I’m with Bill on that. Delay is fine to allow for writing down a move, but why have infinite time if you can move fast enough when not in a lost position? By adding time you are, IMO, effectively making the clock a piece to be played in the game. That may or may not be OK in blitz, but in long games I just don’t like it.
I think the opposite. I think it takes the clock out of the game except in complicated positions. It’s similar to adding an hour every twelve moves, or whatever the old standard time control was.
Alex Relyea
I’m with Mr. Relyea on this one. Delay is better than nothing, but even with delay I have seen people try to run their opponents out of time in a dead drawn position when the opponent was down to just a few seconds plus the delay. With increment you can make a few quick moves and build up enough remaining time that this nonsense is essentially prevented.
We could always go back to playing with no clocks. If that happened today, you could simply text your opponent when it’s their turn to move…
+1.
It’s all part of the game. -1
I don’t believe this sort of gamesmanship is, or should be part of the game. We’ll just have to agree to disagree on this point.
The rules aren’t handed down from heaven on stone tablets. It’s part of the game if … we make it part of the game.
Maybe I’m out of touch, but I have the impression that the raison d’etre of delay/increment is to avoid exactly the kind of strategy that’s been described, i.e. playing on in an obviously drawn endgame in hopes that the opponent’s flag will fall. So if people wanted to play the variant of chess in which that strategy is “part of the game”, which is what we all played until, what, 20 years ago, they wouldn’t need digital clocks.
Now you see I was under the impression that that only existed for a very few years. How long were sudden death time controls ratable before delay clocks became standard, or at least 14H?
Alex Relyea
I’m curious about that myself. I thought before delay/increment, the shortest time control was 30 minutes. I didn’t know that sudden death was not an option at one time.
Sorry, error on my part. The raison d’etre for delay/increment, I meant, was “sudden death without playing the flag”. And the reason for sudden death is, of course, to get rounds finished on time. Indeed, you’re both right, sudden death is a relatively recent thing, except for “Blitz” and “Rapid”.
I do remember, however, playing a FIDE-rated sudden death game as long ago as 1981, in which I had the rook in a R v N endgame, and I would almost certainly not have won, if my opponent had had sufficient time on his clock. FIDE didn’t normally rate sudden death back then, but the tournament organizer, who knew Campomanes, pleaded with him to allow him to do sudden death for one round so that we could get out of the building on time.
Sudden death became legal around 1980 (give or take 5 years), I think.
In 1996, a rule was passed that a delay-capable clock was a preferred clock (either player who furnished one had the right to insist on its use), and that 5 seconds was the standard delay, even if no delay had been announced in advance. The organizer had the right, but not the obligation, to deduct 5 minutes from the main time in games played with a delay clock. (I suppose an organizer could run a d/0 event if he wanted to, but only if the lack of delay was explicit in pre-event publicity.) Thus, when a game was played with a delay clock in an event announced as G/60, it was played at either G/60 d/5 or G/55 d/5, organizer’s option.
It was only within the last decade or so that organizers have been required to explicitly specify the delay (or increment) time, even if zero, in pre-event publicity. A time control announcement of simply as G/60, for example, would have been regarded as an incomplete specification.
Bill Smythe
I enthusiastically recommend an Insa clock; I have had one for 20 years and it’s still going strong. A bit larger than most analog clocks, but well made with big buttons. Love it!