I am helping a brand-new TD run a blitz tournament. I have never TD’d at these time controls before (G/5 2-d). I saw that there are USCF Blitz Rules on the USCF website dated Nov 2007. They seem to be different than what was in the 5th Edition Rulebook.
So, am I to assume that the rules on the website supercede those in the book?
It appears that the main difference is that illegal move loses as the general rule, rather than it being a variation.
Anything else I need to know about being a TD at these time controls?
And 5/2 is USCF Quick-ratable? What is the lowest time control that is Quick-ratable? (Apologies if that info is in Edition 5 and I’m being a goose. It’s darn hard to find anything about rules and regs on the web site/s.)
Without checking, I believe that it was intended by the Rules Committee that 5/2 is only ratable using Quick chess rules, not Blitz rules. From the document link above: “Take note that Blitz is not Quick Chess with a 5 minute time control (which follow standard sudden death rules.)”
Other time controls, either ones slower than Game/60 or ones that do not have a primary sudden-death time control, are regular-ratable only.
If time is subtracted from the clock to compensate for delay mode, such as setting the clock to 8 minutes for Game/10 + 2 seconds delay, that is still considered Game/10 for ratings purposes.
Thus my understanding is that setting the clock to 3 minutes with 2 seconds delay mode is equivalent to Game/5 and would be ratable under the Quick system. (I would defer to Tim as to which set of rules applies.)
Personally, I think there should be a minimum amount of time plus the delay interval (so that setting the clock to 0:00 + 5 seconds delay is not ratable as Game/5), but I don’t believe the USCF has ever set a policy regarding that.
Thanks Tim! I will make sure we use those rules. Maybe it should also be posted on the TD page with the other rulebook revisions?
As far as the 5/2 not being blitz-rules. I think, by my reading it can under:
1b1b) Non-standard time controls, including the use of delay or increment, may be used at the discretion of
the organizer provided that they are stated in any advance publicity, announced and posted at the site.
TD Tip: Non standard time controls should be set keeping in mind the spirit and intent of Blitz Chess (Rapid play,
quick, fun chess). Total game time should not exceed 10 minutes per player per game.
They are just about the same. The Delegates passed a motion to adopt the WBCA rules. Those rules needed a bit of adjusting so they were sent off to the Rules Committee with the power to implement.
After reviewing the Blitz rules discussion e-mails from the Rules Committee it is no longer clear to me what they intended. So, I have e-mailed the Chair, David Kuhns, for his opinion on that topic.
As for where they get posted–that ball is in someone else’s corner.
Whatever the “standard” vs “variation” is for 2-second vs 0-second delay, and for illegal-move-loses vs illegal-move-results-in-time penalty, I think both are acceptable, but you ought to decide well in advance which ones you’re using. That way, even if the details aren’t in the TLA, you can accurately answer any questions potential entrants may contact you with. Some players may not want to enter the event if the answers are not to their liking.
And, in my opinion:
You should use a 2-second delay. In the phrase “blitz chess”, the operative word is still “chess”, not “blitz”.
If you compensate for the 2-second delay by reducing main time, you should subtract only 1 minute, not the maximum allowed 2 minutes, for games using the delay. For example, you could announce game/5 d/2 on demand by either player furnishing a delay clock, or game/6 in games not using the delay.
Don’t use a control of any faster than 4 minutes, even in games using a 2-second delay. (I’m not even sure it would be legal – better stick to game/5 d/2 as suggested above.)
A time penalty is greatly preferable to an automatic loss following a (completed) illegal move. However, 2 minutes is a bit much in blitz. Better would be a 1-minute addition to the opponent’s time for the first illegal move, and a 1-minute subtraction from the player’s own time for subsequent illegal moves (in the same game). The 1-minute subtraction could result in an immediate loss if the violator is under 1 minute, but only a repeat violator would be affected.
Incidentally, I’m quite sure anything up to game/9 would be considered rateable as blitz (and thus would be rated under the quick system). That way, there is a continuum – game/5 through game/9 is blitz, game/10 through game/29 is quick, and game/30 or slower is regular.
Is that because of a difference between USCF blitz rules and the rules you want to use, or is it because you don’t think your players will want their quick ratings affected by blitz results?
My understanding is that such an event can be quick-rated.
I would defer to the Rules Committee on this, but it appears to me that a G/5 through G/9 (and possibly through G/10) event could be played under either the Blitz rules or under the non-Blitz (aka Sudden Death) rules, but I’m not sure which set of rules is the default if nothing is said in advance. Obviously, the players have a right to know which set of rules are to be used.
Whether an event is a scholastic event or not has no effect on its ratability.
G/5 using the above Blitz Rules can be quick-rated.
