Adjournments and Adjudication

[Matt Mackenzie]

I started playing in 1981 and have ALWAYS loathed both adjournments and *especially* adjudications

Back then I was such a quick player that my games almost always ended in one session anyway I have slowed down these days, but happily QPFs are virtually universal up here now and have been since the early (I think) 1990s.

I agree with the comment above that older, weaker players tend to be the strongest opponents of QPFs. This was certainly the case when some of us in the NE tried to get them adopted in the late 1980s Endgames would suffer, we were told - usually from people who could barely distinguish a bishop from a knight

I genuinely respect John's standpoint and *can* see where he is coming from in at least some of his arguments........

But you are fighting a losing battle here, I fear

[Joey Stewart]

I can imagine a no clock game to be a serious war of attrition - what if they made just one move per session and then kept coming back for weeks and weeks to play the same game, until the opponent was totally sick of wasting his time and resigned.

[John Saunders]

OK, I make that three self-appointed spokespersons for the youth of today. Oligarchy may be better than autocracy but it still isn't democracy. As for you, young McKeown - any more cheek and I'll fetch you a blow with my walking stick next time I see you. We shall fight in the chess clubs. We shall fight in the committee meetings. We shall fight in the AGMs and in the counties. We shall never surrender.

[Paul McKeown]

I can imagine a no clock game to be a serious war of attrition - what if they made just one move per session and then kept coming back for weeks and weeks to play the same game, until the opponent was totally sick of wasting his time and resigned.

Yes, Joey, its called "Sitzfleisch" or "Sitzkreig".

To quote another correspondent on this forum, Richard James, or possibly his partner in crime, now passed away, Mike Fox:

The most boring games of all time? We turn to the London tournament of 1851, and the interminable encounters betwen Elijah (the Bristol Sloth) Williams and the deservedly unknown James Mucklow ('a player from the country' says the tournament book sniffily). Elijah introduced the concept of Sitzkrieg into chess: he'd sit there, taking two and a half hours or more on a single move until his opponent dropped from boredom. The tournament book records games in excess of twenty hours (one was adjourned after a whole day, at the end of the twenty-ninth move.) Mucklow (a much worse player) was no swifter, and when they got together it must have been like watching an oil painting. ('Both players nearly asleep,' recorded a drowsy secretary midway through one mind-numbing marathon.) Howard Staunton's commentary says it all: 'Each ... exhibits the same want of depth and inventive power in his combinations, and the same tiresome prolixity in manoeuvring his men. I tneed hardly hardly be said that the games, from first to last, are remarkable only for their unvarying and unexampled dullness.

[IanDavis]

The most boring games of all time? We turn to the London tournament of 1851, and the interminable encounters betwen Elijah (the Bristol Sloth) Williams and the deservedly unknown James Mucklow ('a player from the country' says the tournament book sniffily). Elijah introduced the concept of Sitzkrieg into chess: he'd sit there, taking two and a half hours or more on a single move until his opponent dropped from boredom. The tournament book records games in excess of twenty hours (one was adjourned after a whole day, at the end of the twenty-ninth move.) Mucklow (a much worse player) was no swifter, and when they got together it must have been like watching an oil painting. ('Both players nearly asleep,' recorded a drowsy secretary midway through one mind-numbing marathon.) Howard Staunton's commentary says it all: 'Each ... exhibits the same want of depth and inventive power in his combinations, and the same tiresome prolixity in manoeuvring his men. I tneed hardly hardly be said that the games, from first to last, are remarkable only for their unvarying and unexampled dullness.

Fierce prose, but unlikely to be true.

[Paul McKeown]

I can imagine a no clock game to be a serious war of attrition - what if they made just one move per session and then kept coming back for weeks and weeks to play the same game, until the opponent was totally sick of wasting his time and resigned.

Yes, Joey, its called "Sitzfleisch" or "Sitzkreig".

