I wonder how many games in that Norway event went beyond 60 moves?
The Excalibur was overtaken by more capable clocks more than two decades ago. It’s time to buy a new clock.
I still have received no response from the OP regarding the following two questions:
Can anybody else answer these questions about the Excalibur? (Preferably somebody who actually owns one and has extensive experience with it.) And, if this limitation exists, even in the most recent versions of this clock, does it apply to bonus (cumulative time added), or to delay (non-cumulative time added), or to both?
Enquiring minds want to know.
Bill Smythe
I am pretty sure the OP was talking about CCA’s new 30-second delay time control. His TD record indicates he is heavily involved in online rated play, which in my experience means exclusively increment rather than delay. That might explain the confusion.
The Excalibur Game Time II has not been produced in years, as far as I know. I owned an Excalibur clock for many years, and can attest that it limits delay to 19 seconds, but supports increment of at least 30 seconds.
Until someone shows us otherwise, I think we can assume that all increment-capable clocks support at least 30 seconds of increment. Some or all Leap clocks limit both delay and increment to 59 seconds.
While newer and quieter clocks abound, one still sees Excalibur clocks at tournaments. In the unlikely event the USATE switches to 30-second delay someday, there will likely be a few disgruntled and confused players. Of course, they knew the time control and their clock’s capabilities going in.
Interestingly, I have a Game Time I (don’t use it any longer, but it was on the shelf) and it doesn’t do increment, but does delay up to 99 seconds. Seems very odd to do a step back to limit the delay to 19 if it was already able to do 99. (The only advantage I can even think of in a 19 second limit is that the first digit on the LCD only has to be 1 or 0/blank, but if you already engineered the display to show all lead digits, why would you go back?)
I have and still use a Game Time II and can confirm it has a 19 second limit on delay. Not that I knew that before this thread. If I were planning to go to an event with 30 second delay, the thought to check if mine went that high would never have occurred to me. I don’t think the assertion that players know their clock’s capabilities (or more relevantly, their limitations) is necessarily valid, especially when organizers try things which aren’t normally seen.
By any chance, does the newer Excalibur have a 3-and-a-half-digit display when the clock is running – 1-and-a-half for the delay, and 3 for the main time (h:mm if 10 minutes or more, m:ss if 9:59 or less)?
If so, they’d still have to limit the delay to 19 seconds, but with bonus (“increment”), there would be no such limitation, because the bonus is never displayed separately, it’s just added to the main time.
Maybe, when they added bonus, they needed to take away half a digit from the display, perhaps to make room for a separate character (or dot) to distinguish bonus from delay, or something like that?
Bill Smythe
Aha!! I now have the answer I have been looking for. Thank you, Eric!!
In that case, let me re-word the original poster’s question, to reflect that CCA tournaments are now using delay exclusively (instead of bonus):
The answers:
- You are not allowed to fiddle with the time control by cooking up an “equivalent”.
- You are not allowed to increase the main time to compensate for the lost seconds of delay time.
- You are not allowed to use bonus instead of delay if the announced control says delay.
Instead, you must follow the priority list supplied by another poster, suitably modified to reflect delay instead of bonus:
For example, you could set your clock for 40/80 d19; SD/30 d19.
And please don’t be sneaky. Let your opponent know, before the game, that your clock is not fully capable of being set for the announced control, and that, therefore, he has the right to furnish his clock instead.
It would also be good to tell the director, before the game starts, about your clock situation. Who knows, maybe the director will be able to lend you a suitable clock.
Bill Smythe
In the Excalibur the delay is in its own spot at the bottom of the screen. At the North American Open there was an Excalibur where the increment was not working so it was set (with the opponent’s knowledge) to the maximum of 19 seconds delay.
Is that the Excalibur 1 (not bonus-capable) or Excalibur 2 (bonus-capable)? wintdoan and I are still trying to figure out why the delay capacity was reduced from 2 digits to 1-and-a-half digits between the two models.
Also, is “its own spot at the bottom” where the delay appears while the clock is running, or where the delay appears while the clock is being set? If the two locations are different, that could explain something.
Also, on the Excalibur 2, does the bonus (when the clock is being set) appear in the same place as the delay would appear (when the clock is being set)? Obviously, when the clock is running, the bonus is not displayed at all, it is just added to the main time.
Also, how do you choose between bonus and delay on the Excalibur 2? And, when the clock is running, is there an indicator anywhere to tell you whether bonus or delay is in effect?
I figure if I ask enough annoying and amateurish questions, I’ll eventually get the answers I want, without having to (somehow) obtain specimens of both models.
Oh, and one more question. When the Excalibur is running, is main time displayed as 3 digits (h:mm if 10 minutes or more, m:ss if 9:59 or less), or 4 digits (h:mm if 1 hour or more, mm:ss if 59:59 or less), or 3-and-a-half digits (h:mm if 20 minutes or more, mm:ss if 19:59 or less)?
And, are the answers to the above the same on both models of the Excalibur?
Bill Smythe
Only answering for clocks able to do both.
bonus capabble for my answers
Delay is displayed and set on the bottom
Bonus is a separate setting location when bonus/accum is chosen
You set the delay on the bottom and turn on the delay with another setting later in the sequence.
You turn on the bonus setup with another setting even later and when that is turned on then the option fo r entering the number of bonus seconds pops up. There is still a later set of prompts for actually turning on each of delay and bonus
The main time is displayed as mmm if 10 minutes or more and m:ss if less than 10, but there is an option to also have a small seconds display on each side when the time is 10 minutes or more while the delay area in the bottom center is used for whichever player is on move
Actually, I find it odd, but otherwise don’t care.
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