English Chess Forum

There was a recent incident in the Liverpool League in which John Littlewood's clock was started at the earliest possible moment by his opponent. I know that members of the team he was playing against frequent this establishment, so it would be interesting to hear why they didn't wait at least a few minutes for him to arrive. I have always believed that one should display a degree of chivalry in chess, but perhaps I am wrong. Nigel

Well ... if by "the earliest possible moment" you mean the designated time for start of play, then one might just as easily upbraid John for being late. Or was it more complicated than that? (Also some league games need to start promptly because they will be kicked out promptly at the scheduled finishing time. And there is something to be said for all games in a team match starting at the same time).

As a club match captain, I would expect all games in a match to start at the same time and to start once the majority of both teams (particularly the away team) were present. Possibly as a hang over from the days of adjournments, I would try to agree that clocks would be started at a time shown on a venue wall clock. That would either be immediately or in say 5 minutes time. The home team captain could show some tolerance of late arrivals from the away team by deferring slightly the start of the whole match. This is particularly the case if there are weather or travel issues. Different clubs have hard or soft attitudes on this.

You can also find when more than one match is taking place, that there's a certain amount of pre-match noise. I would postpone a start by a couple of minutes to allow it to quieten down.

You would start the clocks in a 4NCL or tournament game on time regardless of the status of the opponent. I don't think a league game should be that different.

In my experience it is extremely rare for any tournament or league clocks to be started at the advertised time

Speaking of clocks, are you guys in favour of reminding opponents if/when they forget to hit their clock, or do you prefer to spend a little extra quality analysis time instead?

Speaking of clocks, are you guys in favour of reminding opponents if/when they forget to hit their clock, or do you prefer to spend a little extra quality analysis time instead?

My personal practice is to remind my opponent on the first transgression usually by vaguely pointing in the direction of the clock, but after that I regard it as their risk.

A couple of dangers though.

A really confused opponent might notice his clock running and try to make another move.
If you are on a digital clock and using increments, you need to stop and restart your opponents clock after your move so as to get the increment and the move count.

Something similar happened to me at this year's Gibraltar. In Round One my IM opponent twice started my clock when it was his turn to move - one time it was fairly clear from his body language that he thought he'd forgotten to press his clock after his move; the other time he returned to the board and didn't realise that I'd made a move. Naturally this threw the move counter out, but it became something of a moot point as later in the game the clock died altogether.

As an example of how 'far' we've come in the last century, I like the story of how when Frank Marshall won to US Championship in 1904 he refused to accept the title because Pillsbury wasn't playing.

Tim Spanton wrote:In my experience it is extremely rare for any tournament or league clocks to be started at the advertised time

Despite the absence of one of my players, last night I started all the digital clocks at the same time and on schedule according to my normal practise.