A lot of players in the US are unfamiliar with the Bronstein form of delay. If you use the Bronstein form of delay, are you just asking for confused opponents that are going to think the clock is incorrectly set for increment? At one tournament I directed, I set a players DGT 3000 clock for Bronstein delay (I forgot that “delay” on the DGT 3000 refers to Bronstein Delay and that you have to choose “us delay” to set it with the countdown form of delay). He thought the clock was incorrectly set with increment and just didn’t understand when I tried explaining to him it was set correctly with delay and was set with the Bronstein form of delay.
The “cleanest” way to do delay is with a separate countdown (while displaying the main time). The only real advantage to Bronstein mode is that it can use the same display, which may have been useful when displays were more costly/less capable, but shouldn’t be now.
I agree. Some say they prefer Bronstein delay since it shows the total time they have to complete their current move without having to add the base time and delay time together in their heard but being able to do that really isn’t that hard at all and there are other disadvantages to Bronstein delay such as not being able to always easily tell when the delay time will end or how much time you will have for your next move. It’s possible for a clock in Bronstein mode to display something like the word “delay” during the delay period so you know that the digits counting down on the display is the delay time. For example, if you have thirty seconds remaining on your clock and twenty of those seconds are your base time and ten of those seconds are your delay time, when the clock is counting down from thirty to twenty seconds, the word delay would be on the screen. However, if you don’t remember that you started the move with thirty seconds, when the clock is counting down from thirty to twenty seconds, you won’t know when your delay time will end and won’t know how much your time will increase by, and thus how much time you will have for your next move, if you were to make a move during the delay period.
My old Chronos clock has both discrete (“USA-style”) and combined (“Bronstein”) delay. I always set it for USA-style, but I would gladly set it to Bronstein if an opponent preferred that. So far that’s never happened.
The only way to achieve the advantages of both systems would be to display both ways simultaneously. The top line could display the total (main plus delay) time, while the second line could display the main time and the delay time, separately, side by side. The top line would thus always be the sum of the other two.
Such a two-line display would have the additional advantage of demonstrating clearly that USA-style and Bronstein are indeed mathematically equivalent.
But, as Alex Relyea has pointed out, this might generate a lot of “which time is my REAL time?” -type questions, among the uninitiated.
Bill Smythe
Knowing how much time you have to put out the very next move is much more important with an increment T/C, where you might be in a very different situation in a few moves. If you’re on a delay T/C, I think it’s much more important to know how much base time you have, since you’re stuck with (no more than that) for the rest of the game.
Actually, in US delay mode, you’re stuck with the base time plus the delay.
What’s shown in Bronstein mode is what “you’re stuck with (no more than that) for the rest of the game.”
I think (actually I know) that you’re missing the point.
Did you make one? :mrgreen: