Incremental Time Controls

[Matt Mackenzie]

Nail on head Sean!

And to Kevin above - yes I think adjournments are pretty god-awful too

For all players up to and including strong county strength, finishing a game on the night is the only sensible thing to do. I remember with a shudder trying to get players in the NE to agree with this at AGMs and the like back in the 1980s. People used to whine "but won't the quality of the games suffer??" and similar sophistry. These were people with BCF grades of 100, 90, 80 or even lower - who wouldn't know endgame technique if it bit them on the a**e

Just dinosaurs resisting change for the hell of it, mainly. Too many of 'em still about now

[Kevin Thurlow]

Further to Matt's point, I recall a Surrey AGM where one person in particular was screeching about the game being ruined by the QP finish. During the following season he was playing on bottom board in the bottom division against Redhill. After abut 90 minutes my opponent in the club championship was having a long think, so I went to look at the games in the match. The top five boards were middlegames of varying degrees of interest, but this guy's game was a rook and pawn ending. A quick look at the scoresheet revealed that they were on move 55 and both had taken about 45 minutes... At the time, the time limit was 30 (or maybe 35) moves in 75 minutes, so although he thought having a QP finish would ruin the game, it was quite acceptable to have a QP start!

[Roger de Coverly]

Just dinosaurs resisting change for the hell of it, mainly. Too many of 'em still about now

In the south east, they seem to have set up a Jurassic Park in the Mid Sussex league. At least that's the impression you get from their forum at http://www.midsussexchess.org.uk/

I don't think I've had an adjudicated game for about twelve years. It's just as well because of 23 games this season in evening competitions with 3 hour playing sessions, the "scored" length of 13 of them went past move 42. The longest three were 79, 71 and 67.

I expect most readers of the forum have a long list of reasons for a hatred of adjudications. I would however suggest that the debate can be generalised about what to do with the restricted 180 minute evening playing session and whether to use the time to play a whole game or just half of one. Playing G/90 and its equivalents (35/75+15 etc) is one of the solutions - the Surrey Border league has been trying to make increment timings work and establishing rules for handling this in the context of venue closing times.

Playing to a finish doesn't necessarily create disputes. I think that you need a convention or rule which says that when you are winning but really short of time and you offer a draw, that the opponent should accept. If the game is trivially drawn the same should apply. The other side of this is that if you play for a win with seconds remaining, you risk losing on time. This is what 10.2 says more or less - but the league controller and committee can put emphasis on this to encourage a "fair play" attitude.

I haven't really found opponents refusing to resign in lost positions - but one of the skills of 90 minute chess is managing your time so the issue doesn't arise. If you have say 5 minutes remaining against a non-resigner then using some of the time to concoct the most humiliating defeat possible is my preferred approach - putting then in zugswang is usually a good start.

It's better to have an intermediate time control - otherwise you get players making 20 moves in 85 minutes. The rest of the game is really random in those circumstances!

[Sean Hewitt]

It can't be a coincidence (can it?) that a county that does not play to a finish in its league games has 4 disputes in play to a finish county matches. And loses each of those disputes.

[Stewart Reuben]

If you have the very short sessions why use a Fischer (cumulative) time control? Bronstein (delay) mode is far better. Each player receives an extra 2 or 3 seconds per move. But it does not accumulate, if the player moves more rapidly, he gains no extra time. This is what is used in the US where they are just as paranoid about finishing the games to schedule as in these local leagues.
If you cannot defend a position with 2 seconds per move extra, well tough - you lose. That avoids the quickplay finish claims. It would add about 5 minutes at most to any session.
Sadly it seems some people would prefer the travesty of adjudications to having a sensiblde solution requiring the purchase of a few digital clocks. They wouldn't have to be used on all boards, they could be put in when the players become very short of time, perhpas 2 minutes left.
Stewart Reuben

[Roger de Coverly]

It can't be a coincidence (can it?) that a county that does not play to a finish in its league games has 4 disputes in play to a finish county matches.

To be fair to Sussex, I think only one of the disputes was in their matches.

Their players may however suffer in both matches and tournaments from a lack of practice at (a) playing endings and (b) playing quickly which could lead to them running out of time when there's no real need to. The SCCU county match add on is 30 minutes from memory which gives 60 extra moves if you can trundle along at 30 seconds per move and 30 moves at a minute a move.

There are some extra skills which are useful to learn to get effective results playing to a finish. Getting the right personal speed of play is one of them. You can however discard the art of sitting on the position waiting for the adjudicator's assistance. I was going to say that you can dispense with window-dressing as well but it has some residual value if you have to demonstrate that you are able and trying to win by normal means.

