Move counter or not?

Running Chess Tournaments
21

Clearly if I am being called to a board because of a move counter issue I have “let the players use the move counter if they want to”. Not all of the problems caused by them are minor, at least not to some of the players. My point is that these problems would not have occurred at all if the move counters had never been turned on. In other words, the problem was foreseeable and avoidable.

The typical problem seems to be based on a player’s reliance on the accuracy of the move counter. While adding one to a move counter can be accomplished by hitting each button an additional time, subtracting one is a little more complex in that it requires a clock to be stopped, manually adjusted, and then restarted. As pointed out in another topic “Limit of TD Involvement”, there are some who object to the director’s involvement even when invited by the opponent and the clock has been paused. The more significant problems occur when a player blames (often incorrectly) the move counter for their loss even though the rule book says the players are using them at their own risk. A director may be sympathetic to the caused problem but often obligated to disregard its impact to the losing player.

For the record, I direct at about 50 tournaments per year and play in about 15. Many of those I direct have one sudden death time control so move counters are irrelevant.

22

Excellent point. I wonder how many tournaments have time controls that make the move counter irrelevant VS those events where it still has some use?

23

Good question. I can tell you what people are typing in as the time control, but while the validation program now understands what a time control like “30/30, SD/30” means, sometimes it is still necessary to fudge the information a bit to get an event into the correct rating systems.

So far this year (events that ended in 2011) there have been 147 different time control entries posted for the 1745 sections that have been rated as of this morning. 337 of those sections were regular rated only, 200 were quick rated only and the remaining 1208 were dual-rated.

Of the 337 regular-only sections, it appears that 99 of them used a non-sudden-death primary time control.

I do not see any dual rated events with a non-sudden-death primary time control (like “30/30, SD/30”), but that may be because TDs don’t know they can now enter it that way, though I suspect it is more likely that organizers just aren’t using a non-sudden-death primary time control in dual rated sections…

Overall, “GAME/30” is the most frequently entered time control, with 341 entries. In second place is 'G/30" with 316. There are also fields that were entered as “Game 30” and “G30”. The top 23 time controls are all game/something with “40/120, SD/1” the first non-sudden-death time control, which has been entered 11 times.

In anticipation of the changes that are likely to be made to the time control rules next August, I have been looking into the possibility of having several fields for time control information rather than just one:

A. Time control text field (not parsed but will be displayed on MSA)
B. Increment/Delay information (which and how much)
C. Sudden Death as primary or secondary time control (or no sudden death)
D. Total time per player if a sudden death final time control

I’m tempted to add checkboxes for whether the event is a multiple schedule event that has been merged or one that had different time controls in some rounds.

Depending on what the Delegates do in August, I may have to add other fields, such as one to track whether or not time was subtracted from the clocks to compensate for delay/increment setting.

24

The lack of a move counter causes problems, too. I have heard players say, “hey, I made move 40, but the clock didn’t add an hour.” Then the TD needs to explain that, without the move counter, the clock will add an hour only when the first control reaches 0:00:00.

Having the clock say 5 minutes when the time remaining is really has 1 hour 5 minutes can cause significant discomfort to some players.

An increasing number, now that increment is finally becoming popular.

Hallelujah! (That’s Hebrew for Yippie-Ki-Yay.)

Bill Smythe

25

The old BHB clocks didn’t have move counters and didn’t add an hour at 40 moves either. It was understood by the players that when the primary number of moves were played that the next control would be 7 o’clock.

The problems you mention are entirely caused by the player’s lack of understanding how the clock works even though the clock was operated properly. The discomfort is based upon a misconception caused by the function of a move counter which isn’t in use.

The problems I have encountered with move counters are mostly due to move counters counting something other than moves, namely clock presses. To call them “move counters” is to give the clock credit for something it does not have the ability to determine. The problems were created by the “clock press counter” not being equal to the number of moves played. These problems are foreseeable and avoidable if the “clock press counter” isn’t used.

26

What’s wrong with having secondary time control AND an increment?

Michael Langer

27

It’s probably easier to set most clocks to use increment throughout the game than to only have it take effect during a secondary sudden-death time control.

28

I read it to mean an increment control from move one with a move-based primary control and a “Sudden Death” secondary control—though it’s not really SD with a 30-second increment.

