Three strikes? (SD time control issues)

Running Chess Tournaments
1

Something Sevan Muradian posted to FB about a dispute in a SD rated game made me think. I will let Sevan detail the situation, if he wishes, but a player down to his last few seconds (and no longer recording moves) flagged and lost, even though the position was repeated many (>3) times, because:

  1. It was a SD time control: G/60

  2. There was no delay or increment

  3. It was announced that no 14H/ILC claims were allowed.

  4. The player did not realize he could stop the clock to summon a TD.

We cannot do much about the last one. Some players will never grasp the rules on making claims in SD time pressure, after players stop keeping score. Plus even for players who do know the rules, it’s tough to think straight in brutal time pressure.

However, maybe it’s time to say: For all Regular-rated games in which the ultimate time control is SD, there must be either: A. increment or delay; or B. access to ILC claims. Tournaments with a final SD control that do not allow either of these chaos-defusing solutions will not be rated.

Call it the three strikes rule. The combination of SD; no delay/increment; and no 14H/ILC is so unsound it’s outta here.

What do you think? I do not like over-regulation, of which some might say we have too much already. OTOH: This brings back bad memories of the early days of rated SD chess, in the late '80s/early '90s. It was not pretty. First we had the highly imperfect solution of ILC, then along came the much better though still not perfect delay/increment function, with affordable clocks that supported it.

Why someone would organize a tournament that eliminates both of them, I dunno. On a side note, it also raises the question of whether a delay-capable digital clock would be preferred over an analog in a zero-delay SD event.

I would likely vote yea for a motion that made such chaos-by-design un-rateable. Thoughts?

2

I will not vote yea for any motion which forces the use of 14H.

3

It goes against the philosophy that organizers are allowed to use variations of the rules in their tournaments as long as the variations are properly announced and/or posted. Players who don’t like playing in events with sudden death time controls, no delay and no 14H claims can vote with their feet and not play in those tournaments.

4

Yea me! My FB post got brought up! :slight_smile:

Players need to learn and use the rules. Period. Little kids can do it. Old guys and gals can do it. Can’t think straight in brutal time controls. Tough tamales that’s part of the game.

However, maybe it’s time to say: For all Regular-rated games in which the ultimate time control is SD, there must be either: A. increment or delay; or B. access to ILC claims. Tournaments with a final SD control that do not allow either of these chaos-defusing solutions will not be rated.

Call it the three strikes rule. The combination of SD; no delay/increment; and no 14H/ILC is so unsound it’s outta here.

Yes it’s over-regulation

Well it could be to create chaos because chaos in chess is fun. A lot of upsets happened in this event. This is how chess used to be remember. I guess you can say we evolved but sometimes its fun to become a caveman…

Also for this tournament it was a memorial event for one of the longtime chess organizers, teachers, friends of the game. He created odd time control games - game/17, etc.

On a side note, it also raises the question of whether a delay-capable digital clock would be preferred over an analog in a zero-delay SD event.

Many of us would fight it tooth and nail if this ADM came up. It takes away our right as an organizer. Players can choose not to play if they want to send a signal that they don’t want to. Apparently 89 of them didn’t signal they don’t want to play. Could perhaps be that it was a memorial tournament and/or there was $4,000 at stake…

5

Ditto.

6

Yep, I see the point—and I could make the same argument myself, in debate class. Still, I found the worst experiences of SD rated chess in the first few years after it was approved and before digital clocks came along to be so depressing that I never want to see it again. Especially true in G/30 and the zone that now gets Dual-rated.

Remember, there was reason that SD was not approved for rated chess (at the time there was one rating system) for so long, and only after much debate. To me, turning back the clock for “fun” chess would mean the exact opposite: An event with no SD at all, something like 40/90 followed by 30/60 or 40/60 forever, adjournments possible though we try hard to avoid them, analog clocks and only paper scoresheets. I might even use descriptive notation, if I remember how.

Of course, that would take more than one day to play. Oh, well. Anyway, I am glad there was a nice turnout for the memorial event. As far as I know I never met the late gentleman who was honored; perhaps someone who knew him well could comment on whether the seemingly strange time control policy was something he had used himself or would have approved of.

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Tom was known for odd time controls. Many of his old students were there as were old friends.

I think he’d give it two thumbs up…

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As it happens, one of my ADMs is designed to address this situation. The five-fold repetition rule.

Note that many blitz tournaments are run with these three conditions.

Alex Relyea

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Did the game have no delay because the organizer specified d0, or because the players failed to provide a delay-capable clock?

If the latter, I have absolutely no sympathy. Delay capable clocks have been standard for two decades now. Players who fail to use them deserve the consequences.

EDIT I have only slightly more sympathy if the lack of delay was specified, because the entrant is charged with knowledge of what he’s getting into. Then again, 14H6 (no 14H claims) was made an option in the days when the standard delays were understood and universal. Does the analysis change if d0 is permitted?

