CCA (Continental Chess Association) is now using 10 second delay for most of its tournaments. What do you think about 10 second delay as opposed to the standard 5 second delay? Do you think 10 second delay will become the new standard?
I don’t like it. It seems to be a “neither fish nor fowl” time control. 5 second delay seems like it only exists to avoid 14H problems, that is losing (or drawing) when you have a trivially won position. I prefer, and for games with reasonable time controls use, a 30 second increment. That at least makes it very difficult to lose on time if you have a position that is at least playable. Something in the middle makes no sense to me. I would prefer the 30 second increment to become standard, at least for multi-day events.
Alex Relyea
Alex,
I agree that 30" increment is the best. It is just that Bill doesn’t like increment.
A long delay is a problem for some clocks like the Blue Saiteks. They don’t show the clock time during the delay period. That leads to lots of confusion.
Mike
If the players like it and more people participate in CCA events because of it, I predict that 10 second delay will become the new standard. Successful directors most likely will follow a winning trend.
There is a logic behind Bill Goichberg’s preference for delay. You can get the occasional game in increment controls that disrupts the start of the next round’s play. Since most of his FIDE rated sections are run at two rounds a day, he really wants to keep the maximum length of any game right around six hours. It’s much easier to do that with a delay time control, where time is not being accumulated per move.
That said, I preferred running CCA open sections with a 40/90+30i, SD/30+30i control. Those sections would typically wrap up in 4.5 to 5 hours, and since CCA events usually have 7 hours in between start times for rounds in the slowest schedules, that gives a lot more time for directors to get a playing hall reset and pairings up, and for players to eat and recharge, even if a game goes somewhat late. The large majority of the time, increment is no problem. The problem is when you get the occasional two-scoresheet monster under a 30-second increment.
I will note that, in this year’s London Chess Classic FIDE Open (which was just one round a day), one game on each of the last three days exceeded 100 moves. The longest game was 134 moves, IIRC. Two of these three games went well into the seventh hour of play, with one going exactly seven hours before GM Aaron Summerscale gave up trying to win R+N vs. R.
I suspect Bill Goichberg’s main objection to a 30-second increment is not the increment (as opposed to delay), so much as it is the 30 seconds (as opposed to 5 seconds, or now 10).
His typical argument has been that a long main control, combined with a short delay, shortens the games that most need to be shortened (i.e. the games with the greatest number of moves), while a shorter main control, combined with a longer delay (or a longer increment), tends to shorten the games that don’t need to be shortened (i.e. the games with a moderate number of moves).
There is a certain logic in this, in theory. But, in practice, I wonder how much difference it has ever made?
It reminds me of the old 175-move rule (any game using a delay was an automatic draw after 175 moves). This rule was introduced with the 4th edition, to combat the theoretical possibility of a game going on indefinitely because of the 5-second delay. But it never happened in practice (even Bill Goichberg himself couldn’t cite an example) so this rule was dropped from the 5th edition.
Bill Smythe
The 2012 Philadelphia Open provided a practical example where a game under increment controls in the afternoon round delayed an entire ballroom’s evening round start time.
A long running game should only delay the section that has that game. If other sections are waiting for that game to finish, then there’s a problem with the way the tournament is being run.
Mike Regan
I am sympathetic to not disturbing a game still in progress. On the other hand, the adjournment rules remain in both an appendix to the Laws of Chess and the main body of the USCF Rules for several reasons. Adjournment is an inherent possibility in any game without a sudden death time control, which a game with increment is.
This statement is obviously not universally true, especially in the case where multiple sections are being run in the same room. This is a standard setup in larger tournaments, in part because it takes less TD coverage for fewer rooms.
Adjournment is an anachronism for several good reasons - most of them silicon-based. I will never employ adjournment for anything short of an emergency.
I note that I expressed a preference for increment, but it has to do with the average session length being shorter, thus giving players and directors a little less time under the gun in a two-round-a-day format. I also prefer it for simplified rules regarding scorekeeping. However, when playing multiple rounds in a day, I see the reasoning behind a delay time control with longer base time.
I recently played in a tournament that was 2 rounds a day with the slightly unusual time control of 45/120, SD/60; d/5. I say slightly unusual because it is not FIDE compliant. Anyhow, the tournament publicity explicitly mentioned adjournment as a possibility. I don’t think that any game came close to thoughts of adjournment, though.
