I was under the impression that the final time control was sudden death.
G/90 is the final (and only) time control, and yes, it is sudden death. If it weren’t sudden death, there would be a number (like 40) in place of the G.
Bill Smythe
at the recent amateur team was told by a TD i had to keep score of the game even with less than 5 minutes left at this time control. is this the case? was under the impression that if less than 5 minutes left in a sudden death time control that i didn’t have to keep score. thanks in advance.
A time control with increment is never a sudden death time control. It is a series of recurring time controls, move by move.
In the old days, we would have written the control as 1/90:30, 1/0:30. Same thing.
The TD was correct, under both USCF and FIDE rules. If the increment is >= 30 seconds, one keeps score. Period.
Please cite the exact rule in the Official Rules of Chess that requires this without citing a TD Tip. Remember, Tim Just himself has emphasized that TD Tips are not rules. They are not subject to delegate approval. They are under the control of the editor.
Yes, this is a completely serious request, and yes, I do have a point. More after I give the discussion a chance to develop …
I will do later today (I get a sinking feeling I already know the result), and I will join you in letting the discussion develop.
“15A…In the course of play each player is required to record the game…”
“15C…If either player has fewer than five minutes remaining and does not have additional time (increment) of 30 seconds or more added with with each move, both players are excused from the obligation to keep score…”
15A. Manner of keeping score. In the course of play each player is required to record the game (both the player’s and the opponent’s moves), move by move, as clearly and legibly as possible, on the scoresheet prescribed for the competition.
15B. Scorekeeping in time pressure, non-sudden death time control. If either player has fewer than five minutes remaining in a non-sudden death time control and does not have additional time (increment) of 30 seconds or more added with each move, both players are excused from the obligation to keep score until the end of the time control period.
15C. Scorekeeping in time pressure, sudden death time control. If either player has fewer than five minutes remaining in a sudden death time control and does not have additional time (increment) of 30 seconds or more added with each move, both players are excused from the obligation to keep score.
You would need to write the time control like that for it to be non-sudden death. When written as Game/90 there is no “required moves in the allotted time” as defining a non-sudden death time control in 5A. While the two definitions may be mathematically equivalent that doesn’t mean that they are equivalent under the rules. In fact they would differ in other ways as 1/90:30, 1/0:30 d/0 does not have delay. So insufficient losing chances claims could be made in that case, but not in G/90 +30.
OK, thanks for the rule citation.
Now, let me put a somewhat related question. In a time control of G/90 inc/30, both flags are down. What happens?
Under FIDE rules you are supposed to determine who flagged first and rule based on that. The concept of both flags being down in an i30 time control is supposed to be unheard of with European levels of arbiter staffing.
Under USCF rules I’d call it a draw (assuming there is no checkmate on the board).
The TD tip under 14G is at odds with the examples in 5B2 and 5F2, so I’d use 14G or 14G2 to make the ruling with 5B2 and 5F2 to support ignoring the TD tip.
14G. Both flags down in sudden death.
The game is drawn if both flags are down in a sudden death time control and either player points this out. If a player whose flag is still up claims a win on time but does not stop the clock in time to prevent the flag from falling, the game is drawn. See also 14G2, Players apparently unaware of situation; 15H, Reporting of results; 16T, Both players exceed time control; and 16Y, Assisting players with time management prohibited.
TD TIP: Remember a 14G draw claim is first a draw offer (Rule 14, The Drawn Game).
TD TIP: An increment time control of 30 seconds or more is not considered sudden death; therefore, 14G does not apply.
14G1. Checkmate and both flags down.
In a sudden death control, if a player points out that both flags are down prior to a checkmate, the game is drawn. After considering all available evidence, including testimony by the players and any witnesses, a director who is unable to determine whether the claim of both flags down occurred first shall deny the time claim and rule the checkmate valid.
14G2. Players apparently unaware of situation.
If a sudden death game continues with both flags down, the director may rule it a draw. This exception to the standard rule that only players may call flags down is justified by the need to avoid delaying the tournament. See also 14J, Draw declared by director; 16T, Both players exceed time control; 16Y, Assisting players with time management prohibited; 18G, Adjudications; and 21D, Intervening in games.
5B. Sudden death time controls.
For example, 40/120 SD/60 indicates 40 moves in two hours (120 minutes) followed by the rest of the game in one hour (60 minutes).
5B1. Delay and increment.
5B1a. Delay time controls. If the time control indicates a delay (pause) time, the abbreviation d/ is used; the delay time is given in seconds.
5B1b. Increment time controls. If the time control indicates an incremental (added) time, the abbreviation inc/ (or +) is used, the added time is given in seconds of added time.
5B1c. If no delay or increment is to be used then d/0 indicates no delay or increment time.
5B2. The organizer is to indicate the time control, including the delay or increment, in all advance publicity as minutes (mm) and seconds (ss). For example, G/90 inc/30 (or +30); G/30 d/5; G/10 d/3; G/5 d/0.
