As soon as I posted this it made me wonder if the Grand Prix is an “official” FIDE event, or series of events.
In any case, as far as USCF goes, the idea as I read the recent rating tea leaves is to rate anything at G/5 or slower under one system or another. Bill Smythe and perhaps others have suggested caps on delay/increments to avoid farcical controls, I believe—but the use of delay/increment only in the last control…while asking for trouble…is well short of farce.
Also, while I agree with Bill Hall’s take on things, I doubt this issue would ever affect whether an event is Quick/Dual or Dual/Regular unless a perverse TD or organizer decided to have some ‘fun.’ We do not see much G/5, Inc-60 Dual, for instance.
Finally, the Ratings workshops are the highlight of my US Open podcast surfing. Mr Kuhns runs a good workshop: lively but somewhat under control. I do not much like the chair of a USCF committee calling members “idiots” for trying a non-standard time control variant.
Bill, can you recall the debate over “delay from move one or not” from the days putting together the 4th Edition? Thanks.
I don’t think anyone has suggested an outright ban on increment/delay time controls that don’t start at move 1.
What they HAVE suggested is that the USCF standard should be that the increment/delay time control starts at move 1.
Any deviation from that would be a major variant that needs to be in all advance publicity and announced on-site.
At present (once Blitz is implemented in 2013), any time control that is G/3 d2 or slower is USCF ratable somewhere. Yeah, some of them may be odd ducks, but how many of those do we actually see?
I think an argument could be made that some of the more unusual time controls should not be part of the regular rating system, like G/5 d25. Perhaps Game/xx time controls where XX is < 25 should be quick-only, regardless of the increment/delay used. Whether the Delegates would approve that is unclear.
I proposed in this thread that it may be worthwhile to consider requiring that delay time controls start at move 1 and should be the same throughout the game.
Some legitimate objections were raised to this idea, although I’m not fully convinced that we shouldn’t seriously consider it.
I think our rulebook is getting too complex, too bulky, and there should be some push to simplify, even if the resulting rules might not be quite as flexible or theoretically pleasing.
We should also consider some “forward looking” rules. For example, we should consider eliminating analog clocks in some year - for example - 2020. At some point they will be so outmoded that many directors won’t know exactly how to deal with them anymore (as crazy as that sounds) so we should just PLAN to sunset them. Another forward looking rule would be to require certain information and certain designs for electronic scoresheets. (For example, some current scoresheets store round, but not board.) Taking a proactive planned approach will help equipment manufacturers reasonably meet the needs of players over time.
On the other hand, standardization is the bane of improvement.
If one tries to set standards too early in the development of a new technology, one is likely locking oneself into a primitive version of the technology.
As for outright banning delay / increment that doesn’t start at move 1, there’s a danger that some FIDE-ratable controls (now or in the future) will cease to be USCF-ratable. That, I think, would be a Bad Thing.
In addition, as Eric Mark noted, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to ban delay / increment in just one control, when it is legal (shudder) to run a tournament with no delay / increment at all.
Sometimes it’s better just to let organizers be stupid, if that’s what they really want.
I think I’ve already addressed the FIDE aspect earlier in the thread. Perhaps we would have to limit a couple of circumstances, but basically what I would propose is that any FIDE ratable event would also be USCF ratable. This keeps the rule simple.
I disagree with Erik Mark’s comment. Running a tournament with no delay/increment at all is equivalent to running one where the delay/increment amount is 0 in all time controls. So it makes perfect sense because a tournament with no delay/increment at all follows the rule of having it start at move one and having (for delay) the same amount in every time control.
There’s an old business saying that you can always tell the pioneers - they are the ones with the arrows in their backs. The argument is that sometimes its best to be #2 on something so that others can work out the issues and take on the risks and work of doing so. Then #2 can come along and do something better having learned from #1’s mistakes.
Delay has been around a long time. Simplifying those rules is something that can reasonably occur now. Simplifying other aspects of our rules can occur now. Increment and electronic scoresheets are relatively new, but even those aspects can likely be best guided with a principle based, forward looking approach.
I note that we increasingly see posts about how we make things too difficult. This is not often talking about rules per se, but it does happen - and what also happens are questions that come up about rules that we think are well established - yet from the comments its clear that these very rules are often confusing people. Our response has been to make the rulebook even larger by adding “tips”.
I think its time that we look to simplify rules. We can let organizers be stupid - but we don’t have to make the rules so complex that its a given.
Eric, since you mentioned both Bill Hall and me in the post from which I excerpted the above, I’m not quite sure which Bill you are addressing (maybe even Goichberg?). Neither Bill Hall nor I had anything to do with the 4th edition rulebook.
I was on the 5th edition rulebook revision committee. There, I was perhaps the squeakiest wheel. In fact, in the acknowledgments Tim Just even refers to me as “chief advisor”.
As to the 4th edition, I can’t find any reference at all to the question of setting the delay from move one or not. I do seem to recall rules updates (published in rating supplements) shortly following the 4th edition, suggesting that delay “should” be turned on from move 1.
When the 5th edition revision committee tackled this question, one or two committee members, as I recall, advocated delay only during the final control, citing grandmaster preferences or something like that. My response, in support of delay from move 1, made several points:
Delay from move 1 is already the standard (at least according to the rating supplements).
If delay were turned on only for the final control, some players may become confused, possibly even time-forfeiting unnecessarily at the end of the primary control.
Not having the delay on could result in poor player behavior near the end of the primary control – knocking over pieces without replacing them, using two hands, etc.
Having the delay on during all controls generates a more nearly uniform “feel” from one control to the next.
Having the delay on at all times fosters better uniformity from one tournament to the next, as players switch back and forth between single- and double-control events.
Some clocks may not have the capability of setting the delay only during the final control.
Different brands of clocks may handle multiple delays differently. With 40/90 SD/60, for example, some clocks may turn on the delay after move 40, others not until each player’s first control has expired. One player may reach the 90-minute mark at move 43, the other at move 57, so that for 14 moves one player would have the delay and the other would not.
Bill Goichberg responded with “I agree with all of this” and added a further point:
Having the delay on near the end of the first control will result in less noise, commotion, and disturbance for other players still playing nearby.
The 5th edition wording ended up as follows:
By the way, neither the 4th nor 5th edition mentions increment at all (unless I’m missing something) – only delay.
Thanks, Bill. I meant you (Bill Smythe) and the 5th Edition.
Good explanation. I agree completely on practical grounds. Still, there must be a reason world championship matches are played with increment only in the last control.
I think grandmasters can be idiot savants – extremely good at one thing, but totally lacking in basic skills at just about everything else. Maybe it confuses them to see the clock jump 30 seconds every time the button is pressed. “Hey, just a second ago my opponent had 2 minutes left. Now he suddenly has 2 minutes 30 seconds. What gives?”
I think a more charitable explanation might be that the time controls other than the last already have the increment time “built in”, so the players may actually decide how to allocate all the time in the control. It’s hard for me to word that in an understandable way, so let me use a specific example. One of the allowed time controls for norm tournaments is 40/100 20/50 SD/15 with 30 second increment from move one. Now, this is basically the same as 40/120 20/60 SD/15 with 30 second increment in the final time control only. The slight difference is that in the latter, the full two hours for the first 40 moves is available from the very first move. If a player wants to go into a very deep think on move 31 that leaves him with three minutes to complete the last ten moves, that is his prerogative. On the other hand, with 100 minutes base time for the first time control, after 30 moves, he would only have accumulated 15 minutes of increment time. That long think would cause the player to exceed the time limit by two whole minutes.
No, I never said it was an amazingly huge difference …
Bill, I think you’re probably talking about historical (text of the actual editions…) The current supplement is what equates increment and delay and adds “increment” wherever one finds delay in the rulebook-but those are all changes from the supplement. I know because I mark my rulebook up with the changes and/or mark where I should be looking to the supplement instead of the book text. So I’d say you’re not missing anything.
Kevin, perhaps not all of us live in the same box, and have different
thoughts about what the proper time of delay is, or for that matter,
whether it or increment should be used at all.
I understand that Rob. I had a number of discussions with people about delay when it first came in. I have seen that many traditionalists have mistaken notions about delay and/or increment - for example - the notion that it is “adding” time. A good look at the history of chess timers shows this fairly convincingly.
We are a relatively small organization. While I’m all for variety, having excessive variety, for apparently very little purpose other than the sake of having variety, adds little pleasure to the chess experience, and creates a great deal of waste in terms of rules, confusion about rules, an excessively large rulebook, etc. At some point its more important to spend some effort simplifying. There’s little good argument for having a different delay in various time controls, and its much simpler and easier to understand if the delay is consistent across time controls.
We have never used the original Bronstein rules for using delay. David Bronstein favored games with a shorter time control with a non-accumulating 15 second delay. Not 5 second delay. That was way too short. No incremental time that Fischer favored. Bronstein thought that you should not get time for nothing, for adding time by repeating a position or some other artifice. His idea of time delay was reasonable and should have been implemented.
