I was at a tournment this week-end: 40/120,G/60, 5 sec delay.
TD’s were requesting players to set clocks at 115 minutes for the first time control. Many players were just staring out at 120 and not substracting the 5 minutes per side.
Is it becoming more common to not subtract out the 5 minutes for the five second delay? Given the diffculty that most players over 40 have setting a digital clock at all, it seems error prone to me to aks players to fiddle with their settings to subtract out the five minutes.
Not sure, but I have a feeling it is becoming less common to subtract time, except in Quick tournaments. The default is not to subtract time, i.e. players should not subtract time unless they know the TD wants them to.
With 60-90 percent of tournament games now being played with delay-capable clocks, in my opinion it is getting to the point where there is a truth-in-advertising problem if time is subtracted, unless this policy is announced in all pre-tournament publicity.
For many years, the official position has been that subtracting time is DEPRECATED and should only be done if you have a serious time crunch in your schedule.
But, I’m puzzled about one thing. If the TD announced “set your clocks to 115”, and players instead set them to 120, why didn’t the TD notice this when he walked up and down the aisles at the very beginning of the round, checking that the clocks were set properly. Every TD DOES that, don’t they?
If I were the TD and saw clocks set to 120, my first thought would be that the time delay was not set - and I would try to correct that. When I discovered that the time delay was set, and the time not subtracted, then I would fix that too!
Of course, if I were the TD I probably would NOT have instructed the playes to deduct the time in the first place.
I agree with Ken S. that the standard rule - no deduction - rather than the option is preferable unless the round times are too tight. There were several unhappy players in the 9 day schedule of the US Open when the TD announcements included taking off the 5 minutes. This announcement was reversed.
I have seen players confused when no time was taken off with no announced policy and they thought that the delay was off because the full time had been used.
Question, you are working a large event and see a digital clock without delay. Would you ask the players if they were aware that delay was not set? If they both thought it was on, would you turn it on?
I could be wrong but I don’t think the TD should be checking to see if the time delay is on. Use of time delay is not mandatory although preferred, and it is up to the player’s opponent to enquire whether the delay is on before the game starts. The player with the clock should normally explain the operation of the clock to his opponent before the game. Since it is not the TD’s prerogative, then he would not be enquiring about whether the players knew it was on.
If a player notices it is off by himself and raises an objection during the round, then that is a different situation.
Yes. Here, I assume that the organizers listened to me and announced that time delay WAS TO BE SET on all clocks where it was possible. This is preferred and should not need an announcement, but it does.
Players who use a time-delay-capable clock and NOT set the delay are angle shooting scum who should be sent off for re-education.
It is the TD’s responsibility to walk the aisles at the start of every round and check to see that clocks are set as instructed. This means the correct time, the correct placement (Black gets to decide where to sit - the TD gets to decide which way the clocks face) and the time delay. In a small, elite event all of things should be done in advance by the TD. In a large event where the players actually set and place the clocks, they still should do it the way the TD directs. Players do NOT have a choice about whether to deduct 5 minute, or whether to use time delay.
The amount of time this takes is always much less than the amount of time sorting out disputes later…under time pressure.
No and no. Forcing the players to use time delay (as in the post above) is, in my opinion, an abuse of power that should be met by the players voting with their feet. Quite aside from the practical problem that making such an announcement would result in a dozen players standing in line to demand that you set their clocks.
(Note that I am speaking of large tournaments here. A small round-robin in which the organizers supply all equipment is another matter.)
Organizers set the time control, not the players - this includes whether or not time delay is to be used and whether or not time is to be deducted when time delay is used.
Currently, the default conditions that players can expect are that time delay will be used and time will not be deducted.
You are correct that players may vote with their feet. This does not relieve the TD from enforcing the conditions set by the organizer.
BTW - it is the player’s responsibility to explain the workings and know how to set any clock he wishes to use. If a line forms “demanding” that I set clocks, I simply take the clocks and put them on the TDs table saying: “if you don’t know how to set it, you can’t use it”.
This may seem harsh - but it quickly stamps out the more insidious current practice of players bringing electronic clocks to games and then intentionally NOT setting the delay (allowing their opponent to believe that the delay IS set). Recent TDCC discussions have spent days discussing what to do about this when, with 5 seconds left on his clock, the owner asks the TD to turn on the delay.
Don’t wait until the time control to find out that the delay is not set - walk the floor, ask questions if necessary, and make sure that you, and the players, understand how the clocks are set and what that means.
See my earlier comments about “angle shooting scum”.
“Those who fall asleep in history class are doomed to repeat it.” - Santana (the first album)
Aren’t you contradicting yourself here? You said first that the players should be required to use time delay if they have a TD-capable clock. Now you’re saying “if you don’t know how to set it, you can’t use it.” (I agree with the latter, by the way.) Suppose in your original scenario, you tell the players to turn on the time delay. “We don’t know how.” “Then use another clock.” “We don’t have one.” There are several ways the conversation can go from here, but none of them are especially satisfactory.
Why would this even be controversial? The answer is No. “There is no rule allowing players, after the game has started, to ask for a properly set delay clock to be placee on their game.” (ORC 5, p. 51.) The only case even worth discussing is if the owner of the clock lied to his opponent about setting the time delay. (My ruling in that case would spend on the specifics, like how much time was left.)
“…Players, not tournament directors, are responsible for knowing how to properly set (16B) their delay clocks. In any particular game, if the delay clock cannot be properly set, then the opponent of the palyer providing the delay clock may choose which legal clock is to be used.”
I am a strong advocate of not subtracting the five minutes. The problem is that the two biggest organizers around (the USCF and the CCA) both have a standard of subtracting five minutes. The USCF does this at national scholastic championships despite the fact that the time control is G/120, the rounds are five hours apart, almost nobody gets into time trouble, and most of the young kids do not know how to subtract five minutes. If we could get these two organizations to follow the rule book, we could get be a lot closer to getting rid of this confusing option.
Mike Regan
If this is an official policy, then where is it documented? It’s not in the scholastic regulations (or I couldn’t find it, at least). I agree that this is a bad policy. Most of the kids seem to have delay clocks, so announcing a time control of G/120 and then telling nearly everybody to set the clocks to G/115 seems like needless confusion. I always insist that NOT subtracting the 5 minutes is normal and there should be a good reason to deviate.
In fact, I’d go so far as to say that subtracting the 5 minutes at faster time controls (G/30 to G/60) is a major variation that could affect a player’s decision to attend the event.
Subtracting the 5 minutes is definitely NOT a USCF national tournament “standard practice”. They haven’t done this in the most recent US Opens, for example.
I also strongly advocate not subtracting time from digital clocks with delay. In fact, I would like to see that option eliminated from the rules.
Here is my reasoning. The rules specify that if there is a sudden death time control (which now covers practically every game), a digital clock with delay is preferred equipment. However, unless the game lasts at least 60 moves, the players will not “make up” the time subtracted. Worse, in a time control such as 40/2 SD/1, the players will actually have less time for the first time control than they would if they were using a clock without delay.
It seems inconsistent to “punish” players for using preferred equipment.
Setting the clocks to G/115 has been announced policy at the last three national scholastic tournaments that I attended (Supernationals 2005, National Elementary 2006, National Elementary 2007). NTD Carol Jarecki was the chief TD for the last two. I asked in Denver why we do this when you can walk the floor and see that the majority of clocks are set wrong (most delay clocks were set to G/120. So either they had delay turned off or they forgot to subtract the five minutes.) I never received a good answer to the question. My feeling was that the TD staff didn’t care that the clocks were set wrong since no one was going to get into time trouble anyway.
Here in Maryland the MCA scholastic tournaments are all G/30 and they subtract the five minutes. It is just crazy! In my tournaments I never subtract the five minutes. It actually caused some confusion because many of the kids thought that subtracting the five minutes was required by the rules.
Mike
The Kansas City National HS (2007) subtracted the 5 minutes. In my section, my section assistant and I reviewed the settings to make sure that it had been done. We caught a few that had not subtracted it, caught one set at 155 minutes (2:35) instead of 115 minutes and a few set at 1:15 (75 minutes) instead of 1:55. There was one analog clock with a setting of 4:00 on one side and 5:00 on the other. All of those were corrected within 5 minutes into the rounds (in at least one case where the five minutes had not been subtracted the player turned on the delay that both players had accepted being off).
In many tournaments I run, there are multiple schedules, or at least two separate schedules. The accelerated schedule frequently has the rounds scheduled close together. Were the games to use all the time (G/60, for example) alloted in addition to the delay, it might be a problem to start the next round on time (especially if its necessary to wait for the result of a long game, or to hunt down unposted results or fix other problems). It could also lead to situations where players in long games would not have that much time before the next round, to get something to eat, etc.
Having the 5 minutes deducted from all the games, instead of only the accelerated schedule games, makes it less likely that players in the accelerated schedule will set their clocks wrong after the schedules merge (and this is far from certain anyway, as some players set their clocks for the previous time control anyway). Also, some of the tournaments even have the slow rounds scheduled fairly close together (9 am and 2:15 or 2:30 pm on Sunday for example, where that additional 10 minutes might be very important). Long games there could otherwise end virtually when it's time for the next round, too.
I also run a weekly G/30 on Thursday nights, where the rounds are scheduled for 7, 8:15, 9:30 and 10:45 pm. In tournaments like these it would inevitably cause the event to end late if the games could last one hour, in addition to the delay time.
Kind of like writing down your move before you make it?
In fact, the TD has the right to shorten the time control by 5 minutes for clocks using the 5-second delay, and this is actually stated explicitly in [i]Chess Life [/i]at the beginning of the TLA section. Therefore, it is incorrect to state that the TD who follows this policy is "not following the rules."
Every time I have been a section chief at a scholastic national I have always walked the section to check clock settings. Unless you are a staff TD at a national scholastic then you aren’t in the room at the start of the round so I don’t know how you can say the settings are wrong. I will agree many are set wrong while I am spending my time trying to get parents and others to leave the room, but once I can get them out I go through every board. Some are clocks that do not have delay. I always verify that. There are always a few issues but I know that clock settings have always been emphasized and yes, we do care about it.
Again, if you aren’t in the room when the rounds start, and if you aren’t on the staff then you aren’t in the room, then you cannot make such a statement with accuracy.
I think you’re misunderstanding the “policy” that I’m talking about. I was talking about the policy of subtracting the 5 minutes at USCF national scholastics. I’m fully aware that “policy” ALLOWS TDs/organizers to have player’s subtract the time, but I’m not aware of any USCF policy that REQUIRES it in national scholastic events.
I understand the argument about subtracting 5 minutes when the rounds are closely spaced – I just don’t agree that it’s a good idea even then. If you’re going to schedule the rounds so that there’s not quite enough time to have G/60 + 5 sec delay, then just announce the time control as G/55. Since time delay clocks are prefered by default, why not just announce the time control that you’re actually going to have the players use with that type of clock?
Have you read the National Scholastic Guidelines? These are regulations promulgated by the Scholastic Committee. They control the standard conditions for all National Scholastic Tournaments.