.
Absolutely true. But closing them opened a different can of worms.
i do the same thing. I have not deducted time for delay at any time control for 3 years now.
Not if my proposal were to get adopted. It would go by the announced time control for the tournament, not the time control actually used in games with obsolescent clocks.
In other words, if the announcement said “G/25 d/5”, the whole tournament would be regular-rated (dual-rated), and games with analog clocks would be played at G/25 d/0.
That would eliminate the problems of (a) a five-minute difference in the main time, and (b) the effect of rewarding a player who furnishes obsolescent equipment.
My proposal would eliminate that, too. It would require G/25 or slower main time, with a d/5 or slower delay (specifically announced) if the main time is faster than G/30.
It doesn’t hurt to have a little overlap. If an organizer were able to decide between making his tournament regular-ratable down to G/25, or quick-ratable up to G/29, just by manipulating the delay time a bit, that would be a Good Thing.
Bill Smythe
If a tournament has FIDE norm possibilities, no more than 12 hours of play in a day are permitted under FIDE rules. 40/2, SD/1 with 5 second delay or increment, two rounds per day, does not qualify for norms, but with the 5 minute deduction the event does qualify. And 40/2, SD/1 with 5 second delay is the most popular time control according to our online surveys, so we don’t want to announce a different control. We could announce that the deduction applies only to sections with norms, but fear this would be confusing and want all slow sections to use the same time control.
FIDE has proposed new rules that will be considered next month that would allow only a small number of time controls. According to this proposal, 40/2, SD/1 would be allowed only with no delay or increment! USCF has proposed that this be modified to 1) allow 40/2, SD/1 with 5 second delay or increment, 2) either extend the 12 hour maximum to allow two games in a day with 40/2, SD/1 and 5 second delay or increment, or allow 40/115, SD/1 with 5 second delay or increment.
If the USCF proposals are approved by FIDE, CCA will probably discontinue using the 5 minute deduction.
Game 25 + d5 (or G/30 + d5 with 5 minute deduction for digital clocks) requires no “drop down” to be used; it has long been used with success by many organizers, is popular with many players, and it would be foolish for USCF to outlaw it as regular rated. If quick rated, such events will draw far fewer players.
The problem that some have with the time deduction is that it does not need to be mentioned in pre-tournament publicity, causing some players to be confused regarding whether or not to deduct. This problem could be solved by simply requiring the deduction to be mentioned in publicity, possibly using a required standard format which is very clear- for example, “G/25 + d5 (digital), G/30 (analog).”
If any organizers want to make G/20 + d5 regular ratable, the delegates can just say no, and I’m sure they would. And the delegates should also be asked to prohibit the regular rating of such things as G/20 + d10 and G/15 + d15, and I’m sure they would vote to prohibit these unused but currently allowable controls.
No one is currently trying to speed up the fastest allowable rate of play, but organizers who have established a successful format want to keep using it. Mandating that each round take an extra 10 minutes would make it impossible for some events to fit into a limited available time at their site.
Bill Goichberg
I doubt that the delegates would approve this, as it would speed up the fastest allowable rate of regular rated play (to G/25 with an analog clock).
Bill Goichberg
- This seems disingenuous to me, unless the organizers flat-out prohibit analog clocks. Anyway, they now ahve almost two years to wean themselves from dependence on this loophole. 2) The simple solution (which would not, of course, satisfy those who want to regular-rate G/25 with delay) would be to base ratability only on the base time, and forget about the delay. Thus, G/30 would mean G/30, period. 3) I agree that requiring advance notice of the 5-minute deduction would be an improvement, but you’d still have players milling around at the start of the round asking how much time to deduct. That’s not a big deal, but it’s an almighty nuisnce and I’d like to eliminate it.
There are many tournaments which use the 5 minute deduction to fit into limited time available at the site, with no good way to “wean” to another acceptable format. Going to quick rated will definitely kill entries, while eliminating a round often has the same effect. (I don’t run quads any more except as side events, as they draw much worse as stand alone tournaments than 1-day 4-round Swisses; players don’t want to bother traveling to play only 3 games.)
Simple, but how does it promote chess and USCF membership to tell many organizers that their successful format is no longer permitted, when their site is not available for a long enough time to allow an alternate format with similar popularity?
Isn’t it worth a little nuisance to allow other organizers’ successful established events to continue? And the nuisance should be less if:
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Chess Life and the USCF website prominently publicize, “No time deduction from the initial time control for delay clocks is permitted unless announced in advance in all pre-tournament publicity.”
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Organizers are required to spell out the time controls instead of using the word “deduction”- for example, “G/25 + td 5 (digital), G/30 (analog).”
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Those who don’t use the deduction can announce “There is no 5 minute deduction, the time control is exactly XXX as advertised” as part of their announcements before round 1.
With the above steps taken, can it really be justified to damage or eliminate existing events in order to avoid the tiny amount of nuisance that might remain when occasionally a player asks about whether to deduct time?
Bill Goichberg
What do you say when they ask you how much the re-entry fee is?
