Rule 10A

[Richard Bates]

Sacrificing everything to confuse your opponent is less easy to identify as an unsporting attempt to win on time.

Ah, but you're making progress towards the result! Bad progress... but nevertheless progress!

And incremental time controls do away with all this, which is excellent! Though as I've managed to lose on time in events with 30 extra seconds per move, you do still need to watch the clock.

This is why incremental time controls will one day be the only sort of time control used in chess tournaments. Once we've got around to buying digital clocks, of course.

Incremental time controls can never be considered a panacea because by definition they need allowance for indeterminable game lengths, creating, in particular, problems where more than one game is played a day, but equally in circumstances where time is otherwise limited. Still i suppose we could always come full circle and revert to adjournments and adjudications

And what do you do in circumstances where no arbiters are (required to be) present, and increments are too low (to mitigate against problems as above) to allow recording of moves?

[Alex Holowczak]

And what do you do in circumstances where no arbiters are (required to be) present, and increments are too low (to mitigate against problems as above) to allow recording of moves?

You don't record the moves at all, as happens in the last five minutes before a time control now. No big deal.

[Roger de Coverly]

You don't record the moves at all, as happens in the last five minutes before a time control now. No big deal.

You get a game like the Arkell 160 mover. How do you enforce its termination without the moves being recorded? This is a practical point for leagues that might be considering 10 second increments for evening play.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

You don't record the moves at all, as happens in the last five minutes before a time control now. No big deal.

You get a game like the Arkell 160 mover. How do you enforce its termination without the moves being recorded? This is a practical point for leagues that might be considering 10 second increments for evening play.

90 minutes each is three hours. 160 moves at 10 second per move is 1600 seconds each, which is about 26.5 minutes extra each (so about an hour in total). That still fits into a four-hour session (I think). So you do 90 minutes for all moves and 10 second increments. Would that still fit the time requirements for ratings? Do some leagues need to fit into three-hour sessions or 3.5-hour sessions?

[Roger de Coverly]

So you do 90 minutes for all moves and 10 second increments. Would that still fit the time requirements for ratings? Do some leagues need to fit into three-hour sessions or 3.5-hour sessions?

ECF ratings aren't the issue because anything over an hour counts. You need 4 hour sessions for FIDE rating so evening leagues are usually outside the scope of FIDE rating.

The point is that evening leagues use premises which have closing times. If the closing time can be flexible you can use increments. This should avoid issues with 10.2 claims. The problem now becomes how can you enforce the 50 move rule without the score being recorded? Arbiters would not have liked to rule the Arkell 160 mover in the British under 10.2 (unable to win by normal means) and at 30 seconds increments they don't have that option anyway. At 10 seconds a move, they still don't have 10.2 but they don't have the 50 move rule because it's unlikely that either player will keep score.

In the league I'm thinking of, Keith Arkell has yet to make an appearance. Nick Pert and Simon Williams are both local and both appear. Also they both have form for playing really long games when increments are available.

[Richard Bates]

And what do you do in circumstances where no arbiters are (required to be) present, and increments are too low (to mitigate against problems as above) to allow recording of moves?

You don't record the moves at all, as happens in the last five minutes before a time control now. No big deal.

A bit of a non-seqitur. The issue is how you terminate the game when 10.2 and 50 move rules are not available. Under quickplay finish rules this is ultimately done by the clock.

Personally i think the laws are probably a bit inadequate for increments at present. The major developments over the last 30 years have been designed for the trend away from infinite to finite games lengths (I vaguely recall an amusing period when FIDE were specifying different numbers for the "50 move rule" depending on the endgame in which one was involved. Then a computer tablebase produced some endgame where with perfect play 200+ moves would be required at which point they gave in and standardised the lot!). They do not yet seemed to have begun to address the problem involved with games becoming infinite again (but, unlike in the past, played in single sessions without provision for adjournment).

In addition to the above i would also like to see some provision for "toilet break" incorporated (although the digital clocks will need to be better designed to allow the clocks to be stopped and then restarted without chaos!).

[Alex Holowczak]

In addition to the above i would also like to see some provision for "toilet break" incorporated (although the digital clocks will need to be better designed to allow the clocks to be stopped and then restarted without chaos!).

Pressing a button that says "start/stop" is too complicated? Or a button with a symbol you'd recognise as meaning start/stop?

