Fischer Time Controls and Venues

[John Upham]

At a recent FIDE congress that employed a 90' + 30" time control, a game on the Friday round 1 between two strong players in the Open section continued until 1am recording 214 moves.

The ending was a fascinating R + 3 pawns vs B + 3 pawns where all of the pawns of the same colour where connected and on the same side.

Another game in the Open section between strong players continued such that the start of the next round was delayed by 30 minutes or thereabouts.

What do you think about reducing the increment after say 60 moves?

[Ian Thompson]

At a recent FIDE congress that employed a 90' + 30" time control, a game on the Friday round 1 between two strong players in the Open section continued until 1am recording in excess of 220 moves.

The ending was a fascinating R + 3 pawns vs B + 3 pawns where all of the pawns of the same colour where connected and on the same side.

I'm surprised the defender wasn't able to claim a draw after 50 moves without a pawn being moved (or could they have, but didn't), or even the arbiter declare a draw after 75 moves.

As it's a difficult ending to play accurately, was the player with the rook deliberately making unnecessary moves to gain thinking time on the clock?

[John Foley]

I'm surprised the defender wasn't able to claim a draw after 50 moves without a pawn being moved (or could they have, but didn't), or even the arbiter declare a draw after 75 moves.

Neither the 50- nor the 75-move rule was breached.

As it's a difficult ending to play accurately, was the player with the rook deliberately making unnecessary moves to gain thinking time on the clock?

It may have been a combination of that and lulling the opponent into a mistake; either way, legitimate.

The broader question is whether it is suitable to have Fischer timing for an event with timed rounds and/or with a venue which closes before the game is complete.

[Roger de Coverly]

The broader question is whether it is suitable to have Fischer timing for an event with timed rounds and/or with a venue which closes before the game is complete.

In practice it's usually only a limited delay to the next round and only one in a tournament if at all.

The overrun to 1 am may well have been a one off. 90 30 weekend tournaments have been popular for perhaps 15 years. Is this the first with such a long overrun?

Many leagues have preferred a 10 second increment probably to mitigate against games lasting beyond venue closure and that a short increment gives less time for the player striving to win a technically difficult position and for that matter less time for the defender to succeed.

[Paul McKeown]

If you want to run a proper standard play with a time control including a long increment, you absolutely need a venue that you can be certain isn't going to close during the course of a game.

If you are going to have a game on a Friday evening, then there are only limited types of venues (predominantly hotels) which are going to stay open late at night for the occasional "snake" which continues long, long past the point all normal games of chess will have ended. You are also going to have to have a sufficient team of arbiters that individual arbiters can take breaks during the progress of one of these games, and allow most to be able to leave the venue before the end to be able to start the morning round on time, whilst a night crew is able to handle the monster and get up an hour later the next morning.

In the case of a game that went past move 100, pausing the clocks and asking the players if they minded the increment being reduced to say 15 seconds per move might be reasonable try. One of the players might well object, though, they would be fully within their rights. Also, the requirement to record would then be lost, so the arbiters would have to organise someone to do that, as otherwise you might not be able to implement the 75 move rule.

In the case of a game going past move 200, you might ultimately have to treat it as force majeure and take out the dreaded adjournment envelope. If someone were to complain (national federation, rating officer, FIDE, some random spectator), you might ask them what else you were meant to do, when the game had already been going for 7 hours and it was past 1 in the morning. I guess you could ask the players concerned to hand over their laptops until the adjournment had taken place.

One thing I would be concerned to guarantee would be that if a player playing on the increment in such a circumstance ought to be able to take a sanitary break if they really needed it. Like the Spanish Inquisition, no one ever expects a 200 move game.

[NickFaulks]

In the case of a game going past move 200, you might ultimately have to treat it as force majeure and take out the dreaded adjournment envelope. If someone were to complain (national federation, rating officer, FIDE, some random spectator)

Not sure why any of the first three would complain and the fourth doesn't matter.

[John Foley]

The game in question. Timothy Foster v Peter D Lalić.

https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=2468296

[SMoss]

This is the game in question: https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=2468296

Interestingly, I ran this through an engine, with what I presume is something like best play by both sides, and it produces a win for Black in 299 moves! So players, arbiters and sleepy spectators may have got off lightly.

Both players took second-round byes, so it can fairly be said that this game affected the shape of their entire tournament. Both players finished the event on 3/5, and the loser in this game showed his resilience by beating a strong player in the final round.

[David Williams]

Can I revive this thread to ask a question.

One 'solution' would be to set a finishing time and declare any game unfinished to be a draw. Would such a game be legal / gradable? It's certainly practical, if nothing else.

[Brian Valentine]

The whole event would fall outside https://www.englishchess.org.uk/ecf-tournament-rules/ and not acceptable for ECF rating.

[Roger de Coverly]

https://www.englishchess.org.uk/ecf-tournament-rules/

According to these

Section D – Optional rules for events that are not FIDE-rated
..
3. For events that are not FIDE-rated, organisers may use adjudication provided that this has been stated within the regulations for the competition

So record the position and then argue about who if anyone, was winning. That's likely to have to be done remotely, because if you have five minutes for an argument, there's time to continue playing.

[Ian Thompson]

One 'solution' would be to set a finishing time and declare any game unfinished to be a draw. Would such a game be legal / gradable? It's certainly practical, if nothing else.

Would anyone wish to play in an event with such a rule?

If you need a game to have finished by a particular time and want to use Fischer time controls for games that are not excessively long, then you could have a time control of:

• 90 minutes + 30 seconds per move for the first 100 moves
• 5 minutes extra to finish the game, with no increment, after 100 moves have been played

That would guarantee the game took no more than a total of 4 hours 50 minutes. Obviously, all the numbers I've given could be adjusted to fit the time available.

That must be better than declaring a game a draw when one player is clearly winning.

[David Williams]

I think Brian has answered my question, and rather as I had feared.

An evening league. 1930 start, rules are 90 minutes each on the clock. Time to change to increments? 80 mins + 10 seconds say? Chucking out time is 2300 on the dot - at which time the lights go out and you are forcibly ejected if necessary, and/or the last bus leaves. So you can get at least 150 moves in, which is enough for virtually every game any one of us has ever played, but you still need to consider what happens if there is a longer game. And no arbiter present, and almost certainly no recording of moves at the end.

No-one wants adjudication or adjournment, and also if you went that way you would have to finish play well before 2300. Finish ten minutes earlier and that's 30 fewer moves actually played.

And (correct me if I'm wrong) if you have increments initially but finish without them, under the ECF Rules it is compulsory to specify a draw claim procedure when a player has less then two minutes on the clock. Either a five second increment (impossible here) or Guideline III.5 of the FIDE Laws. Which will, of course, also mean finishing ten minutes and 30 moves earlier.

So I can see why one might think this was the least worst solution. Or do most leagues just cross their fingers and hope it never happens?

[NickFaulks]

then you could have a time control of:

• 90 minutes + 30 seconds per move for the first 100 moves
• 5 minutes extra to finish the game, with no increment, after 100 moves have been played

I can see that working in a Congress, but the big problem is evening matches. There a 30 second increment is out of the question, so how will you know when 100 moves have been played?

[Ian Thompson]

then you could have a time control of:

• 90 minutes + 30 seconds per move for the first 100 moves
• 5 minutes extra to finish the game, with no increment, after 100 moves have been played

I can see that working in a Congress, but the big problem is evening matches. There a 30 second increment is out of the question, so how will you know when 100 moves have been played?

Set the clock to count clock presses. I don't think it's of any significant consequence if the players don't press the clock correctly because the game won't last any longer:

• If they forget to press the button then they'll have played more than 100 moves before the extra 5 minutes gets added but they won't have received the increment for the extra moves so the game won't last any longer.
• If they press the button more than once per move then the extra 5 minutes will be added prematurely and they'll have had longer for the moves played prior to the final 5 minutes being added than they should have done, but the total time available to play the game will be unchanged.