What do you do if there is no clock available for a US Chess rated game? Perhaps adding a TD Tip on this subject after rule 5F would be good.
CCA rules, chesstour.com/rules.pdf, state “If you have no clock, borrow one from another player or buy one from bookseller. If not possible, start without it; try to borrow as soon as you can, splitting elapsed time. Directors usually do not furnish equipment.”
in the CCA general info section, chesstour.com/gen.html, it says: “At some of our tournaments for inexperienced players, not enough players provide clocks, and an occasional game must be played without one.”
I’m curious: what have you done in the past when this situation has arisen? If you’ve attempted to follow the CCA rule you cite, what have you done when neither player can, or wishes to, afford a clock from the bookseller and by the time enough players have finished that it is likely they could borrow a clock they are (apparently) too engrossed in their game to do so? Considering that chess players tend to be more introverted (or shy) than average, it seems likely some of them would create excuses to avoid asking strangers to borrow a clock, especially in the last round of the day.
I/and or the club I’m associated with have always provided some extra clocks at tournaments I have run and fortunately this has made it so all the games in the tournaments I have run have had clocks.
If it becomes an issue (most of the time it won’t—the game will end before the time control would come into play) once a clock becomes available, both players are docked 1/2 of the elapsed time since the round started. It’s the same if a player is late and brings a clock but the opponent had no clock. It’s the same as with a defective clock. If someone doesn’t like that (“hey, he was moving way slower than me”), they should get a clock for next time.
Most TD’s will have at least a few clocks, which will let them wait until a game without a clock threatens to delay the tournament, letting the others take care of themselves. With scholastic tournaments with younger players (which is where this tends to be most common), I would usually try to wait until 20 minutes were left in the session and give each player 10, though if clocks are scarce, I would triage the games and not bother with a game where it was pretty clear that someone was going to finish it relatively soon.
Rule 5F, along with its TD Tips, is already extremely verbose. There is no further need for anything.
Even in the most extreme case – one game remaining in the round, no clock on the game, it’s time to start the next round, all the other players are standing around waiting for the pairings – I cannot conceive of the possibility that none of those players would offer to lend a clock, just to help get the next round started.
And even if it did happen that way, any TD with any degree of competence whatsoever could simply stop the game, tell the players they will both be paired as wins, also tell them they will be required to finish the game at the end of the tournament, then go ahead and pair the next round.
The rules can never be “complete” enough to cover every situation that could conceivably arise. Attempting to do so just makes an even bigger mess.
I have to disagree here Bill. I don’t think this is a situation of trying to cover every conceivable situation (having no clock available for a game is quite common in big scholastic tournaments). I think a TD Tip giving some recommendations on the best procedure to follow when there is no clock available for the game would be good.
I see Tim Just thought it was important enough to write about this topic here: new.uschess.org/news/just-rules-tardiness-101. I do have a question about something in the article. It says:
“In a G/30, d5 contest, you were unable to secure a clock, so you started to play without one. After you and your opponent have led your chess forces around the board for a total game time of 50 minutes, the TD places a properly set clock at your board. You and your opponent each get five minutes to finish the game (base time control of thirty minutes each totals sixty minutes of game time). The TD is splitting the remaining 10 minutes of total game time between you and your opponent equally.”
In the above scenario, wouldn’t you put the 5 second delay on for each player in addition to the five minutes of base time?
To me it’s not clear since it just says “You and your opponent each get five minutes to finish the game (base time control of thirty minutes each totals sixty minutes of game time)”.
So if this is something that happens so rarely that you have literally never seen it, why is it something that needs to be explicitly covered in the rule book? Note that my hypotheticals demonstrated that the CCA rules would not necessarily be adequate. Note also that if the CCA rule were adopted, your solution would be deprecated at best.
I’m confused about what you’re saying. Are you asking whether they should get 5:00 + d5 (yes) or that the 5:00 should also be adjusted for (some calculation of) past delays (no)?
Well, that was a 2018 article. No one has commented until now. Maybe you’re the only one who is confused.
In all my years of playing, coaching and directing, I have never heard anyone, when asked how much time they had left say “3 minutes plus delays”. They say “3 minutes”.
I would note that Tim’s article (which apparently isn’t sufficiently detailed for your taste) would probably take up at least two full pages in the rule book. And it’s aimed at explaining things from a player’s standpoint and not a TD’s, when the TD has extra issues. Should you or should you not supply clocks? (CCA’s policy may be no, but I’m going to guess that if two GM’s show up without a clock, they’ll make an exception). What a club which has storage on site can do and what a TD who is using a rented site can do may be quite different. When and under what circumstances should you think about putting a clock (if available) on a game? That will depend a lot on who the players are. For primary school beginners, you might have half the games without clocks, and never actually need any. With strong players, it probably makes more sense to see if they can borrow a clock before the game even gets going. A TD will learn these things from experience; from interacting with other TD’s; from getting involved in different types and levels of tournaments.
Mr. Doan has more explicitly said what I have been trying to say above. Simply put, even the most prescriptive rulebook can’t possibly cover all cases, and an overly prescriptive rulebook results in poor decisions being made, and being forced to be made.
Not trying to say that Mr. Doan agrees with this part, but it is very possible that the large number of tournaments played under “house rules”, that is minor or major variations including those referenced by Mr. Smith above, is a result of an overly prescriptive rulebook. If you compare to the (FIDE) Laws of Chess, you’ll find considerable discretion given the arbiter. You would simply never see an attempt to codify the original question, even though many tournaments run under the Laws of Chess are run with few if any clocks.
The CCA “rules” are contentless aren’t they? If you borrow or buy a clock, the game isn’t being played without a clock. Their main point is that you shouldn’t count on them to furnish the clock. Believe me, they will do something if a clockless game starts to drag, they just aren’t going to be very specific about what they will do.