If you have the very short sessions why use a Fischer (cumulative) time control? Bronstein (delay) mode is far better. Each player receives an extra 2 or 3 seconds per move. But it does not accumulate, if the player moves more rapidly, he gains no extra time.

This is a very interesting suggestion from Stewart for a possible rule for 3 hour sessions with digital clocks. I would have a concern about how you enforce the theoretical termination of the game. You cannot prove three fold repetition or 50 moves without a score and scoring will not be obligatory. Unlike "normal" mode, no one will necessarily run out of time. 10.2 (unable to win ...) doesn't apply because of the delay.

The Border league have tried 10 second increments with a rule that reinstates 10.2 at a really high move count.

[Anthony Higgs]

I agree with Roger’s comments about the Mid-Sussex League – the AGM is at the end of this month and from hearsay it appears that the vote to allow QPFs (if both players agree) will be pretty close. My own club is about 75%-25% in favour of adjudications (I’m part of the 25%) but it has to be said that many of the players at my club commenting on the issue do not play in congresses etc and have little experience of QPFs and are therefore convinced by the ‘horror stories’ of a couple of games ending badly when the vast majority occur without incident. Their view is to remain with the status quo to avoid rules arguments such as the draw claim in the last 2 minutes, despite the fact that the QPF rules proposed for the MSL are only used if both players agree to them and both participants should therefore be expected to know the extra rules!

Of course they are entitled to their views as much as anyone else, but my personal feeling is that if they don’t want QPF they should abstain from voting rather than voting against, as the proposal will only affect (a) people who want to play QPFs anyway and (b) team captains. If the proposal ever changed to make QPFs the default form of finishing THEN they should vote against if that was still their inclination.

Long-term it would be much better if the ECF put out a statement saying ‘all games that are adjourned or adjudicated will not count for grading purposes as they are not solely between the two players over the board.’

[Jonathan Bryant]

... the QPF rules proposed for the MSL are only used if both players agree to them and both participants should therefore be expected to know the extra rules ....

In my experience the vast majority of club players (myself included) do not have a full - or even partial in many cases - grasp of the rules for quickplay finishes. This seems to hold true whether they ask to play them or not.

In general I find many club chess players don't know even basic rules. It's very common - almost every time I'd guess - that I play in a match where at least one person asks "what's the time control?". This may be because there are many leagues in the region - London, Surrey, Croydon, Thames Valley etc etc - and they all have different playing conditions.

Sadly, I don't think it can be expected that club players know the rules for quick play finishes. As you say the number of disputes is very small but those that do happen, the one's I've witnessed anyway, are very frequently one or often both sides not knowing the rules.

The solution to this is to learn the rules of course - and not to avoid quickplay finishes per se.

[Anthony Higgs]

The solution to this is to learn the rules of course - and not to avoid quickplay finishes per se.

Indeed.

When I am home team captain I always precede the match with a few words to both teams - turn off your phones, arrangements for refreshments etc. It would be a simple matter to add "if both players wish to play QPF, they should both be aware of the extra rules this entails, and please inform both team captains that they are using this time control".

[Martin Benjamin]

Of course they are entitled to their views as much as anyone else, but my personal feeling is that if they don’t want QPF they should abstain from voting rather than voting against, as the proposal will only affect (a) people who want to play QPFs anyway and (b) team captains. If the proposal ever changed to make QPFs the default form of finishing THEN they should vote against if that was still their inclination..’

In reply to Anthony's message above: I started this thread, as I was proposing an option for the London Civil Service Chess League, and wanted to learn of any experience there had been in playing evening league chess with incremental time limits. I was aware that there was a determined body which wanted to retain 36 in 90 minutes and adjudication, so I was only proposing an alternative to which both players would have to agree (i.e. 36 in 90 minutes remained the default option). I hoped. like Anthony, that those not in favour would nevertheless still allow it to go into the rules as an option for those of us who wanted to avoid both adjudication and a guillotine quickplay finish. However, it was still voted down at the AGM.

Martin Benjamin

[Kevin Thurlow]

"In reply to Anthony's message above: I started this thread, as I was proposing an option for the London Civil Service Chess League, and wanted to learn of any experience there had been in playing evening league chess with incremental time limits. I was aware that there was a determined body which wanted to retain 36 in 90 minutes and adjudication, so I was only proposing an alternative to which both players would have to agree (i.e. 36 in 90 minutes remained the default option). I hoped. like Anthony, that those not in favour would nevertheless still allow it to go into the rules as an option for those of us who wanted to avoid both adjudication and a guillotine quickplay finish. However, it was still voted down at the AGM."