To quote another correspondent on this forum, Richard James, or possibly his partner in crime, now passed away, Mike Fox:

The most boring games of all time? We turn to the London tournament of 1851, and the interminable encounters betwen Elijah (the Bristol Sloth) Williams and the deservedly unknown James Mucklow ('a player from the country' says the tournament book sniffily). Elijah introduced the concept of Sitzkrieg into chess: he'd sit there, taking two and a half hours or more on a single move until his opponent dropped from boredom. The tournament book records games in excess of twenty hours (one was adjourned after a whole day, at the end of the twenty-ninth move.) Mucklow (a much worse player) was no swifter, and when they got together it must have been like watching an oil painting. ('Both players nearly asleep,' recorded a drowsy secretary midway through one mind-numbing marathon.) Howard Staunton's commentary says it all: 'Each ... exhibits the same want of depth and inventive power in his combinations, and the same tiresome prolixity in manoeuvring his men. I tneed hardly hardly be said that the games, from first to last, are remarkable only for their unvarying and unexampled dullness.

Or again:

Another contender for the slowest player award might be Louis Paulsen; (according to some editions of The Guinness Book of Records he once took eleven hours over one move.) In mitigation, he was one of the greatest players of the nineteenth century. Still, he's worthy of note if only for an anecdote that made Bobby Fischer laugh for days. He was playing Morphy (one of the quickest players in history), and taking aeons over his move. Many leaden hours of silent cerebration ticked slowly by. Even Morphy, normally the acme of politeness, was constrained to remark: 'Excuse me, but why don't you make a move?' Paulsen came to with a jerk: 'Oh, is it really my move?' No wonder Morphy gave up chess.

[Paul McKeown]

The most boring games of all time? We turn to the London tournament of 1851, and the interminable encounters betwen Elijah (the Bristol Sloth) Williams and the deservedly unknown James Mucklow ('a player from the country' says the tournament book sniffily). Elijah introduced the concept of Sitzkrieg into chess: he'd sit there, taking two and a half hours or more on a single move until his opponent dropped from boredom. The tournament book records games in excess of twenty hours (one was adjourned after a whole day, at the end of the twenty-ninth move.) Mucklow (a much worse player) was no swifter, and when they got together it must have been like watching an oil painting. ('Both players nearly asleep,' recorded a drowsy secretary midway through one mind-numbing marathon.) Howard Staunton's commentary says it all: 'Each ... exhibits the same want of depth and inventive power in his combinations, and the same tiresome prolixity in manoeuvring his men. I tneed hardly hardly be said that the games, from first to last, are remarkable only for their unvarying and unexampled dullness.

Fierce prose, but unlikely to be true.

Ian,

Strange, but why would you doubt the eyewitness account? The 1851 tournament is famous; many of the players who participated are well known, including Elijah Williams. Williams sitzkrieg tactics were documented elsewhere. A poor scribe had to sit by the boards and record what was going on; this became the record of the games for the tournament book. Are you saying that I made this up? Or Fox and James? I think you need an education in the history of chess (try Richard Eales book). Why do you think chess clocks were invented?

Regards,
Paul McKeown

[IanDavis]

Strange, Ian, but why would you doubt the eyewitness account?

Not strange at all given the spite that flowed from his pen. One simply has to raise an eyebrow at similar accounts of Elijah taking on average 2.5 hours to make each move in a tournament.

"We may here remark that Mr Williams is now playing at the London Chess Club a most interesting and well-contested match, with Mr Horwitz. Sixteen games have been played, and of these the average duration has not exceeded three hours." from http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/extra/staunton.html

Of course it's hard to tell with certainty given the sources of the time.

[Paul McKeown]

Yes, Staunton's feuds were many and long. However, he could not have published direct lies about Williams taking twenty hours over a game or two and a half hours over a single move, as this would have lead to a suit for defamation, and, anyway, other witnesses would have come forward to correct the record. So they weren't lies, then...

