I would be stunned if they didn’t require moves to be recorded. I have never played in a sanctioned tournament that didn’t require scorekeeping – time-only, delay or otherwise. In no instance has it ever been suggested that the length or lack of delay or increment excused players from doing so. One keeps score because one must keep score, not because one is accommodated with extra time. Anyone with a condition that makes writing extraordinarily slow (because of pain, weak grip, degraded coordination, etc.) is entitled to a remedy, but I submit that it’s to be found in rules 35F6 and 35F10, not in the time control.
Also, I have never found the 5-second delay inadequate for recording moves, and I only began playing tournament chess three years ago; I never recorded moves before that. Like pressing the clock, notating was simply another added step to get used to, and I got used to it by the end of the first day. Of course, my early scoresheets – for that matter, my early games – contained a metric ####load of errors, but not because it took me too much time to write my moves down. I’d never stoop to claiming that my lousy win-loss record was the result of having to notate.
I think the focus on the score-keeping requirement is in time-pressure situations where the rulebook already allows a player to play without having to keep score. When a player is down to delay time plus only single-digit seconds, requiring score-keeping can result in flagging (if both players use the full five seconds of delay time to write down moves then you might have a case, but I’ve often seen one player move within a second, hit the clock and write down the moves, thus getting the jump on the other player). One game I saw went over fifty moves in an ending with queens and pawns with one player have 2 seconds plus delay and the other player having 5 seconds plus delay (Class A section of the Chicago Class). Expecting score-keeping in that situation would be naive. With a 30-second increment there is always enough time to keep score even when the opponent is playing instantly and your clock is thus almost always running.
As a public service, I’ll suggest that you be seated while reading this reply.
Rule 5C defines quick chess as a game with time control at least G/5 (originally G/10) but less than G/30. Rule 5C also defines “quick chess rules” as “identical to the regular USCF sudden death rules herein except that scorekeeping is not required, so all provisions relating to chess notation are irrelevant.”
There is no reference to delay or increment whatsoever in rule 5C. That leads to wackiness; for example, G/10 inc/80 gives each player 90 minutes for a 60 move (per player) game while still meeting the definition of “quick chess” (and being regular rated only). I’m not at all convinced this is the intention of rule 5C, but I believe this is what a strict reading of the rule yields.
My mistake – I thought you were referring to the example of Sevan Muradian’s G/10 with increment tournaments. Absolutely, G/45 inc/10 would not be quick chess, and rule 15 would be in full force.
When players’ time is low, it is quite frequent for players to make many moves in significantly less time than 5 seconds. Even with a 5 second delay, when someone has under a minute left on the clock you will often see him blitzing out moves in one second (or less). This is probably partially because he wants to start the clock of the other person (who may be low on time too) as early as possible, partially because he’s just playing it safe, and partially because he doesn’t realize just how long he has to move (5 seconds is a surprisingly long time!).
In any case, after 15 moves of playing moves in one second, someone with an increment clock would have an extra minute compared to someone with a delay clock. That’s a significant difference if they were in time trouble already - being able to think about a position for 20+ seconds a couple of times is a big luxury when you have that little time left.
Please remember there is at least one significant difference between increment and delay. Under the current rules a 5 second delay allows for the option of deducting 5 minutes from the clocks, while there is no such option with increment.
In general most people will equate G/90 with 30 second increment to G/2 with 5 second delay. There is not a 100% correlation between the two different controls, but it should give you something to work with in terms of determining a time control for a 1 day tournament with increment controls in use. You might want to consider G/75 with a 15 second increment for a 1 day 3 round event. I think that could be run in under 10 hours, although I could be wrong in that estimate. Hope this helps.
Tried G/30 + 15 inc for the first time tonight. It felt a little odd: seeing 30 minutes on my clock made me feel like I ought to be playing at a faster pace, yet seeing that time constantly replaced made me do double-takes – “I’ve been playing for all this time, and I still have 28 minutes left?” It also made it harder for me to macro-manage my time, but that may be only because I haven’t done the math yet. In any event, I never came close to getting in time trouble (if anything, I probably should have taken more time to think than I was taking), nor did I find recording moves to be an inconvenience.
As an equivalent to G/45, it was probably on target. But it will take some getting past that impulse to play too fast because of seeing less time on the clock.
The difference between increment and delay can have a considerable strategic impact on the moves played, especially for time-scramble experts. With increment, a player in time trouble might be able to repeat the position a couple of times (careful, not three times!) in order to gain time on the clock. With delay, this wouldn’t work.
Since I’m planning to transition to increment time controls, I worked out the conversion in wall clock time between 5 second delay time controls and 30 second increment time controls. The first thing you have to do is decide at what move number you want to balance the total wall clock time. If we let this be “n”, and the time we subtract from the increment time control to be D, then D=5n/12. So, for a 60 move game we get (5*60)/12= 25 minutes. That means that if we subtract 25 minutes from the total time of a 5 second delay time control to get the increment time control, it will take just as long to play a 60 move game. So, 40/120,SD/1+5"delay is the same as 40/100,SD/55+30"increment at 60 moves. Both of these time controls will use 3 hours and 5 minutes per player or 6 hours and 10 minutes of wall clock time to reach 60 moves. Or a G/60+5" delay game will take as long as a G/35+30" time control at 60 moves.
As an organizer you need to decide how long of a game you want to use to balance the wall clock time. Once a increment game hits the number of moves, n, it will take more wall clock time than a delay game. My great fear is one of the classic long end game games, K+Q vs K+R, K+B+N vs K, or many K+R+P vs K+R positions. Even so, the quality of the play in these endgames will be much improved with a 30 second increment compared to a 5 second delay.
I think for shorter time controls one could subtract only 25 minutes but for the six hour and five hour game time controls organizers may need to be more conservative.
Mike Regan
Adjournments may be another optional lifeline for the hard-pressed organizer when increment meets long games. Not in all situations, but back-of-the-mind material anyways.
For the record, our club recently started USCF rated events, one round per week. We adopted increment - opting for G/75 +30inc. Like Bill, I felt the players with old clocks were somewhat rewarded when we decided to let them start G/105. Nevertheless, the advantages of doing so are that it is consonant with one rulebook suggestion, such players are still subject to other players with increment clocks, it saved the problem of coming up with our own fair yardstick adjustment, and we avoided potential hissy fits. We have not seen the increment-clock players showing up with the old clocks, so we’ve let it slide for present. Let those others be “rewarded” until a standard develops.