Perhaps you should have one five-minute timeout, which you can get by pressing a "timeout" button on the clock. During this period, you can use the bathroom, or if you prefer, sit at your board for five minutes, thinking about the game.

[Sean Hewitt]

You don't record the moves at all, as happens in the last five minutes before a time control now. No big deal.

You get a game like the Arkell 160 mover. How do you enforce its termination without the moves being recorded? This is a practical point for leagues that might be considering 10 second increments for evening play.

In Leicester we allow a team mate to record the moves if a player is not recording. Rather like the arbiter doing likewise the player cannot consult said scoresheet but it does mean that if there is a claim it can be validated.

[Sean Hewitt]

You don't record the moves at all, as happens in the last five minutes before a time control now. No big deal.

You get a game like the Arkell 160 mover. How do you enforce its termination without the moves being recorded? This is a practical point for leagues that might be considering 10 second increments for evening play.

90 minutes each is three hours. 160 moves at 10 second per move is 1600 seconds each, which is about 26.5 minutes extra each (so about an hour in total). That still fits into a four-hour session (I think). So you do 90 minutes for all moves and 10 second increments. Would that still fit the time requirements for ratings? Do some leagues need to fit into three-hour sessions or 3.5-hour sessions?

e2e4 have a four session for weekend games, with a scheduled one hour gap between rounds. At our next event we will be using a time control of all moves in 110 minutes plus 10 seconds per move for non-FIDE rated sections. That means that for a 60 move game will need 4 hours for the game, 100 moves needs 4 hours 33 mins and 160 moves would need 4 hours 50 minutes. We guarantee a minimum break of half an hour, so we would only need to delay games in a subsequent round if a morning game lasts more than 90 moves, and even then we only need delay the games involving the two players involved in the long game.

Seems a reasonable position given the advantages the increments bring.

[Roger de Coverly]

In Leicester we allow a team mate to record the moves if a player is not recording. Rather like the arbiter doing likewise the player cannot consult said scoresheet but it does mean that if there is a claim it can be validated.

You could make it part of league rules that an observer should record the moves once the players have stopped. Recommended practice even if not compulsory. You could get two players left on their own whilst the others adjourn to the bar.

In another (non-incremental) league, we had a near dispute when a player tried to do this. The opponent considered that the act of handing over the scoresheet constituted a distraction when both players were low on time.

[Sean Hewitt]

In another (non-incremental) league, we had a near dispute when a player tried to do this. The opponent considered that the act of handing over the scoresheet constituted a distraction when both players were low on time.

And this is the danger of having local practice (such as deviation on the mobile phone rule) instead of sticking to a universal set of laws.

I know of two neighbouring leagues where one allows the captain to act as arbiter but the other does not. In a time scramble in the latter one player made an illegal move. The captain, used to playing in the other league, stepped in and pointed it out. There was nearly a riot by all accounts!

[Christopher Kreuzer]

e2e4 have a four session for weekend games, with a scheduled one hour gap between rounds. At our next event we will be using a time control of all moves in 110 minutes plus 10 seconds per move for non-FIDE rated sections.

Do you have to write down your moves at all times? My handwriting would (ahem) become a scrawl if I was down to 10 seconds.

[Sean Hewitt]

e2e4 have a four session for weekend games, with a scheduled one hour gap between rounds. At our next event we will be using a time control of all moves in 110 minutes plus 10 seconds per move for non-FIDE rated sections.

Do you have to write down your moves at all times? My handwriting would (ahem) become a scrawl if I was down to 10 seconds.

No. With this time control you don't have to write down moves once you have less than 5 mins left - even if the increment subsequently takes you back above 5 mins!

[Alex Holowczak]

Do you have to write down your moves at all times? My handwriting would (ahem) become a scrawl if I was down to 10 seconds.

You only need to record using incremental time controls if the increment is greater than or equal to 30 seconds.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

e2e4 have a four session for weekend games, with a scheduled one hour gap between rounds. At our next event we will be using a time control of all moves in 110 minutes plus 10 seconds per move for non-FIDE rated sections.

Do you have to write down your moves at all times? My handwriting would (ahem) become a scrawl if I was down to 10 seconds.

No. With this time control you don't have to write down moves once you have less than 5 mins left - even if the increment subsequently takes you back above 5 mins!

Presumably the clock records this in case the arbiter is not present... (you can imagine a dispute over whether the clock had ever gone below 5 minutes or not).