I’ve long been unhappy with the TD Tip after rule 5C as it is very poorly written and simply repeats a lot of what was stated in rule 5C without adding anything (people complain that the rulebook is too long). At the very least the TD Tip should be changed as follows: 1) Note 3 should state the same rule applies for tournaments that have only one schedule but have different time controls for different rounds. 2) A delay or increment should be added to the time controls in the “Example”. 3) The portions of the TD Tip that I’ve bolded below should be deleted as they simply repeat what was stated in rule 5C without adding anything.
Agreed. The point is not whether there is a merged schedule. It is whether there are different controls in different rounds. A merged schedule, however, is one of the most likely ways for this to happen. How about the following:
Note 3: If a section has different time controls for different rounds, the slowest control is all that is needed in the rating report submitted to U.S. Chess, provided all games meet the criteria for the slowest time control. This applies, for example, when early rounds might fall in the dual rated category and the slower time control is regular only. All rounds will then be regular rated only.
Agreed again. In fact, this is an excellent opportunity to mention both increment and delay:
Example: 3-day schedule is G/90 inc/30. The 2 day schedule plays rounds 1 and 2 at G/45 d/5 and then merges with the 3-day schedule for round 3. All that needs to be reported is the G/90 inc/30 as US Chess cannot separate the schedules at this point.
I’m too lazy to check right now, but I’ll take your word for it that your bolded passages are all indeed repetitions, and should be deleted.
Bill Smythe
This is good but I might tweak it to say:
“Note 3: If a section has different dual/regular time controls for different rounds/schedules, all of the different time controls can be submitted in the rating report to US Chess but the slowest time control is all that is required. When the faster time control(s) fall in the dual rated category and the slower time control(s) fall in the regular only rated category, all the games will be regular rated only, regardless of if the time control for each round/schedule is submitted.”
Good idea to mention both increment and delay. I would eliminate the last part that says “as US Chess cannot separate the schedules at this point.” since US Chess can separate the schedules in that when you submit a tournament for rating online, you can list who was in each schedule and the time control for each schedule. Its just that they have chosen not to make any games dual rated in these cases.
I also don’t like the wording of “Note 2” at all. it currently reads:
I would change this to:
The last sentence of the TD Tip after rule 5C says “If any games in a section use a time control that is blitz ratable (i.e. total time between 5 and 10 minutes), then all games in that section must use time controls that are blitz ratable.” This should be changed to say that all games must use the same blitz ratabale time control.
Here is what the TD Tip would look like taking into account all the changes above and a number of additional changes to improve the organization and language.
We all look forward to the future Rulebook which is 900 pages long, half of it TD tips. 
My proposed changes to the TD Tip after rule 5C would shorten this TD Tip considerably.
I note that this suggestion was omitted from Micah’s following summary post.
The requirement that all games in a blitz tournament must use the same blitz-ratable control is, I believe, an actual rule and not just a TD Tip. But it’s a dumb rule. Regular-rated tournaments are not required to use the same regular-ratable control in all games. Quick-rated tournaments, ditto. Why have this restriction in blitz-rated tournaments? As long as the controls for all games are blitz-ratable, that should suffice.
The one exception should be round robins. Since those are not paired by score in each round, it would be reasonable to require all games to have the same time control. But that should apply also to quick-rated round robins, and even to regular-rated round robins (such as quads and hexes).
For a Holland system – round-robin preliminary qualifying sections followed by a single final section among the qualifiers – it should be OK to play the single final section at a slower control than the preliminary sections.
Bill Smythe
Yes, I omitted that from the TD Tip since it is already stated in the rule. I also agree it’s a dumb rule. Some of what is in the TD Tip (both the current TD Tip and my much improved version) should be in the rule itself but getting the wording of the rule changed is a lot harder than changing the wording of the TD Tip.
Isn’t the primary reason tournaments (OK, sections) have differing time controls is to allow multiple schedules that eventually merge together? If this is true, how many blitz tournaments have multiple schedules?
Blitz tournaments aren’t allowed to have multiple schedules or different time controls in some rounds, all rounds have to be played at the same time control.
I suspect many more tournaments have multiple sections with different time controls to accommodate their players’ skill level and typical playing time than to have multiple schedule events that are merged together for later rounds.
We rate about 10,000 tournaments a year, I doubt if more than 200 have multiple schedules.
It’s the most common reason, but it’s not the only possible reason. For example, in a 2-sday, 5-round Swiss, even if there is only 1 section and 1 schedule, it would make sense to allow the three Saturday rounds to be run at a faster control than the two Sunday rounds.
Or, in a Holland system, with several round-robin preliminary sections acting as qualifiers for a single finals section, it would make sense to allow the preliminary sections to be run at a faster control than the final section.
In other words, a rule requiring the same controls throughout the event is more restrictive than it needs to be, i.e. it prohibits certain combinations that ought to be permitted.
