Move rates and League structure

[Roger de Coverly]

These are I gather up for debate again in the 4NCL.

On move rates, it's the discussion of whether to introduce increments. Setting aside the issue of the problems that infinite games can cause to Sunday travel plans, both a 10 second and a 30 second increment have been suggested for consideration.

A couple of years ago, the ACP made a now failed attempt to reduce the number of time controls. From a player point of view, unless there's a good reason, inventing new time controls isn't particularly desirable. It would be hoped that any incremental time control would follow the practice in the Candidates, that time is added as soon as available, without having to wait for one player's clock to hit zero.

As regards 10 second increments, I think there is a flaw when you get GMs playing it. Suppose you are the defender in R v RB or even R v RN. With 30 second increments you continue scoring and gain a draw by surviving 50 moves. With no increments, you invoke 10.2 and hope for a sympathetic arbiter. How do you stop the GM playing for ever at 10 second increments in search of the mistake giving him a winning position?

The structure change is to moot the idea of returning to three divisions , each of 12 teams with a Swiss lower division.

[Andrew Bak]

Proposed Changes:

TIME CONTROLS:

1. 40 moves in 2 hours, followed by 20 moves in 1 hour, then (when a flag falls) 20 minutes + 10 seconds per move for the rest of the game. A seven hour session would be 120 moves.

2. 40 moves in 1 hour 40 minutes + 30 seconds per move, followed by the rest of the game in 50 minutes + 30 seconds per move. A seven hour session would be 120 moves.

3. No change.

LEAGUE STRUCTURE:

1. Three divisions of 12 teams plus a fourth division run on a Swiss basis (effectively the current Division 3)

2. No Change

[IM Jack Rudd]

For what it's worth, my preferences were 2>1>3 and 1>2 respectively.

[Mick Norris]

For what it's worth, my preferences were 2>1>3 and 1>2 respectively.

Agreed

[Roger de Coverly]

For what it's worth, my preferences were 2>1>3 and 1>2 respectively.

Assuming a preference for 30 second increments and hand waving the travel issue out of consideration, why invent a new move rate? Why not the move rate of Hastings, the British etc of 40/100, 20/50, G/15 with 30 second increments or the rate of the London Classic FIDE Open of 40/90 G/30 with 30 second increments. Instead it's a sort of interpolation between the two, cutting half an hour off the playing time.

The new rules on 10.2 claims would enable substitution of an increment or delay clock, so the need for difficult 10.2 decisions is removed or reduced.

[Sean Hewitt]

Any introduction of increments should be welcomed, but it must be from move 1.

At the last 4NCL weekend I saw both some awful and some non existent arbiting as players attempted to reach move 40. These problems would be eliminated by the introduction of an increment from the start.

[Andrew Bak]

I saw Grischuk talking about time controls during the Candidates.

He was saying that it doesn't make sense to have increment for the first time controls where you have "x" moves to play in "y" minutes. When you know how many moves you have to make, you should be capable of planning your time accordingly.

However for the final time control, he was in favour of increments as you could not predict how many moves the game would last for.

If option 1 was to be implemented, would it be possible to set the clocks to automatically add the time after move 40 and 60 so that the increment would kick in on move 61?

[Sean Hewitt]

I saw Grischuk talking about time controls during the Candidates.

He was saying that it doesn't make sense to have increment for the first time controls where you have "x" moves to play in "y" minutes. When you know how many moves you have to make, you should be capable of planning your time accordingly.

That's all well and good in the Candidates where you have 3 or 4 arbiters for 4 games and sensory boards and video backing them up.

However, at the 4NCL you have something like 250 games going on with about 8 arbiters. When it comes to time scrambles they can't be everywhere at once.

[Alex Holowczak]

If option 1 was to be implemented, would it be possible to set the clocks to automatically add the time after move 40 and 60 so that the increment would kick in on move 61?

I think you can do either using the manual mode 21 on the DGT 2010s. If you want it to add at move 61, then you can set the moves for time periods 1 and 2 to 40 and 20. If you want to do it after a flag falls, then you set the moves for those time periods to 00. But I'd need a clock in front of me to test that before being sure!

[Sean Hewitt]

If option 1 was to be implemented, would it be possible to set the clocks to automatically add the time after move 40 and 60 so that the increment would kick in on move 61?

You can set them to start increments after xx presses - nearly, but not quite, the same thing.

[Roger de Coverly]

If option 1 was to be implemented, would it be possible to set the clocks to automatically add the time after move 40 and 60 so that the increment would kick in on move 61?