[Paul McKeown]

Let me quote from Richard Eales:

That left the most vexing question of all, the regulation of time. How long should a player be allowed to think over his moves? In the early nineteenth century the great majority of games between leading players were offhand games, nearly all of which mush have been played very rapidly, like Philidor's recorded games, but once large stakes and reputations were involved, conditions easily swing to the opposite extreme. In the last game of the 1843 Staunton and Saint-Amant match a mere twenty-nine moves were played in the first eight hours, and only then was there an hour's adjournment and a new session. Seven or eight hours play at a stretch became quite common. In 1851 Staunton considered that he had suffered from the exceptionally slow play of Elijah Williams, and said so in his tournament book: 'When games are prolonged to twelve, thirteen and twenty hours each, and single moves occupy two hours and a half, the effect upon an invalid can well be imagined.' Henry Buckle, who played largely for amusement, is supposed to have taken pains to avoid such opponents, remarking with Johnsonian vigour that 'the slowness of genius is hard to bear, but the slowness of mediocrity is intolerable'. A formal time limit was the only possible solution, and a series of experiments began. ...

You can pick your account of history from between Professor Richard Eales, former Head of Department at Canterbury, or Edward Winter. I choose Eales.

[Paul McKeown]

But anyway, Ian, it was interesting that you picked that piece up from Winter, but why didn't you just point it out straight away, wouldn't it have been an easier discourse all round?

[IanDavis]

Let me quote from Richard Eales:

That left the most vexing question of all, the regulation of time. How long should a player be allowed to think over his moves? In the early nineteenth century the great majority of games between leading players were offhand games, nearly all of which mush have been played very rapidly, like Philidor's recorded games, but once large stakes and reputations were involved, conditions easily swing to the opposite extreme. In the last game of the 1843 Staunton and Saint-Amant match a mere twenty-nine moves were played in the first eight hours, and only then was there an hour's adjournment and a new session. Seven or eight hours play at a stretch becae quite common. In 1851 Staunton considered that he had suffered from the exceptionally slow play of Elijah Williams, and said so in his tournament book: 'When games are prolonged to twelve, thirteen and twenty hours each, and single moves occupy two hours and a half, the effect upon an invalid can well be imagined.' Henry Buckle, who played largely for amusement, is supposed to have taken pains to avoid such opponents, remarking with Johnsonian vigour that 'the slowness of genius is hard to bear, but the slowness of mediocrity is intolerable'. A formal time limit was the only possible solution, and a series of experiments began. ...

You can pick your account of history from between Professor Richard Eales, former Head of Department at Canterbury, or Edward Winter. I choose Eales.

Richard Eales is Ray Keene's brother in law? Ray Keene, the famous promoter of the Howard Staunton Society
The problem with Eales passage is that it follows quite exactly Staunton's propaganda. We know, just from reading a few sentences of Staunton's chess works, that what he says must instinctively be taken with a pinch of salt. It is important to look at every source available and then form one's own judgements. Shouting loudly that you should buy a book doesn't really convince me I'm afraid.

[Paul McKeown]

What does Eales's in-laws have to do with anything, ffs? Are you saying that he just banged out his history over a weekend? He was Head of Department at Kent, did he get that for uncritically examining sources? Was he unaware of Staunton's rancour?

And the quip from Buckle? Is that untrue as well?

Feel free to believe Winter before Eales, but don't be surprised if others choose to side with the Professor.

[Paul McKeown]

And anyway, looking at the substance of Winter's piece, he takes his evidence from A Review of “The Chess Tournament,” by H. Staunton, Esq., written by ‘A member of the London Chess Club’ (London, 1852). The writer, it should be noted, preferred anonymity, always good for a hatchet job...

[Paul McKeown]

Ian,

Anyway, aren't we getting side-tracked here from the point, which is that chess games need to be constrained in time to prevent those for whom the idea of a loss drives them to the extreme of refusing to move? Whether that be games without clocks lasting for needless hours, or games with an interruption potentially never being completed in the natural manner.

Regards,
Paul McKeown