Blitzer analog chess timer.

All Things Chess
1

I recently came across an interesting chess analog timer. It appears to be designed for a speed play, it doesn’t have classical flags that we all got used to in the pre-digital clocks era, rather there are some type of metal bars attached to the back of the clock.

The imprint on the front says official uscf timer and I have been told it was marketed and advertised in chess review magazine.
I was also told that it is called “Blitzer”. Does anyone have a knowledge of this timer? If so, perhaps you can point me to a chess review issue and I pull it from the online archive. I already tried checking some of the “chess review” magazines without any success.

2

Where did you find this, at a garage sale? Chess Review magazine stopped publishing in the 1970’s. “Official USCF Timer” my foot. Get yourself a modern digital clock with increment, delay, and an electronic means to indicate time expiration.

Bill Smythe

3

Chess Review was not originally a US Chess publication, US Chess purchased the title and content rights from Al Horowitz around 1969.

For a while Chess Life had the title Chess Life and Review, but eventually they went back to just Chess Life.

Horowitz considered US Chess a competitor back in the 60’s, though that doesn’t mean he wouldn’t have allowed a reference to USCF in information about a tournament or in an ad.

So it sounds like this was a clock made in the 60’s.

4

There have been analog clocks with mechanical flags actively operated as part of the clock mechanism, rising and falling on the face of the dial, rather than passively operated by the minute hand as it approaches 12.

Whether this ever was or wasn’t an official USCF [sic] timer, analog clocks have been less than fully standard equipment for at least 26 years (the Chronos was on the market no later than December 1994). Don’t even think about bringing it to a US Chess [sic] tournament and being allowed to use it.

No.

5

I don’t think the OP had any intention of using it in a tournament, but was rather trying to satisfy his historical curiosity. I’d prefer to step away from any discussion of using it today and instead focus on it being an (obsolete) artifact that might have an interesting story.

6

There are two people who might have some memory of that clock from their days at US Chess. One is Joan DuBois, the other is Al Lawrence.

Could a picture of it be posted? That might trigger additional memories.

7

Um, shouldn’t that second “[sic]” actually be “[wel]”? :laughing: :laughing: :laughing:

Bill Smythe

8

Ironically, this morning I took a tally of all modern digital clocks I have in my possession and it appeared to me that those be enough to outfit medium size CCA tournament.

9

Some people collect stamps, some people collect coins, some people collect books, some people collect

OP collects analog chess clocks.

10

I will need to download and search all those chess reviews from 60’s. I will of cause do it, but was hoping someone has memory and that saves me some time.

11

pasteboard.co/JPLxecZ.jpg

12

I let Joan Dubois know about this thread, maybe she’ll remember that timer if she sees a picture of it.

13

Just a cotton-pickin’ minute here.

Looking at that picture a little more closely, I noticed a bunch of things. And those things, in turn, jogged my memory a bit.

The “hours” are not numbered from 1 to 12, but rather, from 1 to 10. And they’re numbered counter-clockwise.

The “minutes” are numbered from 0 to 120, again counter-clockwise.

The hands move clockwise, despite a counter-clockwise-pointing arrow on the clock face. This arrow is probably intended to caution users, when setting the clock, to move the hands counter-clockwise only, to prevent the flag mechanism from jamming.

So, to set it for a 5-minute game, you would point the “minute” hand straight down, at the 5. It wouldn’t much matter how you set the “hour” hand, since it won’t be moving very far in 5 minutes anyway.

Because the hands move clockwise on a counter-clockwise-pointing dial, it is essentially counting down from 5 minutes to 0. But, because it takes half a revolution (instead of a twelfth of a revolution on a standard clock) to move 5 minutes, the visibility is more precise. It is easier to see how much time is left when only seconds remain. Each small interval on the outside rim represents a quarter-of-a-minute.

I suppose it would be possible to use this clock for a 120-minute control. Just set both hands straight up at the start of the game. The “minute” hand would go all the way around every 10 minutes. During each of those ten minutes, the “hour” hand would move 10 minutes on the innermost dial, first from 120 to 110, then from 110 to 100, etc. Time would expire when both hands were pointing straight up again.

