I was going to post an angry rant here about my opinion on rule 16B, but I’ll spare you all that other than to say that is ASININE in the 21st century to demand that player “watch” a clock wile they’re playing.
Anyway, my question for those who would know, I have read here many times that “almost” anything is allowable in tournaments if it is posted beforehand. Would evil clocks that “cheat” by telling you (while your not looking!) that your time is up, be permissible if posted in pre-tournament info.
Pre-tournament notification of what would be considered a “major” rule adjustment? Sure, permissible.
Advisable? The rule was instituted for a reason. I like that players have to take responsibility for calling the flag and not being tipped off by sound. Most delay/increment clocks have enough lights and flashing that it’s perfectly noticeable.
“The rule was instituted for a reason.” is followed by “I like that players have to take responsibility for calling the flag and not being tipped off by sound”
Is that the reason?
Name another timed sport where the time control only ends when one person or team “calls it”.
And… why do you like it? Chess isn’t hard enough, complicated enough, busy enough that you need another “thing” to wrangle with? It sounds like a good idea to have something ENTIRELY UNRELATED to chess skill be artificially applied to OTB experience. People playing online don’t call time, Just another bizarre, arcane thing the USCF keeps around because thats the way it used to be.
You know, centuries ago they played chess with dice.
Im sure in the future someone will invent a dependable, affordable board/set that records moves, and of course the USCF will still demand that players record games manualy. And maybe wear double-breasted suits, and monocles, and spats, and watch bobbs.
This reminds me of long ago when a certain National tournament director bought a gross of Saitek clocks. This paticular batch of Saiteks had a signaling device that could not be disabled to indicate the expiration of the losers time. Further, the other clock would freeze. I laughed and pointed out to this esteemed director (and member of the rules commitee) that the Saitek was an illegal toy, which it was at the time, because of the signaling device. Wouldn’t you guess…Soon the illegal toy was transformed into the preferred clock for tournament play! I am pleased to see that our rules are dynamic and capable of change. Part of tournament play is time management, I still remember when a spectator called the flag in a heated time scramble and the resulting chaos. The director ejected the non-playing spectator from the hall but the result stood. I thought this was one of the most awful sights ever. Was that chess?
Name another times sport where the buzzer indicating the end of the game can confuse a different game right next to it.
THAT (and the sound that can distract the game next to it) is what I consider the big reason for wanting silence. If there is only a single game going on (such as the world championship) then sound is fine. When there can be two games with severe time pressure near each other and a beep from one clock can cause confusion in the other game, then it is best if sound is off.
But is the beep on a move press any worse than the click of a traditional analog, or the noise that some clocks, analog or digital, make when pressed? Personally, I would prefer a low volume but audible electronic “click” to no sound or a beep, just so that I know the press has registered.
Chess is certainly not the only competitive activity where nearby independent competitions can produce sounds that could disturb or interfere with a competitor.
Go to a track meet, gymnastic meet or wrestling meet and you’ll hear whistles, bells, competition sounds, crowd noise and even music from other competitors.
As to the competitors calling time on their opponents, that’s mostly a concession to large scale and amateur events, where the number of officials is a very small fraction of the number of competitors. At events like the Olympiad, where the ratio of paid arbiters to competitors is much higher, the arbiters call all flags.
Before the chess clock was ever used, there was the understood principle that no player should consume an excessive amount of time to make his moves.
Some players, including Alexander McDonnell in the 1830’s, abused or ignored this understood principle. So something had to be done.
When the chess clock was first introduced, its only purpose was to keep the game moving forward. It achieves this goal.
The clock was not adopted with the hope of adding further types of burdens on the players.
Indeed a core principle of good clock rules is to - prevent or minimize any burdens on the players other than to limit their amount of thinking time.
However, some tournament organizers and USCF delegates disagree with this “no-further-avoidable-burdens” principle.
When one person agrees with the principle, and another disagrees, all the debate they can generate will change neither person’s mind.
But a debater loses credibility when he “trumpets the trivial”, such as saying that an at most once-per-game beep to signal flag fall is a disruption of the playing conditions in the tournament room.
The rules should require or encourage the electronic clock to beep and freeze at flag fall. Any continued attempt or two to press the clock as in a normal move should also emit the flag fall beep.
One problem this would solve is the mentioned problem that, otherwise, a spectator can too easily (even accidentally) cause a problem by hinting that flag fall has occurred. This is an unnecessarily brittle or fragile situation, indicative of dubious rule design. I too have seen this spectator problem happen.
The clock was not adopted with the hope of adding further types of burdens on the TDs.
When I first started to direct (1976) there was no such thing as a beeping clock.
When a spectator injects him/herself into a game he/she is giving assistance to one of the players by giving that player information he/she didn’t know leading to a victory and should deservedly be ejected. It’s a simple concept that 2 against 1 in chess isn’t fair. If the situation is “fragile” it’s only because of the ignorance of the spectator. More often than not, that spectator is also a player in the same tournament so there may also be a conflict of interest.
beep beep beep beep beep beep…beep beep beep…beep beep beep beep beep beep…beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep … beep beep beep beep beep beep…beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep …beep beep beep beep beep beep beep. BEEP Game over. Or is it? Both sides stopped keeping score around move 20. Clock accidentally set for one time control when it was a two time control session. Player failed to turn off sound on clock. Do you still want to hear more of those beeps? Especially as you head into time pressure?
The sound of clocks ticking has a soothing sound that overcame other ambient noises. The rhythm of the ticking enhanced thinking much the way a metronome guides a musician. Beeps are a staccato of noise that abruptly interferes with one’s thoughts. The silence of the digital clocks is OK, as long as it does not beep to end the game or otherwise inform a player of the end of the time. There is a rule that if both sides run out of time the game ends in a draw. This is literally short-circuited by a bell or beep that ends a game. Players should call the flag or end of the game without a prompt. At one FIDE rated tournament I saw an excited arbiter call the flag of one of the players. The player threw a rook at him.
Good point. I forgot about this practical problem, which I think of as the Unreliable Move Counter problem.
Players error by forgetting to press their clocks for a move-pair; or a player accidentally pressing his clock prematurely thus causing his opponent to correct by pressing his immediately; etc. The move counter suffers.
IF the future provides a highly reliable move counter that is very inexpensive, then the principle and issue of this thread could be debated without the clutter of practical human error.
I wonder whether the fully automated DGT boards of today have an extremely high rate of accuracy in their move counters?
In my mind I always felt that old wind-up analog clocks used a red plastic tab to signal “flag fall”. But instead what the red tab really does is signal 12:00; and the rest is interpretation.
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The arbiter was compelled to do that under FIDE rules. And I hope the arbiter threw the player’s sorry rear end out of the event without batting an eyelash. Propelling equipment at an official or into a crowd is never acceptable.
As I recall, although the rules specified that the first time control should be at 6:00, a significant number of analog clocks wound up set so that the first time control was at 12:00.