- If it’s really the case that “going to quick rated will definitely kill entries,” then why are we still fooling around with the Quick rating system? If nobody wants it, lets get rid of it. 2) I’m sure there are a number of things that might “promote chess” if you don’t care at all about the integrity of the game. Some of the Delegates do care, and they set a limit of G/30 for rated play. I don’t think it’s excessive to expect everyone to follow the same rules. This is an example of “bracket creep” – if G/25 is OK, why not G20? G/15? How far are you going to debase the game just for “promotion”? I don’t feel strongly about getting ri of the 5-minute deduction, and if Kuhns hadn’t brought it up I would have continued to grit my teeth and put up with it. (Even though I suspect you are about the only major organizer who still uses it.) But I resent “real” tournaments – with real time controls, producing real, publishable chess games – being held hostage to fast-chess events which have nothing going for them but loud lobbyists.
“We don’t do that. You’re confusing me with Goichberg.” If you’re asking whether I’d vote to ban re-entries if I could, certainly, but that’s not currently on the table.
As opposed to previous years, will there be anyone attending the 2010 FIDE meetings who might be able to be an advocate on behalf of the USCF’s proposals? Or do we just wait and find out later what the latest hoop to jump through will be?
Game/25 + TD/5 has been rated regularly for many years, and it has already proven to be popular and successful. Game/20 + TD/10, Game/15 + TD/15, Game/5 + TD/25, etc., are all relatively new and largely unpopular offshoots. The line for Quick vs. Regular has been drawn at 30 minutes ever since the inception of the Quck-Rating system. In light of the above two non-trivial facts, Game/30 + TD/0 and Game/25 + TD/5 have both earned the right to continue to be regular-rated, (whereas the other ones mentioned have no such history), as long as the specifice time controls are advertised in advance.
It’s not that nobody wants it, but compared to regularly-rated tournaments, quick-rated events are much less popular because most people want their serious chess events rated seriously; they want “fun” events rated too, but quick-only. Players who don’t even want to risk their Quick Chess Ratings do play unrated only.
Also, some facilities are only available for a brief period of time (such as between the rounds of a “real” tournament, for example). The only way those facilities could have any kind of rated event in the time available would be to have it quick-rated.
I guess you didn’t get on the Scholastic Committee this year.
I’d rather be eaten by bears.
This would certainly make the implementing this more clear and make the organizer’s and TD’s lives a whole lot easier, and help get the rounds started on time!
Inevitably, even if you annouce before the start of a round to NOT subtract the 5 minutes, I often find players still come up and ask if they are to subtract the 5 minutes, or they don’t even ask and just set the clock for 5 minutes less.
Tom Langland
At the National Scholastics the rule is “No Deduction” and they announce it several times, and the overwhelming majority of clocks are usually delay clocks which are set for the full time control.
Yes, I’d have no problem with that. In fact, that’s essentially what we passed on Saturday, since it was made clear that TDs could still use the deduction with advance notice, like any other minor rule variation. The problem is that you (well, Steve and some others who use it) also want to allow regular rating of G/25, without actually saying so.
But the whole issue was not about truth in advertising. If it were only that “30 minutes means 30 minutes,” then the original motion would not have been divided into two parts.
The reason I moved to divide the motion was that the five-minute deduction is not a function of your G/25-30 tournaments only – it affects all tournament, including serious ones with time controls like 40/2. Letting those two motions be pushed through as a package would have been an egregious form of “tail wagging the dog.” Apparently the Delegates agreed with me, since the abolition of the deduction passed while the special dispensation for G/25 (which I disapproved of but didn’t care all that much about) failed.
Now, if you want to argue that the Rules Committee screwed up by not framing the motion well, not clearly explaining the rationale, and not preparing a written text in advance for the Delegates to read, I’m not going to defend them. But that’s another discussion for another thread.
Come on, you guys.
If history had proceeded logically (which it never does, because people are afraid of the unknown), the minimum time for regular-rated would have been changed from 30 minutes to 25 in 1996, when the 5-second delay became standard.
So, even though it’s 14 years late, let’s do it now.
There would be no need for any 5-minute deduction (or addition), in any tournament, with or without pre-tournament publicity. Any player who wanted his full time would simply have to furnish a delay-capable clock.
Since the reduction from 30 minutes to 25 would have been (or still would be) to compensate for the “new” 5-second delay feature, it would be necessary to require organizers of G/25 to specify the delay. (Note that, in slower events such as G/60, an organizer may specify that there is to be no delay, but only if that fact is announced in pre-event publicity.)
Once again, my simple proposal:
G/25 would be regular-ratable, but the organizer would be required to specifically announce d/5 in pre-tournament publicity.
G/30 and slower would be regular-ratable without a specific announcement of the delay time. In the absence of a specific announcement, d/5 would be assumed.
In a G/25 d/5 event, a game played with an analog clock would be played at G/25 d/0. (Either player would have the opporunity to prevent this by furnishing a delay-capable clock.)
Sometimes I think I’m the only person around here who has any common sense. 
Bill Smythe
The notion that Quick chess isn’t “real” is validation to me of Nagel’s Philosophy of Mind. But then again, I’d embrace the notion that the purely artificial distinction between Quick, Dual, and Regular could be abolished with no skin off my nose. (In fact, I wouldn’t mind there being a ‘combined’ rating of all games played and let the membership figure out if that is better or worse.) And I am basically in favor of losing the compensation and knowing G/30 will be G/30 with or without delay, or advertised as it actually will be at site.
On the Gripping Hand, I also recognize that all of my views are almost certainly in an overwhelming minority.