Has anything changed, or must a USCF rated tournament have time delay [or use increment] in order to be rated? I thought that the USCF required a 5 second delay for events that qualified for regular ratings, and required a 3 second delay for Quick chess events. So, I am asking if the USCF would allow a G/90 event with d0 [no delay], or must there be a delay if one of the players requests it?
Larry S. Cohen
See page 5:
AFAIK, there has never been a requirement of delay to rate an event. The organizer has the right to advertise if/what delay (or increment) is to be used. Here is a contemporary example of a zero-delay tournament.
There were problems with TLAs not specifying what/if delay was to be used. The general approach to such an event was to assume a five-second delay. I’m not certain if a TLA without that information would still be accepted today.
FIRST–I love No Delay G/30 scholastic and regular events. Why?? The simple truth is we are living in a “soccer
mom” culture. How long does a youth soccer game take?? What about a youth baseball/softball game?? Youth
Lacrosse?? Youth basketball?? Most of these are usually DONE in 1.5 hours. (now I do know some youth
tournaments take the entire weekend, as do some scholastic chess tournaments—but both of these events
are attended primarily by those youths already “hooked” in the various sport). If we in USCF are to successfully
promote to, and develop a new base of scholastic players then we need time formats designed to gain their
parent’s interest.
SECOND-- these events are great for adults trying to fit chess into tight schedules as well. And, they tend to be
very attractive to new adult chess players, esp, those at the novice and lower intermediate levels. Yes, they tend
to be willing to give USCF a “try” but not if it consumes the entire day, or weekend.
THIRD-- This format is permissible under USCF rules if they are pre-publicized. When starting such events, I announce what the time controls are at the start as well (as I do at other events with different time controls
as well.)
FOURTH-- I was criticized by a coach at a major local scholastic at a tournament in which the time controls were
advertised as G/30. The coach assumed that this was no delay, and “prepared” her players accordingly. However,
until this complaint, my reading of USCF rules was that 5 sec delay was the standard, and only variations need be
published. Now, however, whether whatever the time increment is used will be published. A. It is clearer, and
B. makes the tournament run smoother as there are fewer arguments/discussions on the matter.
I cannot tell you how many times the question by esp new parents that seems to be their main criteria of whether
their child plays or not is asked: " How long does this last??" ie, “When can we be outa here??” 9am-3-4 PM is
certainly not appealing to many of these parents. A format of 4 rounds, G/30 No Delay starting at say, 2PM,
tends to fit their schedules much better.
My point is this: Let us get them into the game first. For without the initial seed being planted, the tree has no
chance whatsoever. Let us see how the tree grows from there, and nurture it along the way.
Rob Jones
Yes, but why would you want to?
Alex Relyea
As noted, yes you can hold a rated G/90 d0 event, no problem. If you and a few guys at your club want to try it, go for it. Rated SD with no delay/increment does not suit me, but if you like it…
However, if you plan a ‘real’ tournament, to be Regular-rated at G/90 with no delay, I would go way out of your way to make clear what you plan: in all publicity, email blasts, Web site, TLA, plus postings and announcements at the site. Also make clear what your policy will be for 14H ILC claims.
Seems like too much potential for confusion, apart from my personal preference for delay/increment in rated SD games. Why do you want to do this?
To appeal to a particular market segment in his area?? Heck, I have no idea what folks want in other areas-- do
you??
Rob Jones
I hate no delay tournaments. When the USCF started using allegro time controls, some clubs adopted it for their events. The tournament entries dropped by around 50%. Many of those players did not come back even after the 16H rules were added and eventually using delay became common. That was very damaging to the clubs. No delay is a bad feature that ruins games and wrecks clocks.
If you want to hold this type of event, you better advertise it as having no delay. Preferable is to use a long time control like Game 90 or slower. Game 30, d0 might appeal to hyperactive kids and unthinking parents, but this is not a time control that I as a coach would recommend that my students to play in.
Unfortunately, I see a rise in the use of “no delay” in tournaments.
What he said.
I’ve directed a total of 21 tournaments, all of which were scholastic and all of which were G/30 d5. While I agree that many people don’t want the tournament to last all day, it is the G/30 which prevents that. In my experience, the d5 has little, if any, impact on how long the event lasts, for several reasons:
It is unusual, in my experience, for games to be decided by a fallen flag. While I haven’t kept statistics on it, I’d estimate that, on the average, no more than one game per tournament has ended that way.
Even if a game lasted for 60 moves, a 5 second delay would only increase the maximum possible duration of the game from 60 minutes to 70 minutes, and that’s only if both players took more than 5 seconds to make every single move.
Even when a game ends on a fallen flag, the other player usually hasn’t used all of his/her time. If the player with the fallen flag used 35 minutes (including the delay time) and the other player used only 25 minutes (including delay time), the total duration of the game would still only be 60 minutes.
