Hypothetical scenario; two players are in the end game of their match and are using a time delay clock set at 3 seconds, (or what have you), and each player has 1 minute remaining time. In the last 5 minutes of the game they don’t have to record their moves and so a draw can’t be called using the 50 move rule, but neither player wants to accept a draw and just continues to make their move in less than 3 seconds and so their clock doesn’t subtract any time.
It would seem such a game using a time delay clock could literally go on forever.
Thank you for your response. I ask this question because I can see this happening during a game using a time delay clock. For a player using a time delay clock that has the ability and/or practice to play speed chess well vs a player who doesn’t play speed chess well, this seems to be an unfair advantage provided to the speed chess experienced player in a game that doesn’t have speed chess time controls.
I think it’s the exact opposite. If a player doesn’t play speed chess as well, he greatly benefits from the three seconds before his clock starts running.
Adjournment. See pages 72-78 in the rulebook for details. One technique for pairing the adjourned game is for the TD to ask both players privately what they are play for in that game (Win? Draw?) and pair them accordingly. If they are both playing for a draw then some TDs declare the game over and the result is a draw. (I suppose now-a-days one could argue that both players playing for a draw is an implied draw offer.)
Tall tails and legends: Allegedly, one TD faced with this situation simply declared the game a draw using the 1000 move rule (no such rule). Everyone seemed happy.
IMHO, this situation could happen; however, it is extremely rare and probably not worth making the rulebook any fatter.
To me, this argues for the superiority of increment over delay. With a reasonable increment, say 30 seconds (which has become relatively standard), neither player need be excused from recording the moves.
Ron,
When replacing delay time controls with increment. The key question is how many moves does it take for the two time controls to take the same amount of wall clock time. The equation is moves = (12/5)delta, where delta is the amount of time subtracted from the delay time control and moves is the number of moves where they take the same amount of time. One could also go the other way and delta= (5/12)moves.
So, when you say that G/90, d/5 is the same as G60, i/30, that’s only true at 72 moves. For any shorter game, the increment time control is faster. As Bill G. has said, the problem is that you have to plan the time between rounds based on a long game while the average game will have less time than it would with delay.
My friend and the other certified TD in the area, Wayne, has argued that the increment with the lowered base time actually gives the players less time for their game. It makes a lot of sense because with a lowered base time, the players do not have as much time for longer “thinks” earlier in the game. The players need to move quicker in the early parts of the game in order to accumulate enough time for longer “thinks”.
When comparing G/90, d/5s versus G/60, i/30s, the first 12 moves shows a total thinking time available as being 91 minutes in the delay option versus 66 minutes in the increment one. I have seen some masters go into long thinks in the first 12 moves before. Doing so with the increment could very well put a person short on time early in the game with only a 30 sec increment per move for them to attempt a time recovery.
Let’s see the total time comparisons:
Moves Delay Increment
12 91 min 66 min
24 92 min 72 min
36 93 min 78 min
48 94 min 84 min
60 95 min 90 min
72 96 min 96 min
With most games lasting well under 60 moves, the increment does give less thinking time for most games than the delay. With an average of games lasting 48 moves or less, the players have at least 10 minutes of less thinking time for their side of the game.
The other problem I see is that we dual rate the G/30, G/45 and G/60 (all with d/5s). Using a 30 second increment even with a reduced base time invalidates the option for dual rating.
There also is a scheduling concern as a TD. In our Saturday events of 4 rounds, we currently use G/80, d/5s. If we use 60 moves as our move number equalizer, this would give us a time control with increment of G/55, i/30s. If one game goes 80 moves that would add another 20 minutes to the total game time. This could very well put the tournament behind schedule.
From what I have seen by us playing with the times ourselves and what I have read, it appears the increment is best used for events with only 1 and maybe 2 games per day. This puts our weekend events of 4 round Saturday and 5 round Saturday and Sunday, outside of the grasp of reality for scheduling.
I don’t understand why this is so, and why anyone should care. If you do up to GAME/35 with a 30 second increment, it will be dual rated. Would anyone care if the tournament were just regular rated?
There is no ‘option’ for dual rating, and NEVER SHOULD HAVE BEEN, had the office implemented what the Delegates passed in 2000 properly. (This improper implementation was corrected in 2005.)
In 2012, if MM+SS, the minutes of clock time per player (MM) plus the seconds of delay/increment time (SS), is between 30 and 65, that section is dual-rated. Period.
Thus G/30+30 would be dual rated, as would G/35+30, but G/45+30 would be regular-rated only.
