The North American Youth Championship starts this weekend. As a FIDE tournament it uses FIDE time controls, in this case G/90 with a 30 second increment. My question is: is the 30 seconds added before each move, or after? Apparently in various chess programs, on various internet chess sites, and on various clocks, one or the other (and sometimes both) are available. There is also a separate term for each: Fischer and Fischer after. So it is not as if only one of these is used to the exclusion of the other.
The FIDE web site seems ambiguous on this point as to which one is required.
I realize most tournaments in the US do not use increments, but does anyone know if one type of increment is considered “official” and the other one not?
I’m also wondering what will happen if many of the players don’t have a clock that supports the proper time control. Does black forfeit for not showing up with the right equipment? Who is ultimately responsible for that?
In general increment is added after the move has been made, not before. This is what’s been used in FIDE events.
That is a very good question. This is why if an organizer is going to be utilizing an increment time control and mandating its use (some organizers will say increment or provide a non-increment equivalent) then the organizer, at least for the time being, should provide the equipment, until such time that the majority of players are purchasing increment capable clocks and know how to use them properly.
No, black would not forfeit if he/she does not show up with the right equipment. There’s no black and white rule about this. It could be argued that the player with black sat down at the start of the round without the equipment, white wasn’t there and all of the time should be elapsed from white’s clock, up to the greater of the forfeit time announced if not using zero tolerance, or the actual amount of time lost until white shows up.
The updated FIDE rules gives the arbiter the decision making authority to not use zero tolerance, and if not used, how much time is there for default and how time is allocated in the case of no clock being present but the game is to proceed (so one can insert the USCF rules of splitting time between players).
The old FIDE rules took all of the time away from the white side.
So in the instance of the NA Youth, the default time is 1 hour instead of zero tolerance and the Chief Arbiter is exercising his right to split the elapsed time between both players if they are both not present.
However there’s nothing that addresses the situation of proper equipment not being available.
Are there many models of digital chess clock on the market anymore that don’t accommodate increment time? I know the Saitek Competition (blue) doesn’t, but the Saitek Competition Pro (silver) does, as do the Chronos (setting CH-P5, though it’s not called “increment”) and the DGT North American. What fraction of clocks in use in 2001 do these three constitute, would you estimate?
I’ve never heard of adding the increment before the move.
There is a well known before vs after difference between what is called normal delay (takes place prior to the clock starting to tick off time) and Bronstein delay (clock starts ticking off time immediately but time is added back after the move - whichever is less between the designated delay time and the actual time used). To pedantically be completely equivalent, a Bronstein delay clock would have the delay time added to the initial time control (so a Game/2hr control with a five second delay would be set with a time of 2:00:05), but most people would find such an adjustment insignificant and irrelevent.
Most Saitek’s I see are blue, and they seem very popular. Also I don’t know if Excalibur handles increments. There are small DGT’s that seem more popular than the larger North American, and I’m not sure if they do increments.
Certainly the fact that the Chronos calls it something “progressive” with no text mentioning what that means won’t help matters any before the start of the rounds.
Insignificant, irrelevant and perhaps impossible to program into the clock. I’ve been playing wih one that allows you to set hours and minutes, or minutes and seconds, but not hours minutes and seconds.
Older Excalibur clocks can’t handle a 30 second increment (the max was 19 seconds), but the newer ones can.
The first time I played in a tournament with a G/90 +30 time control like this, there was one game where neither myself nor my opponent had a clock that could handle it, and the TD told us to just play G/120 with no delay/increment.
And this is typical of what some may do providing the extra 30 minutes. It does fit within the idea of a 60 move game and thus the extra 30 minutes. FIDE uses the 60 move game concept when calculating minimum think times.
Since the increment system is designed so that all of the moves of the game can be written down, what will they do with the kids who don’t or can’t write down their moves? I have seen even adults in pressure packed, low time situations fail to write down the moves. I have also seen people make three quick moves to gain a minute and a half on a clock then write down their moves on their opponents time. What is FIDE’s take on this practice?
Actually, given that FIDE rules are that you notate after you move, the norm would be to always notate on your opponents time except when your opponent moved so quickly you didn’t have a chance to notate your own move yet.
The other thing I was wondering about is whether you don’t have to notate when you go below 5 minutes, and if so, what happens if you go below, and then after a few quick moves go back above?
By the way I don’t think the purpose of the increment is to allow both players to always write down their moves. The 5 second delay seems better suited for that.
With a 30 second increment the 5-minute rule is null so you have to continue taking notation.
If a 5-second delay was better suited, then you would be required to continue notating once you get down to below 5 minutes but that’s not the case as you can go ahead and stop notating once you drop below 5 minutes when a delay is being used.
That seems sensible. But I don’t think the increment was created to allow time for notation. Fischer’s patent doesn’t discuss notation at all. It does say the increment is intended to eliminate the time scramble at the end of a game, but frankly a delay of equivalent size to an increment could be said to accomplish that, too, and it seems that the only thing the increment offers that the delay doesn’t is the ability to pull yourself out of a hole by making several moves very quickly.
What difference does it make? If the tournament specifies increment (cumulative add-back) with time added before, all you have to do is set it for time added after (which is what all increment clocks do anyway, if I’m not mistaken) but then set the main control for 90:30 instead of 90:00. Bingo! It’s exactly the same thing.
In practice, the before-after distinction comes up only (if at all) in the case of delay (non-cumulative addback). “True” delay (with a separate countdown for the delay) is equivalent to Bronstein (delay time added after each move), except for the nitpicking difference that each player gets a total of one more delay period with “true” delay than with Bronstein. As with increment, the solution (if a solution is even deemed necessary) is to set the Bronstein clock initially for one extra delay period, e.g. with a 5-second delay set the main time to 90:05 instead of 90:00. Most (but not all) clocks, in their Bronstein modes, add the extra 5 seconds automatically, to each side, as soon as the clock is started at move one.
Are you sure you’re not confusing the ability to set hours, minutes, and seconds with the ability to see all three simultaneously during the game?
Still, it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that some clocks would let you set hours and minutes only, with seconds always set to zero. That seems like no big deal, except for those who wish to make Bronstein precisely equal to delay by adding 5 seconds to the overall time control.