10

The other question Eric posed as not received any comments. I would argue that the digital clock is still preferable to the analog even if there is no delay, because you can guarantee the time was equal at the start of the game and you can see how much time you have left more precisely during the game. Absence of delay does not remove those benefits.

11

The TLA specified no delay—4-SS, Game/60 d0. That’s sort of my point. Had there been a five-second delay specified, and players still chose to use analog clocks, or failed to set the delay on a digital, or notice that the opponent failed to set it, etc…then I too would have little sympathy. If they chose to play in a no-delay event but could at least fall back on ILC like the bad old days of SD, then OK, everyone knows the deal. But here the non-use of 14H/ILC was not listed in the TLA. That is fine by itself: 14H6 was put in place to further deprecate ILC and make clear that not allowing it is but a minor variant—but that supposed there would be a delay or increment available instead, for those with digital clocks.

One more point is that, if I understand correctly—and I might not, I was not in the same time zone—no TD watched the game as the position repeated many times. Thus, the FIDE five-fold rule that will come before the Delegates this year could not be applied. Understandable: There were two or three TDs to cover 40 or 45 boards, from what I gather. (And again, if Sevan or Tim or anyone knows better, please correct me.)

So, the player who had the pawn-down side of a drawn K+R vs. K+R+a-pawn ending had no delay, no increment, no access to ILC, and no TD watching the game as the position repeated itself. The only recourse he had was to stop the clock, find a TD and request that the TD observe for repetition—and by then he might have been so low on time that he would have flagged before three more repetitions anyway.

Apparently this player did not realize he had the right to stop the clock, (his opponent might not have realized that either, which might have added to the fun had the clock been stopped), and in any case I am not sure I would have thought clearly enough to do that myself under that much clock pressure—and I have wasted, er, spent more time than I should have studying stuff like this.

Yep, it’s true this is how chess used to be back in the day—the dark days of rated chess, aka the first few years of ratable SD, especially G/30, before ILC got cobbled together and delay-digital clocks came along. Both the days before then and since then were/are far better.

None of which detracts from the laudable effort to organize a fun tournament to honor a worthy departed chess friend…but I doubt the guy who lost on time as described here felt that much fun got put back into his chess life.

12

That is correct, just Glenn Panner and myself…

And this was the point of it… we realize this won’t be the norm but when it is done there should be no over regulation of the matter… people can choose not to play if it’s not their cup of tea…

13

OK. Sorry if I came off too harsh on this particular event, to make a general point. Yep, I would be one of the ones voting with my tootsies not to play in any Regular-rated event that featured the trifecta of SD; no delay/increment; and no 14H/ILC.

Flashbacks to 1989 are not all bad, but in this case…

14

You raise valid points… and we realize you’re not coming down on the event itself…

but c’mon sometimes the clocking punch chaos is fun to watch… :smiling_imp:

15

If this had come up before the deadline for submitting ADMs I would have submitted an ADM to amend the last sentence of 14H6 to say “This variation must be announced in all detailed publicity” instead of “This variation does not need to be announced in advance.” How can players vote with their feet if they don’t know in advance that ILC claims won’t be allowed?

16

I won’t argue about the lack of delay, increment, & no 14h. What I will suggest is that maybe since these conditions applied an announcement should have been made. Specifically I am thinking how at many (scholastic) chess tournaments it is sometimes announced for the newbies that the tournament is not elimination. If they lose in the first round they do not go home, but play more games. Similarly maybe there should have been an announcement made about the player’s right to request a TD to observe for a draw in a SD situation with less than 5 minutes.

Maybe someone will consider the idea of a motion to require this announcement if there is to be no 14H, no increment, & no delay.

Larry S. Cohen

PS: I didn’t play in the event due to the G/60 time control. The delay issue had nothing to do with it. I just historically have always done bad at G/60, so I stopped playing in such events a long time ago.

17

An announcement might have been a good idea but I don’t think it should be required by the rules. That would be micromanagement.

18

I agree.

19

Tom Fineberg was never big on increment or delay. He never explicitly announced any delay in his TLAs. His events took place in olden times, before it became more or less standard practice to announce the delay in pre-event publicity.

As I recall, Tom would reduce the main time by 2 minutes (not 3) whenever anybody showed up with a clock set for a 3-second delay. (All his events were quick-rated.)

And Tom’s round 1 announcement would always go something like “Time control is game in 17 minutes, unless you have one of those new-fangled digital thingies, in which case the control will be 15 minutes with a 3-second delay.”

Tom’s time controls were always calculated based on the number of rounds, so that he could wrap up the tournament before the park district fieldhouse closed at 5 pm. I think he might have used 29 minutes for a 3-rounder, 23 minutes for a 4-rounder, 17 minutes for a 5-rounder, and 13 minutes for a 6-rounder, or something like that.

I considered staying away from this memorial tournament because of the lack of a delay or increment. But my fond memories of Tom Fineberg won the day for me. I didn’t do well in the tournament, but not because of d0. In fact, d0 allowed me to save a draw in a dead lost position against an opponent in time trouble when he overlooked a stalemate shot.

Bill Smythe