Time control spec in Running Your First Tournament doc

Running Chess Tournaments
21

In the rulebook
5B2. The organizer is to indicate the time control, including the delay or increment, in all advance publicity as minutes (mm) and seconds (ss). For example, G/90 inc/30 (or +30); G/30 d/5; G/10 d/3; G/5 d/0.

This wording was considered a bit confusing. It can be read as either requiring the time control in all advance publicity, or it can be read as requiring any advance publicity that happens to have the time control to have it in minutes and seconds with delay and/or increment specified. I thought that the original intent of this rule was to change time controls like 40/2, SD/1 (when the 2 or 1 are hours even though some would wonder if they were minutes) to instead be listed as 40/120;d5, SD/60

Passed by the delegates
5B2. In all advance publicity which specifies the time control, the organizer is
to indicate the full time control, including the delay or increment, as minutes
(mm) and seconds (ss), e.g. G/90 inc/30 (or +30); G/30 d5; G/10 d3; G/5 d0.
The time control must be specified in Tournament Life Announcements and
should be specified in other publicity such as flyer mailings, email and on web
sites. It is acceptable for abbreviated publicity to refer the reader to more
complete tournament details posted elsewhere.

22

On page 7 of the January edition of Chess Life, the All Girls Nationals is advertized and it states that the main tournament is G/90 and the Blitz is G/5 without stating the delay or increment.

23

Thanks to Terry for splitting out this topic (and for an impressive and effective early tenure as moderator–his efforts have made this a more pleasant place to be, in my view).

To the topic at hand:

Micah identifies a prime example of the extent to which the automatic presumption of the standard delay settings still persists.

If the presumption is making it into Chess Life advertising for national events after two years of intensive education efforts, perhaps we (organizationally) have complicated matters well beyond the point where they needed to be complicated.

24

Thank you for pointing out the incorrect All Girls Nationals ad in the January Chess Life. They have submitted a corrected ad which will appear in the February issue.

Regards,

Dan Lucas
USCF Director of Publications

25

wrong

26

Thank you all for suggesting “the post by Bill Smythe” as the one to read.

Unfortunately, that post was in another thread, from which this thread was spun off. I can’t even find it myself, nor do I remember what I said that was so perfect and wise. Maybe somebody could point me (and everybody else) to it.

Anyway, back to the original point of this spun-off thread:

Granted, that’s not the grammatically clearest sentence in the universe, but instead of harping on sentence construction, I’d prefer we all have a serious discussion about the point Micah was trying to make.

It is completely obvious to me what Micah’s point is. A better wording might have been:

Also, later in the document it says “Some common time controls are Game/30, Game/60, and Game/90”. But these time control specifications are incomplete, because they specify neither the delay nor the increment nor the lack of either. Current rules for TLAs require that any time control information include explicit mention of the delay or increment. USCF documents designed to aid the beginning TD should reflect USCF’s own rules for TLAs.

And how could anybody argue with that? The document should say something like “Some common time controls are Game/30 d5, Game/60 inc/30, and Game/5 d0”. That way, all three options – delay, increment, and neither – are exemplified.

Now, I can’t really blame anybody for not having every possible document updated completely. It’s like computer programming – the program is created before the user documentation is written, because the program must be there in order to have something to document. Still, it’s good that somebody – like Micah – is keeping an eye out for these things.

I’m sure there are dozens of TLAs with out-of-spec time control information. Somebody needs to go over all the TLAs to catch these. Unfortunately, that may be easy to say, but hard to do, as personpower is hard to come by these days.

Bill Smythe

27

OK :slight_smile:

28

You are welcome! :smiley:

Seriously, the delegates did not want to tell an organizer that they could not post a flyer saying, basically, “come to the chess tournament” or a small ad directing folks to where all the tournament details were listed.

29

In fact, if my memory serves correctly, this very issue was discussed as part of Mr. Messenger’s ADM at the most recent Delegates’ meeting regarding rule 5B2. In its original wording, Mr. Messenger’s motiion would have had the effect Mr. Winchester describes. Again, if memory serves me correctly (and we all know memory is the second thing to go), discussion in the rules workshop led to modification of the motion to have the effect Mr. Priest describes.

30

Your memory is dead on correct Ken.

