from the office.

9

Define popular, too.
o By games played
o Number of Sections that featured it
o Different affiliates/locations (a concentration by a single affiliate may skew popularity)
ā€¦

10

Thanks, youā€™ve been a big help Mike!

11

By the number of games played.

12

If itā€™s just for coming up with standard clock settings to offer, the list that pops up when you enter an event manually is probably a good starting point.

It looks like the timecontrol field in the section table has 234 different values, and thatā€™s just for events rated since 11/1/25.

Hereā€™s the list in descending order by ratings system and usage for those that have appeared 25 or more times:

timecontrol,ratingsystem,count
G/25;d5,D,5147
G/30;d5,D,2318
G/45;d5,D,972
G/40;d5,D,810
G/25;+5,D,773
G/60;d5,D,705
G/20;+10,D,639
G/90;+30,R,606
G/30;+5,D,347
G/3;+2,B,321
G/10;d2,OQ,291
G/7,OB,226
G/45;+5,D,209
G/30;d0,D,206
G/90;d5,R,191
G/3;+2,OB,182
G/5;d0,B,178
G/5,OB,172
G/15;d0,Q,163
G/60;+30,R,150
G/24;+5,Q,142
G/20;d5,Q,140
G/55;d5,D,133
G/10;d0,B,120
ā€œ40/80,SD/30;d30ā€,R,120
G/25;+10,D,119
G/15;+3,Q,114
G/60;d10,R,113
G/15;d5,Q,113
G/45;+10,D,109
G/65;d5,R,104
G/25;+5,OR,101
G/15;+15,OR,99
G/50;d5,D,94
G/60;+5,D,90
G/75;d5,R,85
G/30,D,81
G/15;+10,OQ,78
G/10;d2,Q,76
G/10;+5,Q,75
G/10,OB,70
G/3;d2,B,70
G/15;d3,Q,67
ā€œ30/90,SD/30;+30ā€,R,65
G/5;+2,OB,65
G/60;+10,R,64
G/30;+10,D,60
G/15;+5,Q,57
G/10;d5,Q,57
G/30;+5,OR,54
G/5;+2,B,53
G/10;+1,Q,52
G/90;d10,R,52
G/40;+5,D,50
G/5,B,49
G/30;+15,D,45
G/15;+10,Q,45
G/90;+10,R,45
G/65;d10,R,44
G/85;+10,R,42
G/10;+5,OQ,42
G/5;d2,B,40
G/30;d10,D,40
G/110;+10,R,39
G/45;+15,D,37
G/5;+3,B,37
G/80;+10,R,35
G/5;+3,OB,35
G/10;+10,Q,34
G/15;+2,Q,34
G/10;+2,Q,34
G/80;d5,R,34
G/35;+10,D,34
G/70;d10,R,33
G/15;d0,OQ,31
G/70;+10,R,31
G/24;d5,Q,30
G/35;d5,D,29
G/26;+5,D,29
G/20;+5,Q,28
ā€œ40/80,15/30;d0ā€,R,27
G/70;d5,R,26
G/25;d3,Q,26

1 Like
13

Our club has run, since 11/1/2025ā€¦33 events with G/15;d0, so good to know weā€™re only 1/5th of the nationwide use of that time control.

14

Iā€™m curious: Did you mean that it is good to know that others also think 15-0 is good and you thought only your group thinks it is good? Over the years I have seen comments from others that come close to saying that delay is the worst thing USCF ever did to time controls.

I have grown to hate +0 ā€“ in my youth I got scolded by club elders (that meant anyone over 35 years old) for once winning a 5-0 blitz game in a dead lost position and not resigning (poor sportsmanship). I openly commented that I thought I was winning because I knew he most likely could not physically move his pieces fast enough to complete to checkmate and the clock was just as important as the static position on the board.

I actually might still play in +0 and get an advantage in position and time and still lose on time when trying to mop up ā€“ I just donā€™t care about the final result in those cases.

I was hoping to see G/3;+7 or G/14;+15 on the list :wink:

When Quick chess became a thing, I thought it was such a good idea and that we would all be running Quick Only type events all the time ā€“ perhaps more than the all day classic events. The length of classic events often stopped club players from participating regularly. boy did I misjudge that. If I had to guess Iā€™d say 90+% donā€™t care about their quick rating.

15

How much of that is because organizers tend to use regular ratings even for quick events?

Iā€™m not sure how much the US Chess office cares about quick ratings either. As a super-senior Iā€™m markedly worse at quick chess, and almost always perform below my Quick floor. I have inquired twice about whether there is a process for lowering my quick floor, and I did not get a reply either time.

16

As far as I know, requests for a lowered quick floor would follow procedures similar to a request for a lowered regular OTB floor. How did you make the request?

At the moment it is a bit cumbersome to put in lowered floors because we donā€™t have a tool to enter/edit them on MUIR yet. (Itā€™s in the pipeline.)

The old ratings system had the ability to do a ā€˜test rerateā€™ on a playerā€™s events with a lowered floor to estimate the impact it would have. That feature has not been replicated in MUIR.

17

Iā€™m glad to know other people are playing quick (and specifically 15 minute), as lord knows looking at the monthly activity reports itā€™s clear that quick is not well loved.

Regarding delay, I prefer d2 or d5 rather than +0 in the abstract, but in this case the club has been running at 15/0 for over a decade so inertia has kicked in.

Clearly up to the individual. I play at least 3 times as many quick games as regular games, so I believe that my quick rating is my most accurate rating and that regular is always going to lag quick.

18

I mean, we definitely use quick ratings for our quick events for anyone that has oneā€¦and I havenā€™t seen anyone else around running quick events using regular ratings, mostly because I havenā€™ts seen anyone else around running quick events (although now there is one not far away running 15/d2).

19

We have zero quick rated only that are meant for adults. However, most are fast enough to be dual rated. Anything less than G/50 and folks start saying no thanks - especially the older folks. I donā€™t think anyone has asked me to do one in 20 years and the times I did do them it was because of time constraints on the site.

20

I am by no means young but my favorite time control is G/40;d5. You canā€™t do that really every week though so I do really like G/15.