The only reasonable thing would be to require all games played within the same round-robin section to be all the same. That’s because in a round robin, unlike a Swiss, the top-level games tend to be scattered throughout the event, rather than all being played in the later rounds.
Let’s not have rules that are more restrictive than they need to be.
Bill Smythe
I don’t think there is any rule that forbids Blitz tournaments from having multiple schedules as long as the same time control is used for all schedules.
True, it only says that all game must be played at the same time control, when the games are played is not mentioned, nor is it relevant.
But the nature of Blitz events is that they occur over a fairly short period of time, because individual games don’t last very long, so multiple schedules that are merged together doesn’t seem like it would be needed much.
Multiple schedules and merges are unlikely in blitz, but the other scenario is not – a Holland system with several round-robin preliminary sections followed by a final section (or a few final sections) consisting of the winners of the preliminary sections.
In that case, it would be reasonable for the preliminary sections to be played at G/3 inc/2, and the final section(s) at (say) G/5 inc 2 or G/7 inc 2. Yet, astoundingly, the present rule does not permit this.
Bill Smythe
Why not? Each section of a tournament can have its own time control. The requirement for blitz in rule 5C is only that all rounds must use the same time control.
All rounds in the tournament, or all rounds in the section? If the latter, then I agree that the problem I brought up does not exist.
But another aspect of this rule is still gnawing at me. The requirement that all rounds must use the same time control is for blitz only, not regular or quick. Is such a rule necessary, even for blitz? What if an organizer wanted to run a blitz event as a large single-section Swiss of, say, 12 rounds? It might be a decent idea to run the first 6 rounds as G/3 inc/2, and then slow it down a bit for the last 6 rounds (where all the master-vs-master games are likely to be played) to something like G/5 inc/2.
And what about the other side of the coin? What about a regular-rated quad? There will likely be multiple sections, but shouldn’t all games in a round robin section be played at the same control, regardless of whether it is regular-, quick-, or blitz-rated?
What I’ve been trying to say all along is, wouldn’t it make more sense if a rule like “all rounds must use the same time control” applied or did not apply based on whether the section is a round robin or not, rather than on whether the time control is blitz or not?
In other words, the sentence “All rounds must use the same time control” should be removed from the Blitz sub-heading of 5C, and a new sub-heading should be added: "All time controls: In a round-robin section, all rounds must use the same time control."
Bill Smythe
While the rule does not state explicitly, I am interpreting it as all rounds in one section. Sections are independent entities for rating purposes (and essentially for all other purposes).
In practice, these days, I would argue the only use for multiple time controls seen “in the wild” is sections with multiple schedules that merge at some point. For Holland system tournaments, I would think it natural to treat the preliminary rounds as separate section(s) and give them their own time control.
If anyone has an actual example of a Swiss that has different time controls for rounds (and does not have multiple schedules), I would be interested in knowing.
(By the way, I fully agree that a round robin should have the same time control for all rounds.)
Have there been round robin events rated where the time control varied from one round to the next? I can’t see how players would be in favor of such a thing, because the ‘hard’ games tend to be scattered throughout the event, so they might have less time for those games and more times for the ‘easier’ ones.
I know when I went to the FIDE meetings in Turin, a number of the players and FIDE officials I met were appalled that we allowed rating of events where not all games were played at the same time control. I’m somewhat surprised FIDE hasn’t moved to ban that in FIDE rated events.
In Wisconsin tournaments, we do this regularly. Back in the days when adjournments were common, our standard time control was long enough that some games might not finish soon enough to start the next round on time. No problem – we would just adjourn those games. But since you can’t adjourn games in round 4, we often had a shorter time control for that round. These days, we rarely do adjournments anymore, but that presents a different problem – now the time control has to be short enough not to run into the next round. But that is more of a problem on Saturday (3 rounds) than on Sunday (2 rounds), so we often have a shorter time control on Saturday (or at least for the first two rounds on Saturday) than on Sunday.
I don’t particularly like changing time controls within a tournament (and especially not between rounds 2 and 3 on Saturday), so I would prefer just using the shorter TC (the Saturday one) throughout the tournament. But it’s not that big of a deal, so I have never complained about it, and as a TD, I have never received any complaints about it.
The time control is generally set by the organizer rather than the TD, but when I am consulted, I express my preference for a single time control throughout, or at least for making the change after Saturday’s rounds are completed rather than between rounds 2 and 3. But I don’t get the sense that most players care very much about this.
At the Portland Chess Club, we currently run several annual tournaments with round one at G/60;d10 and rounds 2-5 at G/120;d10.
The top High School section and top Middle School section at the annual Oregon Scholastic Chess Federation State Championship currently have round one at G/55;d5 and rounds 2-5 at G/85;d5.
The Washington Chess Federation currently runs several annual tournaments with round one at G/60;d10 and rounds 2-5 at 40/120,SD/30;d10.
The Spokane Chess Club currently runs an annual tournament with round one at G/90;d5 and rounds 2-5 at G/115;d5.