Personally, I use a Chronos clock, and I’ve purchased Chronos clocks for my High School chess team. I’m looking to pick up more clocks for my team, and a High School in our conference needs 8 new clocks.
I’m found a place to purchase the DGT North American Chess clock for $40 each, and a place to purchase the Saitek Chess Competition Game Clock for $26 each. For 8 clocks, that is $320 for the DGT NA and $208 for the Saitek. That is over a hundred dollars difference.
Any recommendations?
Steven Craig Miller (chess coach for Lincoln-Way West High School, New Lenox, IL)
For a scholastic club or team the Saitek Competition blue clock should be fine. It’s targeted to that market. If the high school team in question produces serious tournament players, they will likely move on to the DGT or Chronos, or even the Excalibur Game Time II, if they have not already done so.
Note that the blue Saitek does not support increment, if that’s an issue. If you need increment-capable clocks at an affordable price, go with the DGT or the Excalibur. Both are perfectly OK. (I think the Chronos is still the best clock overall, but it is expensive and the initial learning curve for a newbie player can be steep.)
Some players get distracted by the way Saitek clocks display or count down the delay time before the main clock time starts to tick away. I don’t like it myself, though I have gotten used to it.
Waiting for our stalwart DGT and Saitek boosters from the heartland to chime in here…
I’d amend this to say " . . . or the Saitek Competition Pro" (a.k.a. the Silver Saitek), but other than that, I agree with ericmark. The Saitek Competition (a.k.a. the Blue Saitek) is a decent scholastic or club clock, but its presets are limited; serious players will want to move on to something more robust.
I have both and have used them in tournament play. The Saitek Comp Pro, silver, is capable of everything that the DGT NA is. I has two advantages; it’s less expensive and it has a light on the button that clearly displays who is on the move. Saitek may not have the cache of the DGT, but is it extremely durable (the verdict is out on the NA) and it doesn’t come in the butt ugly color scheme of the NA. If it’s truly North American, I’d like to see a version in Mexican or Canadian colors.
Aside from the dollar issue, my big thing with the DGT clocks is the display uses periods instead of colons. I like to read 59:59 instead of 59.59, personally. (At least the display ads I’ve seen have the same period-style separator that it’s bigger cousins have.)
But of the two I only have personal experience with the Saitek competition. While it has a settings learning curve like any digital clock, it is fairly easy to get the knack of how to change settings rapidly. Of the multiple competitions at our club, I’m unaware of any mechanical failures yet after 2+ years of heavy use.
I think it’s worth keeping in mind the circumstances described in Mr. Miller’s question. My impression is that he is not asking which clock an individual player should purchase. The clocks will be used by a high school chess team (club?) and will presumably be owned by the high school. Cost is, quite understandably, a serious consideration.
Without knowing more details about the time controls the conference uses, I’m guessing that any clock capable of handling a single time control with five second delay is perfectly adequate. In that case, I would suggest the Saitek Competition clock (the “blue” clock, not the Pro). It’s rugged, it’s designed with scholastic use in mind, and it will easily get the job done. That’s good value.
Yes, individual players may stay with chess and play in tournaments that use increment time controls. (And we hope the high school players do stay involved with chess!) But for the needs of the high school team in question, I think “less is more.”
IMHO it would be extremely short-sighted for a school to purchase clocks which are not increment-capable. It’s only a matter of time before some of the players will be playing in increment tournaments. Don’t short-change the students – especially since there are several increment-capable clocks available at extremely reasonable prices.
The blue Saitek Competition allows for tournament timing of Primary, secondary and tertiary periods. It has set modes for some of these and the user can set all three periods to the desired times. See saitek.com/manuals/Gameclock … nglish.pdf