Tonight I played a game (I was white), and my opponent used his Chronos (G/105) but did not set the 5 second delay. It was merely an oversight on his part, and it was certainly not intended to be malicious.
Neither of us noticed until we got under 10 minutes (when the display changed to MM:SS instead of HH:MM). At that point, since we both agreed, he turned on the delay. I had ~6 minutes and he had close to 9 when we noticed, so obviously I stood to gain more from the change.
Now according to a strict interpretation of the rules, we’re stuck without the delay because that’s how we started. I usually make sure that the delay is set in the first few moves, but I just didn’t notice that the clock moved right from 105 to 104 when he started it at the beginning of the game instead of waiting 5 seconds. So after that, the only time I could discover the oversight was when we got below 10 minutes.
Is there a reasonable way to deal with this? Am I just out of luck if my opponent tries to pull a fast one in the future? Theoretically he could be penalized for unsportsmanlike behavior, but that seems extreme if it really was just an honest mistake.
Below is part of an unpublished TD Corner, sort of on this topic (same as your post but with only seconds left on the clock):
Set the clock for the proper delay, or increment, and continue pushing wood without any further clock adjustments.
In the case where the delay, or increment, was not set at all, play continues with a properly set clock after awarding each player any missing amount of time (which is based on the number of the last recorded move). For example: the last recorded move on the score sheet is number 35. The five-second delay was not set at all. Award both players and extra 175 seconds (that’s 2 minutes 55 seconds). As a TD you can’t really do much about awarding compensation for the unrecorded moves blitzed off with a hanging flag.
If a TD determines that the clock was set erroneously on purpose by one of the two players they can award an extra two minutes to the offended player (rule 1C2a).
@Andrew…how you and your opponent dealt with it was perfectly reasonable.
@Tim…please don’t publish this TD tip. The current tip to 16P (Erroneously Set Clocks) is sufficient, as it indicates that the correct settings should be restored as Andrew did. I don’t see a precedent for adding time. 16K (both players late) and 16R (no time adjustment for reinstated position) both support a “Lost time is lost time” approach. Correcting the delay setting in the presence of the TD is enough.
If 5 minutes was deducted because of the delay at the start of the game but the delay was not turned on, it would seem appropriate to add back the 5 minutes when the error is discovered.
It is a TD Corner not a TD Tip. Don’t worry the USCF does not seem inclined to publish my old TD Corner column with new material, despite their kind promises to do so.
I still play postal chess and enjoy Alex Dunne’s monthly column.
I expect that the number of active postal chess players in the USCF and the number of active TDs might be around the same percentage of the total USCF population. But certainly the number of USCF members affected by those TDs and their decisions is far greater than the number of active postal chess players who get to enjoy Alex’s monthly column. Doesn’t a similar monthly TD Corner column seems to be justified?
I’ve unfortunately had this happen to me twice. The first time occurred at a local tournament and was with my clock (I’ve seen it referred to as “Bonus Timer”): after making my move, I had only 1 second left on the clock. As the clock used Bronstein delay, something was clearly wrong. I paused the clock and went to get a TD, who asked me if the delay was on for the entire game. I hadn’t been examining the clock closely (but I presume it was as one of us probably would’ve noticed) so I said I didn’t know, to which I was told there was nothing I could do. (my opponent didn’t seem to understand the issue, and, after the TD’s ruling, proceeded to think for a few minutes while I hovered over the board ready to shake hands)
The second time occurred at the US Open in Dallas a few years back – my opponent’s Chronos was displaying only hours:minutes, and it wasn’t until I was down to less than 10 minutes with roughly 15 moves to time control that the clock started to display seconds, revealing that the delay was turned off. Seeing this, I went to get a TD (my opponent was very friendly in this; he had thought delay was set beforehand and we both agreed finding a TD was an appropriate solution). The TD ruled that nothing could be done, though I forgot the exact wording.
On the Chronos, even while it is displaying h:mm, you can still tell whether the delay is set. It blinks differently during the delay than during the main time.
Increment, however, could be a problem. If 30 seconds are added per move, there is a 50-50 chance, on each move, that the clock will seem to be adding no time, and a 50-50 chance that it will seem to be adding a full minute. You just have to keep watching, each move, until you see it apparently add 1 minute.