The time control at the 2018 U.S. Amateur Team East has been shortened to 40/120, SD/30 d5, I learned today.
The secondary time control has been shortened by 30 minutes, so the games will be five-hour contests rather than the former six-hour affairs. Of course the rare mega-marathon with both players down to the delay time could last longer.
That is the reason for the change in time control, even though the rounds schedule remains the same, I was told. The TDs cut it very close getting pairings for the following round up on time when such mega-marathons dragged on ‘forever’—which is bound to happen when each round includes 550-600 games.
Will be interesting. Going from a “40/120 mindset” to a “SD/30” mindset is too severe a shock, I think. I would prefer to see the primary time control shortened to 40/100 and leave the secondary at SD/60, but lots of players would disagree.
Setting clocks at the start of rounds could pose a challenge. As far as I know no clock has a pre-set for 40/120, SD/30 d5.
I made my hotel reservation today. Looking forward to the fun.
I’d like to see it be G/30; d/0 more time to party!
Seriously, I do wish the rounds were even shorter. G/90, +30 would be good. To me, this is primarily a fun event and slogging it out for 5 (or 6) hours a game isn’t conducive to having a good time.
The Pittsburgh Chess League uses the time control, 30/90, Game 60 with a 5 second delay in each session. Games start at 2 pm. Most of the games last four hours or less. Even long games rarely go more than 10 minutes past 7 pm. For regular tournaments, this type of time control with rounds at 10 - 4 each day is very appealing to both players and TDs. There is enough time to refresh between rounds. The pairings are done on time. The average time usage per move comes out to about 3 minutes per move for a 50 move game.
40/100 or 40/110 for serious games with a secondary session of only 30 minutes is a real strain on the players and leads to more lengthy games which come closer to the next round. When you hit move 40, you have little time to relax, rush to the bathroom, or grab a snack. If the USAT is supposed to be for “fun”, then a 30 minute final session takes the fun out of the game. Players have less than 3 minutes per move to think. This may be anecdotal, but I have noticed that tournaments with these rushed time controls seem to have more problems, disputes, and hinky things going on. I say this from the perspectives both as a player and a TD.
I agree, especially when there are two rounds in a day.
How does the “40/100 or 40/110 for serious games with a secondary session of only 30 minutes” lead to more lengthy games than the “30/90, Game 60 with a 5 second delay”? One reason some tournaments use 40 moves is cause they are FIDE rated and if you have multiple time controls, the first time control has to be 40 moves.
And having 40 moves for the first control is a good idea, FIDE-rated or not. It standardizes things in the minds of the players.
In the olden times, there was often a first control of 45 moves. This (more than 40) is even worse than the other (fewer than 40). Every so often, a player would forget that the control was 45 instead of 40, and would time-forfeit because of it.
The Pittsburgh Chess League adopted 30/90, Game 60, d5 to be in compliance with FIDE rules and time controls at the time which required 3 minutes per move thinking time. The second session was required to have one hour. In doing so, we hoped to FIDE rate the League as a courtesy to our higher rated players in Division 1 and help to build up the base of FIDE rated players in the Pittsburgh area. Unfortunately, FIDE increased the rating fees and changed the rules to speed up the game so we dropped FIDE rating the League.
The move to 30/90, Game 60, d5 was incremental. The previous time control was 35/90, Game 60, d5. Early League time controls were 50/120, 25/60, 25/60 … with some adjudications for long games at the request of the players or the match director. Adjudicated games went to one individual who made result determinations before the next round. Generally, there were only a couple of adjudications per round.
When we went to 30/90, Game 60, d5, we decided that Game 60 was the minimum time for a secondary session for a serious game. Anything less was unacceptable to our team captains and League officers. IMO, having secondary time sessions of Game 30 undermines the consistency of the time usage by the players. When players are using 2.5+ minutes per move for a first session as in 40/100, and have to switch to 1.5 minutes per move or less, it damages the quality of the games. The faster time control switch hurts older players. My preference is for one control sessions when I play in tournaments, but if we are going to allow the anachronism of two time controls, the second session should be one hour, which would provide equal conditions for all of the players. The convenience of the TDs be d-a-m-n-e-d. I say that as a player and as a TD, as well as being the President of the Pittsburgh Chess League for over 25 years who has considered the issue of time controls seriously for the benefit of the players.
So FIDE requires 60 minutes for the second control, but permits the first to be only 30? Something’s inconsistent here.
It’s probably a throwback to analog clocks, where a secondary of 1 hour means the clock won’t have to be reset for the secondary. I doubt whether that’s the FIDE rule anymore.
One thing that is the FIDE rule (isn’t it?) is that the number of moves for the primary control must be 40 – no more, no less. So your 30/90 looks illegal anyway.
It seems to me that, in order to comply withcurrentFIDE rules while keeping the primary and secondary controls more balanced, you’d need to have 40/nn followed by SD/mm, where mm is exactly half of nn. That way, the presumed extra 20 moves (FIDE always presumes a 60-move game) are played at the same rate as the first 40.
For example, 40/60 SD/30 or 40/90 SD/45 or 40/120 SD/60. (Plus, of course, d/5 throughout the game in each case.)
I like that attitude (that the TD is there for the players, not the other way around), but I wonder how many players would consider 40/120 SD/60 convenient?
To keep it consistent with your 3 minutes per move for the first 30 and average 2 minutes per move for the rest of the game (30/90, SD/60; d5) you could have 40/110, SD/40; d5. This seems like a reasonable equivalent. Alternatively you could try 40/100, SD/50; d5. The average time per move is now closer to each other in both segments and the second segment is near enough to be an hour. Both of these seem quite reasonable to me.