I suspect that the reason this was voted down (3-10) was that (as far as I know), only a couple of CS League clubs have digital clocks, and people who haven't used them before tend to be a bit suspicious of them. Most clubs are not going to buy 8 DGTs to just play a few matches! I'm not sure there is much of a problem with adjudications - there were only 14 out of 700+ games played, and three of those were declared "frivolous" (losing side pays double). The last successful adjudication appeal was 11 years ago....

Given there is a fixed length of session (3 hours) I would prefer QP finish as the proposal still leads to adjudication, maybe only a few moves later.

Maybe if Martin had been at the AGM, he could have convinced some more people to vote in favour? But as someone else said earlier, there are so many different time-limits, that another one may not be very popular....

Kevin

[James Toon]

I'm not sure there is much of a problem with adjudications - there were only 14 out of 700+ games played

I think this is a misleading statistic. The number of games which are unfinished at the end of the session is far higher than that. Most of these games are settled by the two captains agreeing a result on the basis of post-match analysis supported by a chess engine. Games only go to adjudication if they are genuinely unclear or the result of the match depends on it. But deciding games in this way is no better than adjudication. It still falls short of the ideal: a game decided in one session by the two players.

[John Saunders]

The ideal is a game played in one session at the same rate of play for all the moves. Where QPF falls way short of the ideal is in having one rate for the first part of the game and a much faster one for the second. Where the time limit is geared to a three-hour session, you find yourself playing an uncomfortable mixture of longplay, rapidplay and blitz in the same game. Even if you pace yourself to allow more time for the final part of the game, it effectively becomes rapidplay followed by blitz and all pretence at longplay goes out of the window. I've no objection to rapidplay or blitz in themselves and have been quite proficient at them in my younger days, but I still find it very difficult to change my rhythm of play once or even twice in the course of the same game. Compared with adjudication it may be the lesser evil but I wish some of the QPF partisans would please stop claiming it is a universal panacea. The truth is that you cannot shoehorn a sensible longplay game into three hours. I have some sympathy with the people who are saying that three-hour games should not be graded alongside games where more time is available to play up to (say) move 60. If the ECF rules allow the quick stuff to be graded, maybe they should change the rules or maybe there should be different categories of grading. For me, it doesn't feel right to grade a game played in (say) the 4NCL in the same category as an evening league match thrash where the bulk of the moves might be played in the twinkling of an eye and go unrecorded.

I'm also sick of people saying that adjournments are no longer feasible "because of computers". This is an excuse, not a reason. Even before computers, strong players were capable of analysing adjournment positions with considerable accuracy - or getting their stronger friends to do so on their behalf. In fact, you could argue that the availability of computers makes things rather more egalitarian. It gives more players the chance to do as well as people who have higher-rated friends whom they can consult (e.g. the Moscow Central Chess Club at the end of a phone line, if you were a Soviet grandmaster). Maybe this was one of the things that the anti-adjournment lobby didn't like - their built-in advantage had been undermined. But let's be clear that adjournments were done away with because some organisers and players found them inconvenient - simple as that. They trot out this drivel about computers as an excuse. Please don't be conned.

How about this for a revolutionary idea... given that the modern breed of player seems to have opening theory coming out of their ears ("because of computers"!), why not have a 'quickplay start' rather than a 'quickplay finish'? You get, say, 15 minutes to regurgitate 20 moves of opening theory, and then a more suitable time control to play the middlegame and endgame. At least it might mean that a few more meaningful endgames get played. I'm trying to highlight one of the major drawbacks of QPF - that it favours the opening at the expense of the endgame and that this is unfair. OK, I can think of many reasons not to do this - but maybe someone out there can make something of it.

[Roger de Coverly]

The truth is that you cannot shoehorn a sensible longplay game into three hours.

Why not?

You need a reasonably high standard of chess knowledge and you have to stay at the board to concentrate even when it's not your move, but doesn't that just mean that players who can play decent chess quickly are "better/stronger" than those who cannot.?

You get, say, 15 minutes to regurgitate 20 moves of opening theory, and then a more suitable time control to play the middlegame and endgame.

Some of us now play this way ! Earlier in the season, I contrived to follow 20 moves of a Topalov game into an ending similar to several I'd played before. By moves 30 and 36 the game was very level with Black grabbing a pawn by about move 42. With the most accurate play, the game could still have been drawn. As it was my opponent missed a trick and was lost before move 60. I don't think either player got into the last 5 minutes.

