From searching past posts I think I surmised the anwer to this but it’s always good to have more knowledgeable confirmation. Our club runs a monthly G/60 (one round per week). A couple months ago I switched from 5 second delay to 15 increment. For reporting purposes 15 sec or less increment same as Game/XX.
Even though most members play with Chronos clocks there is some reluctance due to confusion setting the clock and even after providing instructions and personally resetting clocks, some players have expressed a desire to play 5 second delay. Some primarily older players with multiple presets that include both G/60 5 sec delay and G/60 15 sec increment will often play their games without realizing it’s on a delay v. increment.
Rather then fight this battle, I’m just trying to confirm there is no issue with G/60 either 5 sec delay or 15 sec increment mixed among different games in a round as long as the players agree. My feeling is that the players don’t actually care which it is, they just don’t like the hassles of dealing with the clocks, therefore if someone expressed a preference for increment and could provide a clock already set for increment there would be no problem.
Does this raise any red flags or is this “close enough” for club TD work?
The original idea behind subtracting time from delay-capable clocks to compensate for delay or increment settings was, I believe, to try to give all players about the SAME amount of time to play their games, as all players in an event are supposed to be playing under the same conditions. (This gets segmented a bit for multiple-schedule events, but within a specific schedule it still applies.)
I think your way of handling it runs the risk of players thinking that the time control is significantly different for some players than others, based on what equipment they have available or how they choose to set it.
Whether that’s a major concern might depend on who you ask. Likewise, some people could say that this is ALREADY the case.
Too many players neglect to check the clock at the beginning of the game, especially for the time delay or increment. It is worth emphasizing that all players are supposed to pay attention to the settings on the clock and, if they are unsure, to ask before the game or during the first couple of moves.
(I have seen games where the delay was different on one side of the clock than the other.)
Maybe pass out a flier showing how to set a Chronos for CH-P5, to a 15-second increment. It’s quite simple. It’s also easy to set G/60, Inc-15 on an Excalibur Game Time II. Clock-setting phobia is silly, with the possible exception of the Saitek Competition Pro.
The problem arises when there are not enough increment-enabled clocks to go around for all the games. The blue Saitek digital does not support increment, plus some guys will not be separated from their analog clocks. Even if you say increment clocks are preferred and non-increment digital clocks are next-preferred, with analogs least preferred, someone will whine.
Why can’t they set the delay to 15 seconds rather than 5, even if they can’t or won’t use increment? (If anyone answers “All I know is how to use the pre-sets,” see the first paragraph above.)
Pffft. Setting 3B, edit the 30 minutes off the primary time, change the 30 second delay to 15 seconds, and change the primary moves to 00 so that it’s sudden death. A little more complicated than using a preset, maybe, but I didn’t have to fish out an instruction manual to figure it out.
I suppose it would be OK to allow the players in each game to choose between d/5 and inc/15, but if the two players disagree, you would have to have an announced policy as to which one wins.
For example, you could say that inc/15 has priority over d/5, but only if the player who wants inc/15 furnishes an increment-capable clock and knows how to set it.
Hmm, even more interestingly, you could say, “Let’s see, white wants inc/15, black wants d/5, so set white’s clock for inc/15 and black’s for d/5.”
Passed out flyers (i.e. provided instructions) and personally reset some of the players clocks that were still having trouble (third parties confirmed that the instruction flyers were not unclear or confusing in any way). We have members literally from 8 to 80+.