G/10-G/29 using sudden death rules can be quick-rated.
G/5 using sudden death rules can be quick rated, but is now not defined as “Blitz Chess”.
G/10-G/29 using Blitz Rules can NOT be quick rated?
G/5 with a 2 second delay using Blitz Rules. Refering to the Blitz Rules linked above it says :“Total game time should not exceed 10 minutes per player per game.” Probable maximum number of move = 120 x 2 seconds = 4 minutes. 5 min + 4 min = 9 minutes < 10 minutes. So, G/5 with 2 sec delay using Blitz Rules is still < 10 minutes so can be quick-rated.
I submitted the ADM that proposed changing the USCF Blitz Rules to the old WBCA rules. When the current rulebook came out, there was no need to really modify the blitz rules because no serious tournament used them. All serious blitz events used WBCA rules because they were designed for blitz, the old USCF rules were just sudden death quick rules imposed onto a blitz environment and when actually used created a mess and mayhem on the floor for both players and directors.
After running the World Open blitz with WBCA rules from 1998 - 2003, we used USCF rules in 2004 when it became rateable. The sudden death rules created chaos on the floor when previously simple losses due to illegal moves were replaced by 2 minute time additions, an increase of 40% of the game. Directors unfamiliar with this actually deducted 2 minutes causing entire games to have to be replayed. It was nuts, never again.
At the delegates meeting, we allowed the proposed ADM to be referred to the rules committee. I worked with David Kuhns on the wording. What came out of the committee was not perfect as it was the result of apparent compromises that reflect the imperfect world of rule by committee. Illegal move loses is the only thing that makes sense in blitz chess. I say this having directed more large blitz events over the past 12 years than I suspect anyone in the country. Adding time to blitz games of even one minute is the equivalent of adding 24 minutes onto the clock in a G/120 game, this would be absurd.
There was never supposed to increments or delay added to Blitz rules. This was one of the impoerfect compromises the came from the committee. The addition of 1 second delay completely changes the basic nature of blitz and the word BLITZ is actually on a par with Chess. This is the one area of chess where management of the clock is as important and perhaps more so than management of the game. The ability to play fast is as important as the ability to play well and thats why it is called Blitz.
The WBCA allowed blitz chess to be rated at G/3 - G/7 with no increment or delay. The committee allowed the blitz rules to be applied to, If my memory serves me correctly, G/3 to G/10. Quick chess also started at G/10 and this overlap boggles the mind but was part of the compromises. To be pure blitz, it should not have an increment or delay. If you want to use delay, play Quick chess with delay. 8/3 has long been the standard for ten minute quick Chess, with the additional minute added becase 7 minutes was too much of a subtraction.
The next step in the progression of blitz is for it to have its own rating system. It makes no sense to have two different forms of chess, with two different sets of rules, both folded into the quick rating system. I’m sure a statistician would agree that averaging different number systems makes little sense and increases error into the system. Averaging Quick and Blitz chess is like averaging apples and oranges. I’m not sure what the result means, but I know I don’t want to eat it!
A statistician would probably ask, “Do the differences in the rules make for significant differences in expected performance?”
A pragmatist such as myself would ask, “We didn’t have enough quick-rated games to make that system viable until we added in the dual-rated games (and it isn’t entirely clear whether that made quick a viable ratings system), what reason is there to believe that we would get enough blitz-only games to make a separate blitz rating system viable for the USCF when it turned out not to be viable for WBCA?”
It isn’t that blitz ratings turned out to be not viable for WBCA, it’s that the whole WBCA turned out to be not viable. It was a one-person operation, and the one person simply got burned out and felt he had better things to do with his life.
As for USCF blitz ratings, they would certainly be viable if they were made blitz-inclusive, i.e. if the blitz ratings also reflected quick (and maybe even regular) games. By the way, whatever happened to the proposal to make quick ratings quick-inclusive, i.e. to reflect both quick and regular games (even beyond game/60)?
Our players don’t want their quick ratings affected by blitz results. I can’t blame them. It’s such a different game.
We have now run two unrated club G/5 blitz tournaments. Since we’re running them unrated, the other director in our club rewrote the USCF blitz rules slightly because of a couple of things he didn’t like about them. Notable changes include:
…we require touch-move, and
…a king left en prise may be taken
This is announced up-front and our own version of Blitz rules are posted on our club web site. No one has had a problem with it.
The first is not different. Every responsible promoter of blitz tournaments, that I know of, requires touch-move (and determined move). This includes both WBCA and all versions of USCF rules that have ever existed.
The second is, quite frankly, atrocious. I suppose you also allow moving a king to within one square of the opponent’s king (thus hanging your own king) in the hopes that the opponent will not notice, and then you can play KxK on the next move.