31

I thought my ADM was amended at the Rules Workshop, but rule 5B2 in the 6th edition Rulebook Changes document is identical to my ADM as shown in the Delegates Call. Does anyone know where the minutes of the 2014 Delegates Meeting are posted?

Here is my original ADM:

My intention was to clarify that if the time control is specified in tournament publicity then the delay or increment needs to be indicated, but as a result of comments in the forum I also added a requirement for the time control to be specified in at least some tournament publicity, including TLAs. Under the rule as I originally wrote it, you could say “come to the chess tournament” but you should add “see Chess Life for details” or something similar. I thought this was amended at the Rules Workshop to say that the time control should be specified in at least some advance publicity but not necessarily all, but I’ve forgotten the exact wording.

32

Good point–one may claim their posts are easy to understand. And for them, given their various experiences they may be. But,
if the point of posts is to communicate, then for whatever reason
if the posts are not understood as we intended, are we communicating?? And, thus, is he author achieving anything
by his original posts??

Rob Jones

33

That would be

viewtopic.php?p=286536#p286536

34

Thank you! That post discussed what to do with unrated players in quads.

Bill Smythe

35

In the information about the 2015 spring nationals given here, uschess.org/content/view/10014/624/, it states the Family and Friends tournament is “G/30” but doesn’t state the delay or increment.

36

Yep. Twice in a month, and both times in the USCF’s own national events.

Do you think this might show that we fixed something that wasn’t broken? I miss the days where we could impute d5 and be done with it. The argument that you need the delay to know the rating system is specious. Use the standard delay to make that determination, and put the onus on those using nonstandard (or no) delay to make the disclosure. Don’t complicate everyone’s life just because someone out there wants to do something unusual.

37

The trouble with that idea is that the delay determines the event type, and the event type determines the standard delay.

For example, should “G/29” (with no mention of delay) be interpreted to mean “G/29 d3”, which would make it regular rather than quick, which in turn would mean it should have been interpreted as “G/29 d5” all along, which in turn would still (and even more so) be interpreted as regular rather than quick, even though in all probability the organizer intended his “G/29” to be quick?

What about “G/25”? In all likelihood the organizer intended “G/25 d5” making it regular.

So if we go by what the organizer “probably” intended, we come to the absurd conclusion that “G/29” should be assumed quick but “G/25” should be assumed regular.

To avoid these kinds of absurdities and uncertainties, it is absolutely necessary for USCF to insist that the delay (or increment) be explicitly stated, even if it is zero.

It is also a matter of truth in advertising, and of making sure everybody (organizers and players) is (are) on the same page.

Bill Smythe

38

Oh no! Our state quick championships (which I’ve organized since 2009) use quick ratings and are G/25;d3. Sorry if I confused anyone.

Alex Relyea

39

Agreed, it did. This is something that should have been fixed when the rule was changed, but wasn’t.

I’d propose standard d5 for base times of 30 minutes or greater, standard d3 for base times of 11-29 minutes, and standard d2 for base times of 10 minutes or less. Switch d0 for d2 if you like, but whichever standard delay we choose, the other one ought to be removed from the rulebook (yet another discrepancy that comes with activist rulemaking and inattention to detail). The rating system is then what it is.

The truth in advertising argument is the most credible argument I’ve heard for the present rule, but I’m not sure we really had a truth in advertising problem when standard delays were de jure. That’s because the standard delays were ingrained in players’ and organizers’ conditioning.

And they are still quite ingrained, as evidenced by publicity for USCF National Events in USCF media. If the Federation can’t get its own rule right, it certainly can’t expect organizers to.

I submit that’s because it’s an unnecessary rule to begin with. The standard worked and can still work, and we’re complicating everyone’s experience by requiring the majority who follow the standards to change longtime and universally understood practices to benefit a few people who want to do something weird. Let those who do weird things be burdened with describing those things.

40

I would expect G/25 to have d3 if nothing were specified, as G/25 has been traditionally quick, and d3 is the standard for those controls that have traditionally been quick.

G/25 d5 is a relatively recent innovation used by one particular organizer who didn’t like the delegates telling him he couldn’t reduce the base time in minutes by the delay in seconds. It’s a nonstandard practice. I have no problem with letting him use a nonstandard practice, but don’t change the way the world expresses such things simply so he can do something nonstandard.