There is nothing wrong with that, obviously. It’s what FIDE uses for the Olympiad and other high-level events. It makes for a long game at club level, but we tried it last year. Reviews were mixed. (To be precise we used the “Olympiad control” of 40/90 primary plus 30 minutes secondary, with a 30-second increment from move one.)

In theory it seems more logical (or maybe more fitting) to me to use increment only in the final segment of the time control, as in the Anand-Topalov match. That ship seems to have sailed, though. It’s hard to get folks to believe that it’s easy to set a Chronos or Game Time II to use the increment only for the ‘ultimate’ portion of the control.

I say we should give Bronstein a thorough test run now, too. Don’t want these patzers to get too comfortable…

29

Bill,

You speak Chronosian even more fluently that I do, I reckon.

Am I correct that—based on the lack of clear regulation on how to set digital clocks, which Brian M and others correctly point out—there are five modes on a Chronos that meet the ‘standard equipment standard’ for most Regular-rated games?

We can use Adagio, (aka Bronstein), or Andante, (delay shown as a count-down on the display), or Sudden Death with Delay, (flashing colons to show the delay, but no move counter), or SD with delay and also a move counter…and just for fun a variation on the last one is the “A” mode which shows the clock time, in seconds, tick down for the player on move throughout the game.

Actually, we could create many more legal settings based on the above modes, by changing up which if any beeps and freezes we set for the end of the first time control and the end of the game.

As I understand the rules, if Black shows up on time with a Chronos properly set in ANY of the above modes, it qualifies as standard and the opponent cannot object—or any such objection will not be upheld, at least. Some TDs might disallow Bronstein/Adagio mode as less standard than straight delay; that’s not in the rules, but it accords with standard practice, perhaps. Apart from that—and even that is debatable—the player who supplies the clock gets to choose which mode to use.

This is not necessarily a Bad Thing…but maybe standards regarding move counters, visible countdown vs. flashing colons, which indicators if any to use at end of time control and end of game, as well as straight delay vs. Bronstein…could make a good addition to the Rules update document.

Thoughts? Opinions? Experiences?

I have all five of the modes listed above programmed into my Chronos for the USATE. Should be fun.

30

Are you going to use a different one of the five modes in each round? :slight_smile:

Standardization is the bane of improvement. Let’s not get too carried away trying to standardize.

Bill Smythe

31

Absolutely; Monday morning I plan to sit out and sleep till a civilized hour…

32

Post-tournament update: I used my Chronos four times at the USATE, in all cases with no move counter. Twice I used the Sudden Death/Delay setting, once the Andante setting and once the Adagio (Bronstein) setting.

No one complained about lack of a move counter. One opponent questioned why no time was added to the clock at move 40, but he seemed to understand right away when I explained.

Twice my opponents provided Excalibur Game Time clocks. The first time, my opponent noticed after a few moves that the delay was not enabled, as he thought it had been when he set the clock. I suggested he turn on the “Delay All” feature; that took care of it. (Delay All is moot for single time control events.) The second time my opponent did not set the delay at all, but I did not object, since he was a nice guy and a low-rated player (adult) who just entered the event to fill out a scholastic team that had three players and needed a parent/coach for a quorum.

My observation of other games indicated that enabling the move counter is more common than not enabling it, but not by as wide a margin as I expected based on my personal history. (I exclude the Saitek Competition blue clock from this highly informal survey, since as far as I know there is no way to display a move counter on that clock. You can get to a move count indicator by pressing one of the buttons, but that takes pro-active measures.)

One of my teammates got into a clock-related dispute—instigated by his clueless opponent—but that involved an analog clock…I think the problem stemmed from his opponent not understanding how analog clocks work. I might get around to that in another thread.

Now that’s settled, we can all breathe easy…

33

Thanks for the update. The chess world was not rocked by your turning off your move counter. That’s a relief! It was risky, but you seem like a risk-taking kind of guy. Sometimes you just have to do what you think is right, throwing consequences to the winds.

34

Perhaps Harold would like to explain the major dust up on board 1 involving a time forfeit deciding the outcome of the match, and the forfeiting player using the move counter to claim he made time control. After observing portions of that argument, I’m not going to use the move counter any more. I will adjust to knowing that I’m not going to see the extra hour until the first x hours is completed.

