In general, I’m not too picky about time controls. My ideal time control would be the old FIDE control: 40/2, followed by endlessly repeating 20/1, or something similar. Since adjournments are problematic in today’s computer age, nobody does that anymore, and the best we can hope for now is 40/2, SD/1, with a 5-second delay. But if you want to run more than 2 rounds in a day, you can’t even do that without the possibility of adjournments, so single sudden-death time controls have become the norm for most tournaments.
I can live with that. My only “line in the sand” is that I won’t play a sudden death time control unless it has delay or increment. But since I’m a reasonably quick player, I hardly ever get into time trouble at time controls of G/60 or greater (and I rarely play shorter ones than that), so I don’t much care whether it’s delay or increment, or how many seconds.
However, I was talking to someone the other day who expressed an extreme preference for 30-second increment, without caring too much what the total amount of time is. Not coincidentally, he is a perfectionist and a procrastinator who habitually gets into time trouble. His reasoning is that having that guaranteed 30 seconds per move when he gets into time trouble is more important than the total amount of time. For me, the total amount of time is much more important – you just have to know how to budget that time (never a problem for me). Different strokes for different folks, I guess.
Here’s the problem, though: some of my most unpleasant experiences in chess involve playing people who are congenitally unable to make a decision until the clock forces them to. So I sit there, bored out of my skull and twiddling my thumbs, for 90 minutes or 120 minutes, depending on the time control, until my opponent is finally forced (by the clock) to start playing chess. I’m beginning to think that the 30-second increment just encourages these people to indulge their bad habits – and I’m beginning to dislike it on principle for this reason. Note that I have played very few events with increment, so I don’t know whether or not my fears are founded.
Apparently you play Chess for enjoyment and entertainment. I do too. I understand and feel the same about having to sit there for long periods of time while an opponent seems to stall, allowing his time to run down. This certainly takes the fun out of playing a Chess game.
On our Monday evening club nights we play G/80, d/5 and G/90, d/5 for our slow time control games. We have tried to use an increment and found that G/60, i/30 feels and plays like the G/90, d/5. Of course the increment of 30 seconds does take a lot of time stress out of the scene.
The good news is that with G/60, i/30 the player only has 60 minutes of main time. Unless he builds up his time by making a number of moves faster, he can’t waste that much time on one or even a few moves.
With G/90, d/5 he can waste a lot of time on one or a few moves and stall the game for 30 minutes longer than with that base time of 60 minutes.
Actually, they could waste the whole 60 minutes (or whatever) on just a handful of moves, and then just “live on the increment” – and I know people who would do exactly that. It’s not as easy to get away with that when you’re playing with a 5-second delay. This is making me prefer the 5-second delay to the 30-second increment (provided the main time is adjusted to make the “time elapsed” about the same for an average game).
Another maddening argument I’ve heard is that G/90 inc 30 “feels” the same (to some of these people) as 40/2, SD/1 d5 – which is totally untrue and totally irrational. However it “feels”, the total amount of time you have is much less, unless your game runs to hundreds of moves – and this never happens. They just like the security blanket of never being in worse time trouble than 30 seconds per move. That way of thinking drives me up the wall. A much better solution is to budget your time so that you don’t get into time trouble (I know, like that’s ever going to happen…).
A player with a predilection for time trouble will find it, regardless of the time control. I try not to worry about how my opponents choose to spend their time. The way I was taught, one should always be thinking, even if it’s the opponent’s turn to move. I believe that approach allows me to not become frustrated with slow-moving opponents. It also leaves me more time later in the game to find and exploit mistakes they make when they are in time pressure.
In general, as a director, I prefer time controls with an increment of at least 30 seconds, especially for events with less than three rounds per day. More time in between playing sessions is a good thing for players and directors alike. As a player, I honestly don’t care, because I’m just about never in time trouble anyway (though I share Mr. Kosterman’s distaste for terminal time controls without either delay or increment).
I think you miss Mr. Suarez’s point. One of the benefits he claims is that your opponent can only “waste” 60 minutes with increment, while he can “waste” 90 minutes with delay.
G/60, i/30 will give a 60 move game 90 minutes of total time for one player. And the G/90, d/5 gives a total time of 95 minutes for the individual player in the 60 move game.
However, the player can only sit and “waste” time for 60 minutes in the increment time control whereas he can “waste” a lot more time in the G/90, d/5 control. Even if he only “wastes” 80 minutes to keep some time with the delay, that is still 20 minutes more time that he can “waste” or stall or whatever we call it.
And in the increment time control he must keep score throughout the whole game compared to being able to stop keeping score with the delay when his total time drops below 5 minutes.
I don’t know who says that G/90, i/30 feels like 40/2, SD/1 d/5. Most everyone I have talked with, and in our own experiences we agree that G/90, i/30 “feels” like G/120, d/5. Both give approximately the same total time for a game. The one you mention with the time control of 40/2, SD/1 d5 does give a lot more time than the increment time. Once again taking the 60 move example, the G/90, i/30 gives 120 minutes for those moves for one side. The 40/2 time mentioned gives just a little over 180 minutes. That’s quite a difference.
Here in Peoria, we have had the G/120, d/5 time control for our Greater Peoria Open. At the request of some Masters, we have now gone to G/90, i/5 since last year. And our experience running that tournament and a few other test tournaments on Monday evenings shows the increment time control does work and feel as I have pointed out.