You can’t count on a G/30 d0 game lasting no more than 60 minutes. If, for example, a player makes an illegal move and hits his/her button before this is realized, the other player will normally have an extra 2 minutes added to their remaining time. It would take at least a dozen moves for a d5 to add that much time to the potential duration of a game. And players who make illegal moves sometimes do it more than once in the same game.
Bob
Rob, were you involved in USCF rated chess in the late '80s/early '90s, after G/30 and SD became ratable and before delay-digital clocks came to be? It was not pretty at times. Tom Magar says he knows people who dropped out of chess due to the “this is not chess” clock-slamming tension and chaos, and I believe him.
If no-delay G/30 in scholastic events works for you and your player base, fine. Lord help us if it ever becomes anything close to the norm again. Did I mention it was not pretty?
P.S. Do you allow ILC claims in your no-delay events?
Wasn’t there a Guess Who song “No Time Delay for You?”
At the 5-rd G/30;d5 tournament last Saturday we started round one at 10 AM (on time). The non-rated section finished their awards by 12:30 PM (5% of the players - to clarify, the section was not USCF rated and unrated players could and did play in the other three sections which were USCF rated). The K-3 section (40%) finished their awards by 2 PM. The 4-5 section (25%) finished their awards by 3 PM. The open section (30% - included 3 adults) finished their awards by 3:30 PM. The ASAP schedule allowed us to get a theoretical five hours of play (not yet counting delay) to be finished in well under five hours of clock time. The parents still had time to go home, change, and spend the entire evening doing whatever they wanted to.
A fast turn-around is much better at speeding things up than removing the delay.
Also, none of the non-rated games used a clock. None of the K-3 games started with a clock and only three needed to have a clock placed on them. Clocks were in use in the other two sections.
Mr. Nolan reminds me that I used to run GAME/5;d0 tournaments. There was almost universal complaint from the top players, i.e. masters. They all asked me to do something with delay or increment. I now run these same tournaments at GAME/5;+2. I have one fewer (double) round, but no one seems to mind.
Alex Relyea
If there is a rise in no-delay tournaments, I see a market for the analog clocks that will indeed be wrecked.
In the past, and in most areas, I would agree with you that the 5 sec delay would make little difference. In most areas that I
have seen, the better players, once scholastic, say 1300+, generally abhor all but regular chess events. In the Dallas market,
this is, however, no longer the case. On a regular basis, we have 1500-1800+ players playing in our scholastic events. As more
of these “chessaholics” compete, the interest in other higher rated scholastic players grows, esp, after they review MSA cross-tables. And, trust me, they do. Once it was rare to see strong HS players participating in local scholastic events, now it is
commonplace.
And with these higher level players participating, the average game length increases substantially. Most often, they are the last
group out of the building. Esp, for 5 round events. (Which by the way, besides using G/30 No delay, I have also shortened the
round format from 5 to 4 at many events to attract more of the “soccer-mom” target group).
G/30, no delay is a very exciting format preferred by quite a few stronger players. It is absolutely loved by those “up and coming”
as it gives them a far greater opportunity to “knock off” the “big dogs”. In this format, it is not unusual to see a player rated 1300
to defeat one rate 1800++, for example.
Rob Jones
If shortening the playing schedule is a primary consideration, G/25,d/5 or G/20,d/10 might be interesting to try, and would still be dual-rated in either case. Lower rated players would still have a good chance to knock off higher rated players in such time controls, and one can eliminate the insufficient losing chances rules entirely. And since younger players are not as likely to fully utilize their delay time, rounds may actually be shorter.
That said, I’m not personally opposed to G/30,d/0. Those of us who played with analogs certainly are familiar with the potential perils of a no-delay time control, and those who don’t like it have plenty of alternatives available. The above is meant solely as a suggestion - one that might also serve these new players by familiarizing them with delay time controls, which most events will use.
A concern with some of these formats you mention is that most of the scholastic organizers, myself included, do not have dozens
of available clocks. Most scholastic players do not posses them either.
Rob Jones
My experience with scholastic events is that most games at time controls around G/30 are over in 15-20 minutes. The players who are likely to use all their time are usually the stronger ones, and those players value increment/delay settings enough (and know how to budget their time to take advantage of the full time control) and as a result such players usually have their own clocks.
I’ve found that a scholastic tournament with 200 players spread over four sections, each on an ASAP schedule, can get by with 3-6 clocks that can be placed on only the long-running games that don’t have a clock. As I stated in an earlier post, last weekend the K-3 section had 15 games per round, 5 rounds, zero games starting with a clock, and I had to put a clock on only three of those games all day (one apiece in three different rounds).
Rule 16M handles adding a clock to a game when it wasn’t available at the start of the game (split the time elapsed from the start of the round - even if a player with a clock arrived 58 minutes into a G/60 time control and the other player did not have a clock, resulting in both players having 29 minutes taken off).
At the All-Girls National there were 77-80 games per round in the ballroom with the U10 and U12 sections. More than half of the games in the U10 section did not have clocks, along with a number of them in the U12 section. Because this was a national with more serious players, I would sometimes need to add as many as three clocks near the end of some of the rounds.