The 9-day and 6-day schedules at the US Open have switched to increment (40/100,SD/30;inc30). Has there been any consideration to switching the 4-day schedule to increment as well to make things a little more consistent? Perhaps G/60;inc5 could be used instead of the current G/60;d5. The National Open used G/30;inc5 for its 2-day schedule and G/60;inc10 for its 3-day schedule and that worked well.
I think CCA started this idea (mixing increment with delay), and now others have followed suit.
CCA, after using delay for years, but being forced to use increment for its online events because the big three online platforms all do it that way, has now partially switched to increment for its OTB events as well. Typically they now use increment for the top 2 or 3 sections, but delay for the lower sections, and also for the fast (e.g. 2-day) schedules in all sections.
Bill Smythe
That mix was already being used before the pandemic.
I think CCA is still running some FIDE rated sections in their events, and while FIDE has finally acknowledged that delay time controls exist they still strongly encourage incremental time controls.
Definitely, but they are now using increment in some non FIDE rated sections also.
FIDE is actually getting a little schizophrenic. Formerly, they used the word “increment” for either cumulative or non-cumulative addback, what we in the USA would call increment or delay, respectively. To distinguish the two, they used “Fischer” or “bonus” for increment, and “Bronstein” for delay.
But in at least one FIDE document, they are starting to use “increment” and “delay” as in the USA, creating a “one hand doesn’t know what the other is doing” situation.
Bill Smythe
I think it only makes sense for U.S. organizers to use this opportunity to focus on increment. It really became the world standard (in part because digital clocks were available in the U.S. before increment was a strong consideration, while they made their way to other countries after increment was a stronger consideration.)
So it’s a reasonable opportunity to create more standardization.
Micah’s question seems to have been overlooked. From my perspective, while one can debate the merits of delay vs increment when you are trying to get four short games in in one day, the rationale Micah gave for the change is to make things “a little more consistent”. That seems like a poor reason to make a change to me, given that already these games a different time control from every other game in the event. Why pretend like consistency matters for an already inconsistent time control? Now that’s not a great reason NOT to make a change, if we think it makes sense, but it doesn’t seem like a reason TO make the change either.
+1
Sounds plausible.
Yep.
I can easily sympathize with an organizer who wants to use delay for the faster games even while using increment for the main event. Increment can be much slower than delay in a fast time control.
Bill Smythe
The upcoming World Open will have all of the sections, except the U1100 section which uses a different format with no slower time control, played at 40/80,SD/30/inc30 for the slower schedules and the faster schedules played at G/60;d10. chesstour.com/wo21.htm.
+1
Another reason to make the change is simply because most people prefer increment to delay.
The National Open just used G/30;inc5 for it’s 2-day schedule and beginners sections and G/60;inc10 for it’s 3-day schedule and that worked well.
Do you have any data to back that up? Personally, I strongly prefer delay (both as a player and as a director).
As a director, I have no strong preference.
As a player, I prefer increment, both from an overall playing experience and from an (extremely minor) ethical view that increment ensures both players have the same time available, whereas delay does not, or at least not always cleanly.
Over a period of time increment seems likely to prevail over delay because of the use of increment in on-line sites and the international nature of those sites. My son played a friendly blitz game with a guest a couple of weeks ago at a 3, 2 time control and the guest seemed surprised that his time was not increasing after fast moves (the guest won anyway). After the difference between delay and increment was gone over, we reset the Excalibur for increment and it was fine in the three games after that (I think it finished as a 2-2 split).
That said, it may take quite some time. After all, it took a while for delay to crowd out analog.
+1
I agree. I have more sympathy with your suggestion regarding the US Opwn four day schedule in this context. I just don’t find consistency to be a good reason for ITV the rest of this discussion should probably be in another thread.
Speaking as a player or a TD I don’t have a strong preference either way. Speaking as an organizer I have a strong preference for delay. Increment is fine for one round per day events, but I don’t organize any of those. For events with two or more rounds per day, and with increment of any magnitude you either need to schedule a lot of time between rounds or be prepared to adjourn games. Sooner or later you’re going to run into some 150 move game that will wreak havoc with your schedule.
This might happen once every 5 years at best. I think the benefits of increment outweigh this disadvantage.
I think you’re being overly optimistic. Just a few years ago, I had to adjourn three games in the first round of an open tournament. Given that first-round games in an open Swiss are guaranteed to be mismatches, you don’t expect any long games, but we had three. To make matters worse, in each game one of the players had taken a third-round bye, and therefore was not willing to stick around after the second round to play the adjournment. We ended up just letting them finish their games and starting the second round late. We decided that we would never again have a combination of time controls and round times that allowed for the possibility of adjournments. And for the same reason, I (as a director) would not touch an increment time control tournament with more than one round per day with the proverbial 10-foot pole. I want nothing to do with them.
I will likely be helping at an OTB tournament over Labor Day weekend that will likely have 150-200 players in four sections (Open, U2000, U1600, U1200), a time control of G/100;inc30, and two rounds per day for three days. I have tentatively scheduled the round times for 11 and 4pm on the Saturday and Monday and 11 and 6pm on the Sunday (the reason there is more time off in-between the rounds on the Sunday is because there is a 2-day schedule that will still be going on at 4pm and there will be some side events in-between the rounds on the Sunday). Do you think this is enough time in-between the rounds on the Saturday and Monday?
Let’s assume some game lasts 60 moves and uses most of the time.
That’s 200 minutes + another 60 minutes for increment, or 260 minutes, 4 1/3 hours.
Assuming things run on time, the 11 AM round could run until 3:20, 40 minutes before the scheduled start of the next round.
A 100 move game could last 5 hours.
It could create problems, but I can’t say how likely it is. I know players who routinely use every minute of time they have. Get two of them paired against each other in a grind-it-out 100 move game and you’ve got a problem.
I think there’s a good chance of having at least one adjournment in rounds 1 or 5. An extra half hour would greatly reduce it.
Alex Relyea