It is interesting that on one hand you state that you understand, but
for the sake of “simplicity” you wish to eliminate choice, because in
your mind, those of us with a foot in the analog world have
an incorrect perception. The point is whether we are correct or
incorrect in our perception, we still have as much right to this
perception, as you do yours. And your argument that "there is little
good argument…? is a perception that, indeed, while you have a right to, have no right to force it on the rest of us for the purpose
of being “consistent” or for any other reason.
No, you have misunderstood what I have said. What I have said is that we hear from our members that things should be simpler, including our rulebook. Clock use and rules around insufficient losing chances, how to use clocks in time controls, are an area where we can simplify because there is already a significant majority using one type of clock over the other, and because the trend continues.
In addition, the arguments presented in favor of analog clocks, such as “purity” demonstrate a misunderstanding of the use of chess clocks as is easily seen by examining the history of the use of chess clocks. That history is not an opinion, it is observable. Clocks were not considered pure - they were a necessary evil. That someone thinks of them as pure shows that they have a limited perspective of the issue, and I have - many, many, times - had good discussions with people where I walk them through the history, walk them through what delay and increment actually do, and in the end have 100% of the time found that the real issue is understandable resistance to change (including the aspect of expense.)
That resistance is valid - but its insufficiently valid to hold the organization hostage to obsolescence for an indefinite period of time.
I, for example, like the rule where I can write first. I like it for my own chess discipline, and I like it for training students. That said, I agree that the rule needs to change - less so because of the concern over note-taking (that can be dealt with in other ways) - but more legitimately over the fact that electronic scoresheets are here and will continue to expand in use. I need to acquiesce. That we SPECIFY a time for a change over is not less fair, its MORE fair, and more kind, because it provides the clarity people need to move through such a change.
Understanding why someone wants to make a less good choice doesn’t mean that we have to agree with that choice; it means that we have to be sensitive about how we move ahead with the better choice.
No, that isn’t the point at all - if the perception you’re talking about is the “purity” of chess clocks. The point is that game equipment is evolving, and we need to be ahead of the curve to keep things simpler for users, or it will only get worse.
In addition to the actual point above, the history of chess clocks is readily available online and in books. It’s easy to see that the perception you’ve given is not a correct one, and is one that misunderstands the role of clocks. Truth is testable. But this point is secondary - its part of the communication needed to help people over the hurdles, its not the reason for moving ahead with a better choice.
No, its not just my perception. Even the analog clock owners agree that there is little good argument for different delay settings for the different time control segments in an event.
There is some odd belief here that somehow there is a “magical truth” to clock use. There isn’t. This is a practical matter - we need to be able to control game duration. Analog clocks did this reasonably well for some time. Unfortunately, analog clocks have a short-coming in that they allow the player to control the time duration only by dividing up a total time among the unknown number of moves in a game, or the known number in a control. Delay and increment provide two time pools - a per move pool and an overall pool. In delay, these pools are kept separate and unused delay is lost. In increment unused increment per move is kept available for the overall pool.
None of this is a matter of “adding time.” Its a matter of allocating time in a way that gives the player more control per move as well as having control overall. It is unfortunate that this removes some simplicity. But the up side is that it decreases the impact of the the clock on parts of the game, thus returning chess closer to its original more pure state.
I fully understand and accept that this change can be hard. (There was a time that people embraced the Kaisha chess clock and I did not. People thought I disliked digital - but that was wrong - I just disliked the clock. But some people did dislike digital.)
But the fact that change is hard doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t plan for it in a reasonable way.
P.S. BTW - those familiar with 10 second chess know that the idea of per move time controls have been around a long time. We just finally have the technology that allow us to combine pooled and per move controls, offering a hybrid approach that while more complex provides real advantages for more satisfying play.
Current FIDE rules for Norm events which I would expect would also include all very important events state
" 1.0 Requirements for titles designated in 0.31
1.14 The tournament must be played by using one of the following rates of play:
90 minutes with 30 seconds cumulative increment for each move starting from first move
90 minutes for 40 moves + 30 minutes with 30 seconds cumulative increment for each move starting from the first move
100 minutes for 40 moves followed by 50 minutes for 20 moves, then 15 minutes for the remaining moves with 30 seconds cumulative increment for each move starting from first move
40 moves in 2 hours followed by 30 minutes for the rest of the game
40 moves in 2 hours followed by 60 minutes for the rest of the game
40 moves in 2 hours followed by 20 moves in 1 hour followed by 30 minutes for the rest of the game"
It appears that if increment is used FIDE expects it to be in effect from move one but increment is not mandatory.
