A lot of the time control examples in the rulebook are out of date in that they either 1) don’t state the increment or delay in the time control and/or 2) use a repeating time control or other rarely used time control these days as the example. On principle, I think example time controls in the rulebook should generally include a stated increment or delay, even if it’s zero, and should be a time control that is commonly used these days.
Shouldn’t this say “more than 30 minutes” (or 30 minutes plus the seconds of increment or delay time if there is any) rather than “31 minutes”?
In general, no. I would agree that the “more than 30” is more accurate and in practice clearer than “31”. But the fact that a time control in tournament publicity needs to include the delay or increment doesn’t mean that every mention of a time control in the rule book needs it—in fact, in some of those cases, adding a delay or increment makes them less clear.
I agree that not every mention of a time control in the rulebook needs to include a stated increment or delay, even if it’s zero, but on principle a time control example should include an increment or delay, even if it’s zero, unless there is a good reason not to.
Actually, not including the increment or delay makes the examples less clear. For example, it makes it unclear whether you include the increment or delay time in calculating the reduction of time.
You missed that the “31 minutes” and “more than 30 minutes” was clearly referring to the example time control of G/30 that was given.
In a G/30;d0 time control, saying the player forfeits if they show up “30 or more minutes” (this is more accurate than “more than 30 minutes” like I stated in my original post) after the start of the round is more accurate and clear than saying they forfeit if they show up “31 minutes” after the start of the round, as the TD Tip currently states.
What the example is obviously trying to convey is when a player would be forfeited for arriving late in a G/30(d0?) game. Saying “30 or more minutes” to cover all bases is better than just saying “31 minutes”.
If it is so obvious (and thus, presumably, obviously flawed in its present form), why can’t you come up with a clear statement that everyone agrees is an improvement?
You’re joking, right? The time reductions will always be ball-parked. Are you trying to say that if a player arrives 9 minutes 37 seconds late (good luck trying to document that—maybe we need time cards at the TD station) to find that the opponent is not there should take 4 minutes, 48.5 seconds off each clock plus whatever added adjustment might be required for delay/increment.
As soon as I saw the title of this new thread, I knew who its author was, even before I looked at the author’s name. Hi, Micah!
All the sample controls in the first TD Tip after rule 5C do have increment or delay (even if zero) explicitly mentioned.
I don’t see any repeating controls. Actually, perhaps there should be one or two, since they are still legal and might occasionally be used. For simplicity, these examples should probably be d/0, though, since the original purpose of delay was to mitigate the effects of sudden death, and these are not sudden death. How about 40/120 20/60; d/0 where the second control repeats indefinitely, and 40/60 d/0 where the first does so?
Agreed.
We should get rid of anything that involves 40/115 or G/115, since these are a throwback to the days when five minutes were subtracted when a 5-second delay was in use. Just stick with 40/120 or G/120, respectively, with d/5 specified.
Yes, just make these respectively 40/120 SD/60; d/5 and G/45 d/5.
Just add d/0 to the end. That way we’re not confusing anybody with a non-zero delay, while sticking with our convention (that we really, really want everyone to follow) that delay should always be specified, even if zero.
Yes, change to “more than 30 minutes”, and add “d/0” to eliminate the verbiage “plus the seconds of increment or delay time” etc.
I think it would be better to suggest simply that, if there are two controls, the first should be at least 60 minutes.
Yes, and that is why I didn’t mention the first TD Tip after rule 5C.
The TD Tips after rules 13C11, 15A1, and 15F3 all use repeating time controls as examples.
40/115,SD/60;d5 might still be reasonable since you can’t play two rounds of 40/120,SD/60;d5 in one day if the tournament if FIDE rated since it adds up to more than twelve hours of “total playing time”.
Presumably 5 minutes and 45 seconds – 45 seconds of increment time for the first move, plus 5 minutes of main time.
And that’s exactly why I think those kinds of controls should not be allowed. Since when does a player forfeit after less than 6 minutes in a regular-rated game?
In absurd examples like these, the question of whether the clock adds the increment time for move 1 could become extremely important.
OK, but controls like G/120 d/5 or 40/120 d/5 are a bit of an anachronism to begin with. Especially if FIDE-rated, a more typical control these days for a “slow” event would be G/90 inc/30 or 40/90 SD/30; inc/30, where the 30-second increment stands out like a sore thumb in its contribution to mm+ss.
Note:
In a G/60;+30 format, the no-show forfeit is after 1:00:00, not 1:00:30 even when the clock has the increment enabled. From a practical standpoint it is difficult to determine if a first move made with 12 seconds left was because the player arrived 1:00:18 after the start of the round or was because the player arrived with more than a minute left and took a while determining the first move (particularly if the late player had the black pieces). For that matter, if the first player arrived 10 minutes late and took five minutes off each side then the very late arrival could still have multiple minutes showing on the clock in the G/60 time control and still be subject to a late arrival forfeit.
In a G/30;d30 format with an analog clock is is difficult to tell if the player arrived after 30:00 or 30:20 or 30:40 or 30:55 or even if the player arrive 32:00 late but the clock was not started for a couple of minutes.
By the way, FIDE limits on how long people can play 60-move games in a day make it quite reasonable to have a 40/110, SD/60;d10 time control, or 40/115, SD/60;d5 time control.
And the only thing to be “gained” is added confusion. This isn’t an exam question, where there may be some use in providing extraneous information to see if the exam taker can determine which facts actually matter.