I now remember seeing a few of these in skittles room blitz games between tournament rounds in the late 1960s or early 1970s. The clock’s owner would carefully explain its operation, and the opponent would invariably respond, “Aw, come on. I don’t understand this at all. Let’s just use a regular clock.”

It is interesting to note that the ratio between the movements of the two hands is the same as on a standard clock. On a standard clock (chess clock, wall clock, wristwatch, etc) the “fast” hand (minute hand) makes a full circuit every hour, while the “slow” hand (hour hand) does so every 12 hours. On this blitz clock, the “fast” hand makes a full circuit every 10 minutes, while the “slow” hand does so every 120 minutes. In both cases, the ratio is 12 to 1.

This means that internal gear ratios (between the hands) did not have to be changed when the blitz clock was designed – only the first step or two, between the four-times-per-second (or whatever) tick of the jigger and the “fast” hand.

Interesting, no?

Bill Smythe

14

It is fascinating!

Thank you!

15

If the big hand is turning at a rate of one revolution every two minutes and the small hand covers 10 hours, that doesn’t exactly sound like a clock intended for ‘blitz’ chess, does it?

16

You misunderstood something. The big hand turns at one revolution every ten minutes, not every two minutes. And the small hand turns at one revolution every two hours, not every ten hours.

That sounds pretty good to me, for a 5-minute game. The main hand would cover 180 degrees in that time, instead of 30 degrees as on a “standard” analog clock. That makes it 6 times as readable, i.e. the minute marks are 6 times as far apart.

It would work well for a 10-minute game, too. Just start the main hand pointing straight up, and the time expires when the main hand makes a full revolution and is again pointing straight up.

Bill Smythe

17

Still strikes me that a clock with a minute hand and a second hand (and no hour hand) would be better for blitz. Digital clocks are very good for blitz. Why do you need to measure more than about 10 minutes anyway?

18

The big hand is seconds, the small one is minutes.

19

Perhaps – provided you could make sure (somehow) that the flag would fall exactly when the second hand pointed straight up.

This was a problem with the (somewhat later) USCF Master Quartz. Some versions had a wheel in the center of the dial that ticked forward once per second. This was like a second hand – in fact, some later versions had a second hand instead of a wheel. In both versions, this second hand – or wheel – turned at a rate of one revolution every minute.

Trouble is, the flag was controlled by the minute hand, not by the second hand (or wheel). The flag could drop at any point in the revolution of the second hand.

Of course, but they hadn’t been invented yet.

If you’re going to play all games at G/10 or faster, you wouldn’t. In that case, this clock would need only one hand. It would go around once every ten minutes.

But if you wanted to play G/15 or G/20, you would probably want an additional hand to keep track of how many times the “main” hand had gone around.

Depends how you define it. On a “standard” clock, the “minute” hand goes around once per hour, and the “hour” hand goes around once every 12 hours. So there is a name mismatch here. To retain this same name inconsistency from one clock to another, you’d have to name the fast hand after whatever it takes 60 of to go around once, and the slow hand after whatever it takes 12 of to go around once. :smiling_imp: Thus, on this interesting blitz clock, you would have a ten-second hand and a ten-minute hand. :smiling_imp: Q.E.D. :smiling_imp:

But, since I’m not particularly interested in maintaining ludicrous inconsistencies between the names of clock hands, maybe we just shouldn’t try to name the hands at all.

Bill Smythe

20

In my “big” post upstream, I did not actually observe all the facts I stated. I couldn’t – all I had was a still picture to look it.

Instead, I deduced some of the facts. And I believe I did it correctly.

For example, with the numbers on the face going counter-clockwise around the dial, this had to be so that the timer would count down, from 5 to 0, rather than counting up from 55 to 60 or whatever.

Therefore, the movement of the hands had to be clockwise. Having it go counter-clockwise would cancel out the whole effect of having the numbers go counter-clockwise, so nothing would have been accomplished.

Does anybody still have one of those, so you can confirm my deductions?

Bill Smythe