My only question is why did it take the player until move “40” to see the discrepancy between his score sheet and the move counter? Correction: Clock button push counter.

35

The ruling was quite simple but also unfortunate for the loser. He relied on a move counter that added an hour after 40 clock presses even though both score sheets indicated 39 moves had been played by Black. Rule 42B2 states: “Players rely on the count at their own risk.”

The Chronos’ setting used did not display the “clock press counter”. Even so, Black (and his teammates) recounted that at the start of the game White had started tardy Black’s clock without making a move. When Black arrived he started White’s clock. No one complained about the improper starting of the clock to any TD until after Black’s flag fell almost 4 hours later. I felt that to allow the game to continue would be to permit Black to play with a primary time control of 39/2 while White would have 40/2. Black’s team appealed my ruling to NTD Carol Jarecki who, after hearing all of the evidence, stated that she “could not disagree with Harold’s ruling”.

This case was very similar to a ruling I made at Foxwoods in 2009 about an Excalibur’s move counter. The Foxwoods loser then appealed to that tournament’s chief TD (NTD Bill Goichberg) who also supported my ruling.

On a personal note, I, and most or all other TDs, would prefer that games be decided without TD intervention and not be required to make a ruling that could determine the winner of the tournament, but it had to be done.

36

boggle Whatever happened to the requirement of having a complete scoresheet? (within 3 move pairs)

But you’re right: I never use a move counter. Keeping track of the number of moves is the responsibility of each player. Isn’t that one reason why we keep score?

Over the years, I have seen too many cases of a player forgetting to press their clock, or (in a time scramble) player B completing his reply to player A’s move while player A slowly reached to press his clock.

[The saddest game of my life ended with a flag claim on black’s 40th move. After missing several 3-4 move checkmates or skewers of the queen, my opponent at the US Open in Chicago had about 45 seconds to play one last obvious move before time control. Instead, he got confused by the display on his MonRoi, which showed ‘40’. I ran over a few of the 20+ spectators crowding my board to get one of the floor TDs, who were all conveniently stationed next to the door at the other end of the hall.]

Michael Aigner

37

Unreal. Harold S. predicted all this—at least, that it could happen—earlier in this thread…then he had to rule on it himself at the USATE. Harold also advised me and our team’s clueless opponents about the rule requiring that White make a move before starting Black’s clock. (That was in round five.) I had planned to start a thread about that, but decided it was too minor. Now perhaps I will after all.

I have two questions about the board one incident, which I did not witness or know about until after the tournament. What round was it? and more importantly: If the Chronos setting did not display the clock-press counter, in what sense did Black rely on the clock to “prove” he made time control? Was it because the next hour was added to his clock?

38

Round 6!

It was because the hour was added on Black’s side after he completed his 39th move (and 40th press).

39

I was looking at my Chronos manual and can’t even find an option where you can have a “move” counter, but not have it displayed at all. When I’ve used the move counter I select dl-c1a which has the clock give h:mm:ss once the delay has counted down. There is always a “move” counter displayed on one side of the clock or the other.

That’s why I was surprised that Black was not aware of the discrepancy until time control. With the counter displayed on one side or the other, I would notice. How does one set a Chronos with a delay and counter, but not have the counter show at all? Not that I want to set my clock like that, but I’d like to see what it looks like.

40

There is no way to set a Chronos like that, at least not the late-1990s model I have; I would be amazed if that changed for recent models.

Now I see what Harold meant about how this Chronos mode “did not show the counter”: It did not show the counter on the side of the player on move—but the counter was still displayed on the side of the player not on move. Right? (That is how the “A” modes work in the Chronos.)

This makes me wish I had stayed to see the end of the tournament, rather than shake a few hands and scurry home after my last game. Without seeing the incident or hearing the debate or argument, it’s hard for me to see a basis for an appeal: Rely on any move counter, or clock-press counter…whatever you call it…at your own risk.

I feel bad for the player who lost on time. I know several strong experienced players who might have had the same thing happen to them. That is still not cause for a complaint, though, as far as I can see.

Seems to me that a dispute in such a crucial match deserves a mention in the news reports of the tournament. It also makes me agree with Polly and the guy who started this thread that it is best to keep move counters disabled.