Category Archives: Incremental time controls

Guildford FIDE Congress 2023

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The Guildford FIDE Congress took place this weekend at the University of Surrey. A total of 136 players entered the 3 sections (Open 46, Major 56, Minor 34). This included 53 juniors, which was very encouraging. The youngest competitor was 6 years old and the oldest was 92. The entry was much larger than expected. Probably there were two reasons for this:

  • the venue came free of charge, so we were able to offer a generous prize fund;
  • there are currently no other opportunities to play a weekend tournament in the Guildford area.

The event ran very smoothly, not least through the efforts of our team of three FIDE arbiters who each ran one of the sections. The time control of G90 + 30s worked well in most cases, but there were two very long games in the Open. Tim Foster v Peter Lalic in round 1 lasted 7 hours and did not finish until 1.30am on Saturday morning. Graeme Buckley v James Merriman in round 2 lasted over 5 hours and was still continuing when round 3 started for the Major and Minor (with a silent start). When people say they don’t like increments, I suppose this is what they mean. We could have limited the damage with a different FIDE-approved time control such as G110 +10s, but then players would not have had to record the moves with less than 5 minutes remaining. So it’s a trade-off.

All the sections were closely-contested. The Open was quite exciting with several players in contention in the final round. Eventually the clear winner on 4.5/5 was the top seed, IM Gediminas Sarakauskas (FIDE 2387). Four players tied for 2nd place on 4/5: Graeme Buckley, Steven Jones, Susan Lalic and John Merriman.

As well as the section prizes, we awarded prizes for the top junior, the top female player, and the top U2000 player in the Open. The SCCA awarded the title of U18 Surrey Junior Champion to Magnus Borrissow (highest-placed eligible junior in the Open on 3.5/5) and gave him the Michell Memorial Trophy, the first time for several years this has been presented.

There were several family relationships during the event requiring forbidden pairings. Not least the Lalic dynasty (three family members in the Open plus Lucy Buckley in the Major).

Full details of the event are on Chess Results and there will be a report and photographs on British Chess News within a week.

The feedback we received during the event was very positive and we hope to run it again next year.

Surrey League time controls and starting times

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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.

 

Incremental time controls

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Rodney Barking brings you further original research on the playing rules of league chess in England. This time the subject is incremental time controls. This arose from an internal consideration of a potential attempt (not by the league committee) to amend the rules of the London League. Currently the rules stipulate a time control of 75 minutes for the game plus a 15-second increment from the start.

The main issue is whether the basic game time should be shortened, and the increment lengthened to 30 seconds a move. The point of the 30-second increment is to provide more thinking time in the later stages and to ensure that all moves are recorded throughout the game. The drawback is that reducing the basic game time may impair the quality of the chess played in the earlier stages.

Bear in mind the maths underlying the different ratios. In considering the effect of increments on the length of the playing session, the chess authorities assume that a game will last typically 60 moves. So a 15-second increment adds 1 minute for every 4 moves, whereas a 30-second increment adds 1 minute for every 2 moves. If the game lasts exactly 60 moves and both players use all the available time (without actually losing on time), then both G75 + 15s and G60 + 30s will result in a total playing session of exactly 3 hours.

There are 86 standardplay leagues in England (excluding online and junior leagues). Information on the playing rules is available online for 63 of these leagues. Of these, 52 provide for an incremental time control (either mandatory or the default option or simply an option) and 11 do not.

Almost all leagues with an incremental time control are based on a single session of play (49 out of 52). In these cases, this is the frequency of the different incremental controls (in ascending order of length).
G60 + 30s – 5
G65 + 30s – 1
G70 + 10s – 1
G70 + 15s – 2
G75 + 10s – 8
G75 + 15s – 6
G80 + 10s – 20
G80 + 15s – 2
G85 + 10s – 2
G110 + 10s – 1
G135 + 15s – 1.

The last two of these stand out from the rest, but they are afternoon leagues where more time is available.

In three leagues, the rules provide for two sessions of play. The first session is a set number of moves in a set time (eg 30 moves in 70 minutes). The second session is a guillotine with all remaining moves in a set time (eg all moves in a further 10 minutes). In all cases the increment applies from the start of the game.
G30/70 + all/10 + 10s – 1 (Coventry & District)
G35/70 + all/10 + 10s – 1 (Bedfordshire)
G40/100 + all/50 + 30s – 1 (4NCL).

There are some particular points I want to make about these results.

Although the most common time control is G80 + 10s, in one case known to Barking the relevant league moved from this to G75 + 15s and not the other way round. This was the Central London League, which made the change about 10 years ago. The league’s decision-makers agreed that the extra thinking time provided by an increment of 15 seconds rather than 10 seconds was more important than the reduction of the basic game time from 80 minutes to 75 minutes.

They may have been influenced by the early starting time in the Central London League (6.30pm). Late finishing was less of an issue. In contrast, the Surrey Border League rejected the same proposal (to move from G80 + 10s to G75 + 15s) at its AGM in 2022. Games in this league start an hour later, at 7.30pm, and the potentially-extended finishing time would have run up against venue closing time constraints in some cases.

The session length at the two London League central venues is limited to 3 hours and 30 minutes. This applies whatever time control is used. So although it is the case that a longer increment will prolong the game where more than 60 moves are played, that is not an argument against the longer increment, at the central venues at least. Barking knows of only one case where the game was not finished on the night. 

Finally, going all the way to G60 + 30s, in other words reducing the basic game time to 60 minutes, would have a direct implication for the default time allowed. As Barking has argued elsewhere, a league the size of London with regular transport problems requires a generous default time of 45 or 60 minutes and this is not easily accommodated within a basic 60-minute game time.