In recent years I have played in many tournaments with a 30-second increment, and many with a 5-second delay. During this time I have seldom, if ever, encountered an opponent who simply refuses to move (or resign) despite having a dead lost position. Obviously, though, it could happen. If it happens to you, you might want to complain to the TD. In extreme cases, the TD might warn your opponent to either move or resign, and if the opponent does not do so within a few minutes, the TD just might forfeit your opponent and lecture him strongly about sportsmanship.
I don’t know where the comparison between G/90 inc/30 and 40/120 20/60 d/0 comes from. It seems to me G/90 inc/30 is better compared with G/120 d/0.
Also, there is no reason why an increment needs to be 30 seconds, nor a delay 5 seconds. For faster controls organizers should consider inc/5 (rather than inc/30 or d/5).
I have played in tournaments with all sorts of time controls. The increment time control events included Game 60, 30i ; Game 90, 30i; and Game 120, 30i. The Game 60 tournament seemed a little fast, more like a Game 75, d5 tournament. Once your time got down to under 5 minutes, it felt very tense if you were in a complicated middlegame position. It was only possible to take one or two big thinks of 10 minutes or more for complex strategical decisions. Critical moments eat up time in master level play. The Game 90 tournament felt closer to a Game 120, d5 tournament. You had more time to think, to get refreshment, and go to the loo. It was a more normal game experience. The Game 120 event was a real luxurious tournament. It felt like the old 40/150, 20/60 tournaments. You could really dig deep into the positions. The games lasted between 4.5 and 5 hours. In all of the events I played in the average number of moves per game was about 45. The longer time controls tended to have more moves played as there were fewer errors and more even endgames to play.
If a tournament were to decrease the increment time, then you will have to invoke the rules for not having to write down your move when either of the players has less than 5 minutes on the clock. That would defeat the purpose of increment allowing players to have complete score sheets. It would be back to clock bashing.
It comes from an argument a few years back about changing the format for our Wisconsin State Championship tournament, in which we traditionally have a time control of 40/2, SD/1 d5. It was suggested that we could have 3 games a day (rather than our traditional 2) by changing the time control to G/90 inc30, and that this time control was essentially “no different” (!).
The player I talked with the other day also said that he would rather play G/90 inc30 than 40/2, SD/1 d5, because it “felt like he had more time”. In my opinion, both of these people are deluded, but they did actually make the arguments given here. I am not making this up!
I sort of got that, but my point is that when all you have is a 5-second delay, you’re less likely to use all of your available time, because then you only have 5 seconds per move, and that’s not much unless you have a very simplified positon. Of course, 30 seconds isn’t as much as they think it is either, because they can’t stop keeping score like they can with a 5-second delay. But I think they conveniently forget that, and get into the mindset that because they will always have at least 30 seconds, it’s OK to use up all of their available “main time”. That’s my fear, anyway. As I said, I don’t have enough experience with increment time controls to know how often this actually happens. But in principle, I’m suspicious of them.
I prefer to direct 40/90, SD/30 with a 30 second increment, with the SD increased to 60 for more important events. I think it is important to add a large chunk of time at some point in the game, and it is much appreciated by the players.
This is an obvious falsehood (not from Mr. Kosterman). It should be obvious that you can’t have three games in the same time as two if the time control is “no different”.
BTW, please heed Mr. Yang’s post. It is a bit confusing when you mix hours and minutes, especially since the use of hours is no longer standard.
As a player, I think a secondary time control of 30 minutes, with either delay or increment, is very poor for the players. You are plunged almost immediately into time pressure. Most players after making it to the second time control need time to go to the bathroom and reorient after the tension and pressure of the first time control. The player may go to get something to quickly eat and drink before going back to the board. This may take 10 minutes or so. With a second session of 30 minutes, it is difficult to do that. In addition, you also have little time for the necessary big thinks that you need to do in the endgame. As an older player, I believe this hurts seniors and makes them think twice about attending an event.
I will give you an example of this. Last weekend, I played a League game with a 30/90, Game 60, d5 time control. Going into the second session, I needed to go to the bathroom and then drink a bottle of water as I felt dehydrated. I refilled my water bottle, grabbed a snack bar, and went back to the board. It took about 10 minutes to do all of this plus calm down and refocus. My opponent had about a 20 minute time edge. During the 50 minutes I had left, the position became even more complicated (Q+B+B vs. Q+B+B) and his time edge disappeared. If I had only 20 minutes on the clock, I would definitely have lost the game as I would have not had the time to find and calculate the resources to save it. It is not easy to play “crooked piece” endings.
This is a reasonable point, but I doubt 40/60, SD/60; +30 would be a popular time control. Two rounds of 40/90, SD/60; +30 can make for a very long day.
The upcoming Tournoi ouvert de Sherbrooke (Quebec) is 40/80, SD/40; +30. Perhaps that is a good compromise.
I once lost a tournament entry because the player in question did not understand until he found out after the event was over that G/2 meant game in two hours, not game in two minutes. He was quite peeved with me, and said that he would gladly have entered if he had only known. Of course, he could have called or emailed to ask, but I learned my lesson, and I now always list the time control as G/120.