The more modern clocks can do this automatically, provided that is, the arbiters will allow it. There's an interpretation of one of the FIDE Laws of Chess that you don't check whether 40 moves have been reached until the expiry of the first time period, even though that might be at move 50 or later. Using this interpretation, they program the clocks to not add the extra time at the move count, but defer it until the expiry of the first time period. It's the standard way that DGTs are programmed to handle the typical x in y plus z time controls, but until last year, you got the proper time remaining with increments. It's also an attitude issue in that the clock design deliberately makes it difficult to validate what move number the clock thinks it is using. If the clock press counter was more accessible, it would be simple enough to validate that it said the same as a scoresheet. I could accept that it's part of life's uncertainties that you don't always keep score without increments and sporting reasons require players to guess or tick when short of time. That doesn't hold water with 30 second increments since you are required to score throughout.

(edit) Thinking about this a bit more, it should not be problematic in a rules sense to indicate the clock's counter at all times with 30 second increments as this information is available from the player's own scoresheet. Also without increments provided the time remaining on both clocks was at least five minutes, because again it's just confirming information already in the player's possession. So if notifying players in a time scramble is to be ruled out, all you need is for the move count display to be blank when a clock shows less than five minutes remaining, rather than for the entire game. (/edit)

[Roger de Coverly]

At the last 4NCL weekend I saw both some awful and some non existent arbiting as players attempted to reach move 40.

Is it any different from league and county matches with no arbiter present? The traditional approach is to play until the flag falls and then reconstruct. Have these skills been lost?

Perhaps being FIDE rated, there's an expectation of more arbiters watching than in a typical Congress. A league or county match would be an exception if there were any arbiters deemed present at all.

I suspect the next time controls being leisurely encourages time brinkmanship. If you know you are only going to get an extra 15 or 20 minutes, it can encourage acceleration from an earlier point in the game so as to allow thirty minutes or more from move 40.

[Andrew Bak]

If option 1 was to be implemented, would it be possible to set the clocks to automatically add the time after move 40 and 60 so that the increment would kick in on move 61?

The more modern clocks can do this automatically, provided that is, the arbiters will allow it.

I was aware that it was technologically possible to set the clocks like this, but I was curious as to whether such a clock setting would comply with the laws of chess.

I saw Grischuk talking about time controls during the Candidates.

He was saying that it doesn't make sense to have increment for the first time controls where you have "x" moves to play in "y" minutes. When you know how many moves you have to make, you should be capable of planning your time accordingly.

That's all well and good in the Candidates where you have 3 or 4 arbiters for 4 games and sensory boards and video backing them up.

However, at the 4NCL you have something like 250 games going on with about 8 arbiters. When it comes to time scrambles they can't be everywhere at once.

This point certainly strengthens the case for 30 second increments all the way through. Furthermore it seems like this is an easier time control to set with the digital clocks!

[Roger de Coverly]

I was aware that it was technologically possible to set the clocks like this, but I was curious as to whether such a clock setting would comply with the laws of chess.

If you take an attitude that enforces some of the technophobia in the Laws of Chess, the Candidates games were non-compliant. It would appear that the requirement for media friendly presentation showed up the refusal to add time at a move count for the nonsense that it is.

I'm reminded that Nigel's loss on time in the first game of the 1993 match and the subsequent reactions did much to promote the notion of digital clocks and increment timings. But if you want drama, the beat the clock aspect of a traditional time control is as good as it gets. With increments, it all seems to be happening in slow motion.

[Chris Rice]

Having just finished a tournament in Dubai with the 30 second increment from move 1 I have to report there were no mad time scrambles and you didn't need a law degree to get a draw.

However, for sheer excitement you can't beat a really good time scramble can you? Spectators flocking around the board, players shaking with the strain and tension of it all, pieces often flying off everywhere and well played games up to that point suddenly counting for nothing as the game is turned around in time trouble. The only thing in the last round that did raise a murmur was someone's mobile going off three minutes into the game which caused a bit of a laugh but its hardly the same thing is it?

As far as the 4ncl is concerned my experience is that the 7-hour sessions are too brutal, especially on a Sunday with a long drive home afterwards. I would propose the 90 minutes + 30 second increment from move 1. In practice the games generally last 3-4 hours max and you never have to be in a traumatic position where you've got to make 10 moves in two minutes for example, you're always going to have at least 30 seconds to make a move. It's a no-brainer really but for players that haven't played under increments before it will still feel a bit scary for the first couple of games but once you get used to it I guarantee you won't ever want to go back to guillotine finishes.