Alex Relyea
As usual, it should be reminded that David Bronstein was the originator of the idea of delay. Under his original formulation, players would use a 15 second delay. He did not like at all the idea of accumulation of time, the increment time system espoused by Fischer and taken up by FIDE. He said, “One should not get time for nothing.” See the book, “A Sorcerer’s Apprentice” for an interview of Bronstein on the subject. He did not like repetitions or adjournments.
He also suggested that instead of one long game, that there should be four games played as a mini-match, with a time control of Game 20, d15. You could get 4 games played within a 6 hour period. Your score would be in match wins with games won as a tie-breaker. Imagine playing 16 games in a 4 round tournament, or 36 games in a 9 round event! You could resign bad games rather than sit there for 5 hours becoming depressed defending a hopeless position. A fresh start would improve your mood. He felt that the mini-matches would be a truer test of players’ skill. A bad game or two would not be so decisive for the final result.
Had his views been adopted on the length of delay, the Fischer increment system would probably not have been adopted. The 5 second delay still leads to clock bashing. With 10 second delay we are making progress, though it takes time to get used to it. 15 seconds is better. Unfortunately, not all clocks are readable when delay or increment is used.
What clocks are not readable when increment is used? In all the clocks I’ve seen, the increment is added to the base time.
Alex Relyea
Alex,
I believe an example of what tmagchesspgh refers to clocks that are unreadable during delay/increment are the Saitek clocks (both blue and silver).
When a player is using the blue clock with a delay (5 seconds usual; 10 seconds with CCA; 30 seconds for our scholastic 45/30i and 90/30i sections using 30 second delay for increment), after the opponent presses the clock, a player’s clock only shows the delay counting down (which can get really annoying during a 30-second delay substituting for increment) - no one including the TD (myself) has any idea what that player’s base time is during that countdown. As mentioned, the Blue Saiteks cannot do increment.
When a player is using the silver Saitek clock, the same applies only for delay. With increment on the Silver Saitek (editing a FIDE tournament mode or using Fischer/Bonus), the base time is always shown.
Where this can be annoying to an opponent (Player B) is during time trouble - Player B may have to wait until the delay finishes counting down or waste the first few seconds of Player B’s own time to see Player A’s base time if Player A hits the clock before the delay finishes counting down.
The longer the delay (10 seconds or 15 seconds), the longer unavailability of base time.
BTW, the Z-Mart Fun II clocks, get around this by flashing alternately the number of seconds of delay remaining and the base time while counting down.
Chris Kim
ANTD
Ah. I don’t allow delay during my 30 second increment tournaments. My preferred control is 40/90, SD/30; +30. I say on all my publicity that analog clocks play 40/90, SD/60. I treat the blue saiteks (and really old Chronos that don’t have increment) as analog clocks.
Alex Relyea
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A 10 second delay is better suited to the masses of mediocre class level players.
The brief 5 second delay was devised with chess masters in mind.
If an endgame continues after main time has been consumed, and the endgame is living only on delay time, the game will be over quite quickly even this a 20 second delay; so 10 seconds is very sensible IMHO.
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IMHO in theory increment is better than delay. However in practice…
Increment creates a problem when a player erroneously presses the clock: It is too difficult to undo the undeserved extra 30 seconds.
For example, a player makes an illegal move (such as not getting himself out of check), and then presses his clock. The opponent quickly represses the clock and demands a legal move instead.
I am not sure this problem is big enuf to worry about? I guess each player gets an extra 30 seconds, so it might be harmlessly fair; except in cases where the offending player desperately needs another half minute to reach time control with safe moves.
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I haven’t encountered it yet, but 10 seconds does seem like a weird amount of time for a delay. As someone who is more often ahead on time than behind, I guess a longer delay is worse for me because it means my opponents’ time trouble will be less severe.
One nice thing about it, I would think, is that it should make it possible to keep writing moves indefinitely if you’re minimally motivated to do so. With a 5 second delay, I stop writing moves when I go under 5 minutes.
I agree with the basic idea expressed in regard to the 10 second delay. However, to each
their own-- what harm is done with the experiment?? In regard to the ‘standard’ idea, I
think that it is best to defer to the local affiliate running this event for the best time
controls within currently allowed formats. USCF should not assume the role of mother
hen knowing what is always best or all of the chicks (affiliates) and the tournaments they
run. Quite frankly, the affiliates or sponsors footing the financial risks for these tournaments should be the ones making this call.
Rob Jones