I’ve recently purchased some clocks for our tournaments which have either no delay or a 5-second delay. These are very good for our slower events, but I’m trying to decide how they could be used for quick events - where a 3-second delay is normally used.
I normally don’t subtract any time when a delay is used, but am considering subtracting 2 minutes if these clocks with a 5-second delay are used. So, for example, if we have a Game/29 Minute tournament, analog clocks would be set at 29 minutes, normal delay clocks would be set at 29 minutes with a 3-second delay and these clocks would be set at 27 minutes with a 5-second delay.
The question is whether there are any issues with regards to quick rating an event that used these rules. Alternatively, what if we just allowed these clocks to be used as is. In the above example, setting them at 29 minutes with a 5-second delay. (Also, any difference in answer to these question if we had enough of these clocks so that they were used on all the boards?)
That must be the Precision clock or something.
They used to be made in two models, blue and green. The blue model did not have delay, the green did. But I found one blue specimen that would occasionally go into delay (Bronstein) mode all by itself, but nobody could get it to happen consistently. From time to time, it would also go into count-up mode (time would increase instead of decrease) without being asked. These clocks have a reputation for instability.
I like your idea of subtracting 2 minutes in a quick tournament if a 5-second delay is used. That should keep the Powers That Be from refusing to quick-rate your tournament, as long as you declare a clock with a 3-second delay to be preferred equipment over one with only a 5-second delay. I suppose the 5-second delay clock would still be preferred over a clock with no delay at all.
The questions that TDs must ponder in the face of weird equipment!
Bill Smythe
I agree that reducing the time in minutes equal to the excess over the delay is a good idea and I use that for Quick tournaments in which players cannot change the delay to three seconds (either they don’t know how or the clock is incabable of changing delay). This would seem to be a logical extension to Rule 5Fa which allows TDs to reduced the time in minutes equal to the seconds of delay. So far, no one has objected to this solution.