5F2. Standard timer for increment.
An increment clock (a clock with added time capabilities) is the standard timer.
a. The increment clock is set to add time for each move, called an increment. The standard increment is 30 seconds per move. For quick chess the standard increment is 10 seconds per move. A game with an increment time control should be set with the increment in effect from move one, even if the time control is mixed (e.g. 40/90 SD/30 Inc/30). A game started without an increment-capable clock should remain the clock for the game.
It is ridiculous to consider G/90 inc/30 to be not sudden death.
Yet, it is true that G/90 inc/30 is mathematically equivalent to the repeating control 1/90 followed by 1/0:30 indefinitely.
The solution is a better worded set of rules.
For example, there should be a rule that each time control segment must have a main time of at least 3 minutes, and an increment or delay of at most 120 seconds.
Then you could never have a TD tip that says “An increment time control of 30 seconds or more is not considered sudden death; therefore, 14G does not apply.” Instead, you would simply have a rule that says that, with an increment or delay of 30 seconds or more, scorekeeping is required even under the 5-minute mark.
Bill Smythe
So who will submit that ADM? And how will a re-wording impact current practice?
A follow-on question: Is a “reasonably complete” scoresheet required to claim a win on time with a time control of G/90 inc/30? If G/90 inc/30 is not sudden death, then rule 13Ca requires the claimant to have a reasonably complete scoresheet. Furthermore, rule 13C11 states that if a player’s claim is denied owing to an incomplete scoresheet, no further claims of overstepping the time limit are allowed in that time control (segment).
Perhaps the rationale is that G/90 inc/30 is considered to be 1/90 d/0; 1/30s d/0 (a repeating or “progressive” time control), so that every move is its own time control (segment)? The current rule 5 doesn’t explicitly define “sudden death time control” (a shortcoming, in my opinion), although one may infer a definition from the sentence “In a non-sudden death time control, if both players complete the required moves in the allotted time, a new period begins” in the first paragraph of rule 5A. However, I believe that explanation contradicts what most players intuitively understand the term “sudden death time control” to mean.
Then there is the “silly discontinuity” question: why would G/90 inc/30 be non-sudden death but G/90 inc/29 be sudden death? There is already a discontinuity in rules 15B and 15C (requiring scorekeeping in non-sudden death and sudden death time controls, respectively), but that discontinuity is there for a good reason. There, the rules are establishing the fact that if the increment time is “long enough,” the player has time to perform the physical act of recording the moves. One needs to put a marker somewhere to determine what “long enough” is.
What you’re essentially saying is that one player deliberately chose not to call his opponent’s flag down, and then somehow ran out of time himself. Unlike a zero increment / zero delay game where both flags could drop within seconds, at least 30 seconds must have passed without a claim. Any serious player will make the appropriate claim.
Therefore, this question is purely of academic interest.
Michael Aigner
All this nonsense is avoided by defining main time (or base time, if you prefer) in a way that does not overlap the definition of increment (or delay). I think my idea of defining main time as 3 minutes or more, and increment or delay as 2 minutes or less, should work just fine.
Perhaps a minimum move number requirement would help too. Require that each time control segment be at least 10 moves (this would include sudden death, which is essentially infinitely many moves).
If it is desired to require scorekeeping in sudden death when there is an increment of 30 seconds or more, there should be no need for subterfuge like “since a 30-second increment is not considered sudden death, scorekeeping is required throughout the game.” Just make it an explicit rule – scorekeeping is required if there are at least 5 minutes remaining, or an increment or delay of 30 seconds or more.
Bill Smythe
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Triumph/Paul, my impression is that:
A. You are probably right. Because “Game”/90 and “SuddenDeath”/60 are just code for saying - “This is the final segment of the overall time-control.”.
B. You are right, but your question is also misleading; because - every segment of the overall time-control is a sudden death segment. A flag fall in the first 40/90 segment is sudden death no more and no less than in SD/60.
If my statement is untrue, then I do not understand your definition of “sudden death”, and I note that your original post provided no definition.
C. Many of the replies in this topic are making this more complicated than makes sense.
For instance, no way is each delay/increment another segment of the overall time-control. Delay/increment has a requirement of 0 moves, so flagging on time is impossible - so it violates the definition of a segment (in an overall time-control).
D. The whole question seems unimportant; unless you can…
…unless you can explain why the question is in some way important. The explanation would clarify this whole forum topic.
Or maybe all you need to do to settle this whole topic is - define exactly what you intend or want the phrase “sudden death” to mean in your original question: then the answer will likely become automatically clear.
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Gene, if you think a 40/90 segment is “sudden death”, you are correct that you don’t know what the term means. In chess rules, it means there is not a specified number of moves to make in that segment. By definition only the last segment can be sudden death.
I think you mean “1 move” in which case flagging is very possible.
Alex Relyea