The Surrey League are carrying out a survey of affiliated clubs, seeking views from players and club representatives. The two issues are the method for deciding games (time controls) and the starting time of matches.

The first of these is quite distinctive. In the Surrey League, all three methods of finishing a game are available. The away player must offer two options out of adjudication, adjournment, and finish on the night. The home player must choose one of those two. The rationale is that players can avoid a method they particularly don’t want, and can’t be forced into one option. The same system used to operate in the Croydon & District League, but they moved to a mandatory finish on the night this season.

The Surrey League retains a preference for adjudication in that this is the default option if the system breaks down, and also the clocks are required to be set for the adjudication option at the start until the players decide.

With adjudication, the time control is 35 moves in 75 minutes, then 7 moves in 15 minutes repeating as needed to the end of the session. With adjournment, it’s 35 moves in 75 minutes, then 28 moves in 60 minutes, then 7 moves in 15 minutes repeating. With finish on the night, there’s a further division: either quickplay, which is 30 moves in 60 minutes then all remaining moves in a further 20 minutes, or Fischer, which is all moves in 75 minutes plus 10 seconds a move.

In practice, I have always played finish on the night, and in almost all cases, with the incremental time control, although one of my opponents insisted on the quickplay finish instead. This is the default option if the players do not agree.

I have not seen any stats on the frequency of the different options chosen, although in the matches when I have been present, most players have chosen a finish on the night with the incremental time control.

Matches in the Surrey League start at 7.40pm. The playing session is a minimum of 2 hours and 40 minutes.

This is what the Surrey League authorities are saying about their survey:

As the 22/23 season draws towards a conclusion, now is a good time to review the playing conditions for our inter-club standardplay matches.  We would like to collect feedback from as many players as possible and then bring a proposal to the next AGM at the end of June to reflect any changes that this process identifies as being needed.

We are keen that the chess competitions we offer are attractive and recognise that we are to some extent competing with other local leagues for players’ time. There are 2 aspects of particular interest which may be linked, but you may have other suggestions:

Firstly the start time of matches, which is set at a default 7:40pm, and a playing session of 2 hours 40 minutes.   Other leagues (Thames Valley, Surrey Border League, Mid-Sussex) tend to start earlier and play longer.

Secondly, finishing of games.  We have had the “Away player offers 2 from 3 options & Home player chooses” for many years and this has been an effective way to avoid the least favourite of the 3 options.    However, neighbouring leagues are increasingly play to a finish. These two factors should be considered together, because a longer playing session may make playing to a finish more achievable.

There have been some changes to the background working/commuting environment over recent years, digital clocks are now ubiquitous and captains’ match cards in the Surrey League show there is a clear trend away from adjournments and adjudications towards playing to a finish.

Before considering any changes we need to hear your views.   The link below takes you to a very brief survey we are running.  Please take a few minutes to complete this for us.   Just as important as your preferences are the reasons behind them.   The current basic version of SurveyMonkey does not allow us to capture text responses, such as “Why do you say this?”, so we would also like you to send your comments to a dedicated e-mail address.  These comments can include the reasons behind your preferences, other important factors we should consider or even new ideas/suggestions for the league.

You asked to respond by 6 April.
The email address is  sccasurvey@gmail.com  

The survey link:
https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/VPZHGKX

You can only take the survey once, and you have to indicate which is your club and whether you are responding as a player or club representative. The survey window is quite short: I only saw it on 20 March and the deadline is 6 April which is less than three weeks away. I suppose they must want to reach an internal decision in time for their AGM before the end of June.

I have completed the survey and also given a textual explanation of my views as below:

I would prefer the following set-up, which is consistent with a number of other leagues in the south east.

• Playing session minimum 3 hours (maximum 3 hours 30 minutes)
• Mandatory Fischer time control G75 + 15
• No adjudication or adjournment provision.

This reflects my personal views that 

• the game should finish on the night
• the need to use post-session computer analysis or third-party adjudication procedures should be minimised
• the playing session should be long enough to allow the participants to play quality chess
• extending the increment (say from 10 seconds to 15 seconds) is more valuable to players, particularly later in the game, than reducing the basic game time (say from 80 minutes to 75 minutes).

One of my colleagues, responding separately, made the following observations, with which I completely agree:

For clubs that play in several leagues which all use club home venues (such as SCCA) the use of digital clocks (DGT 2010s are ubiquitous) poses particular challenges in the current arrangements. One is accommodating those who arrive late after the clocks have been started (there is always someone!). To cater for all eventualities clocks must be available in four possible settings (quickplay [guillotine and incremental]; adjournment and adjudication), or else a bespoke time setting must be made on the spot for the game in question, according to the finish adopted. If the captain has their own game to play this can be especially distracting. Life would be so much simpler for hosts/managers if there was a single mandatory game finish. It would also obviate the wearisome business of explaining to players all the game finish options before the match can get underway. 

Life would be even simpler for clubs playing in several local leagues (Streatham for example also plays in the Croydon and District Chess League), if there were harmonisation of game finishes across all leagues. Probably a pipe dream, but it would obviate the requirement to reset clocks for different control regimes between matches. CDCL, by the way, has moved to a default incremental of 75mins + 10spm. Even if the parameters varied between leagues, having a common incremental finish-on-the night regime would be a step in the right direction.

An additional practical problem is that not everyone is familiar with setting a digital clock and switching between options. I have had to help out with this on a number of occasions.

If all leagues moved to the same mandatory incremental time control, which I would regard as ideal, what should it be? It’s well-known that I regard G75 + 15 as superior to G80 + 10. But since the second of these is the most common incremental time control in use in English league chess, it would make more sense for everyone to move to that.

I hope the Surrey League will publish a summary of the responses to the survey and I look forward to seeing what’s proposed for the AGM.