I'm quite relatively neutral between QP and adjournment but I accept the views of those who dislike the extra travel, scheduling issues and outside involvement of adjournments. The practice of playing just enough moves to reach the adjudication minimum is what's really objectionable. In the Bucks league we got an end of session adjournment option into the rules nearly 25 years ago. From then on, players could choose openings on their merits, not on how many moves there were between the end of theory and move 36. Of course opponents could still use all their time and only play 36 moves but they would then just be short of time for the second session.

trying to highlight one of the major drawbacks of QPF - that it favours the opening at the expense of the endgame

I'm not convinced - if anything with a rapid speed of play you go for a quick calculation of the small edge in preference to a long calculation of the quick kill. With the white pieces using the Reti/Catalan/English family of openings, I've had longer games (in move count) in 3 hour sessions than in the 4NCL. It would be difficult to win many games using these openings with adjudications at move 30/36/42.

I've been trying to remember the playing rules of the London League in the early seventies. I think the move rate was 30 moves in 90 minutes followed by 20 moves in the hour. There was a provision that either player could ask for an adjudication at an advanced number of moves probably 60. The playing sessions were only 3 hours so you adjourned halfway through. A rule which said no adjudications before move 60 would be a good one if adjudications are to be retained. As it is you just feel the pro-adjudication lobby have a serious aversion to playing late middle games and endings and that grading levels from this form of chess don't measure the same strength as from games played to a finish.

The other odd thing about adjudications is that with the exception of the "weekenders" of the late sixties and early seventies, that it's never really been accepted as suitable for individual events. So there were never any adjudications in events like the British Championship qualifiers or the British Championships themselves. Even humdrum competitions like local county championships were usually play to a finish. So you had the individual British Championships always decided by playing to the bitter end but competitions used to determine the best British team (both club and county) always using adjudications at a relatively low move count.

[John Saunders]

The truth is that you cannot shoehorn a sensible longplay game into three hours.

Why not?

You need a reasonably high standard of chess knowledge and you have to stay at the board to concentrate even when it's not your move, but doesn't that just mean that players who can play decent chess quickly are "better/stronger" than those who cannot?

You have more or less defined the norm for rapidplay chess where it is all about quick reactions and reflexes. What's needed, as you say, is reasonable chess knowledge/instinct, plus sitting at the board for the entirety. That's fine but my point is that this isn't the norm for longplay chess which traditionally allows more time for longer calculation or analysis. Three hours with a QPF is (for want of a better term) 'long rapidplay' and it has to be recognised that a lot of players simply don't like it and prefer something less frenetic. I sympathise with them because these two types of chess do feel very different. And should perhaps be graded as such.

Re adjudication: you previously alluded to people not liking adjudication for various reasons. True enough, but it should be said that one of the main reasons is often their lack of objectivity in assessing their own adjudication results. One reason I don't like adjudications is that, over the years, I have had to listen to too many team-mates moaning about adjudicators getting results wrong. More often than not, when I have actually looked at the positions in question, I have agreed with the adjudicator. Perhaps because I used to be one... a few years ago I had the experience of seeing one of my own adjudication decisions brought into question in the hallowed pages of CHESS, no less. Chris Dunworth was writing on the unfairness of adjudication and he used as an example a position I immediately recognised as being one I had recently adjudicated. He poured scorn on the decision, which sent me scurrying back to my own analysis. After some hours of further analysis, I came to the conclusion that I was still right and Chris was (very) wrong. I contacted Malcolm Pein and asked if I could respond (this was before I became editor of BCM). Malcolm agreed but in fact Chris Dunworth's opponent, Peter Kemp, got in first. CHESS published Peter's analysis, which tallied with my own in almost every respect. As I recall, Chris had failed to spot a much stronger alternative for his opponent in the adjudication position so all his analysis was worthless. Personally, I don't recall any particular adjudication injustices, apart from one in the Surrey League some years ago where I appealed - and won. So the system, by and large, works.

That said, I do not include myself in the pro-adjudication camp for the reasons Roger has mentioned (it is just too galling that semi-competent players can simply play for the 30/36 move limit and get the benefit of the doubt in positions where I feel I would outplay them had the game continued). But nor do I think adjudication should be outlawed via the application of ECF rules. If leagues democratically choose to opt for adjudication, then this should be respected and games duly graded. I don't think it is helpful to make ageist or similarly disrespectful comments about people who prefer adjudication to QPF. People who live in glass houses...