SNCL

[amuir]

Andrew G: adjudication is a lesser evil than being handicapped for a 2nd game, look at football where team which has played in Europe midweek loses locally next weekend , and penalty shoot-out is more desirable than a replay.

I don't see attraction of increments. A fixed playing session is better. My time control for SNCL would be : 10.15 -2.15 all moves in 2 hours each, 3.15-7.15 round 2

At this point in time I don't know if I will be there next weekend or not due to my views.

[Alex McFarlane]

Andrew G: adjudication is a lesser evil than being handicapped for a 2nd game, look at football where team which has played in Europe midweek loses locally next weekend , and penalty shoot-out is more desirable than a replay.

I don't see attraction of increments. A fixed playing session is better. My time control for SNCL would be : 10.15 -2.15 all moves in 2 hours each, 3.15-7.15 round 2

At this point in time I don't know if I will be there next weekend or not due to my views.

The attraction of increments is that the players decide the result of the game and not the arbiter when one player runs out of time.
Or are you suggesting that as soon as the last grain of sand runs out of your timer then you lose?
The equivalent of the football penalty shoot-out that you see as a good idea is to have very short increments.  Clocks could be set to  give 30 second increments up to 40 moves and then 5 second increments thereafter.  I'm not sure I think that is a better option than the current system but it is the logical conclusion to what you say.

I can just imaging the Andy Muir of 150 years ago saying "I'm not playing in that stupid Dundee tournament.  They will be using these new fangled clock things and, worse, they are allowing draws rather than replaying."

[John Watkins]

Scottish National Chess League Rules 2017/2018:
1. All games shall be played in accordance with the Laws of chess as laid down by FIDE except
where modified below:
a. Mobile Phones will be allowed in the venue but must be switched off. Should a phone ring during play, the game will be declared lost for the owner of the phone.
b. Default time for games will be 30 minutes.
2. Games will start at 10am for the morning session and 3pm for the afternoon session.
...
4. The rate of play will be all moves in 90 minutes with a 30 second increment from move 1 (in
exceptional circumstances time control may be modified by the arbiter.)

So start time must be set in stone for 10am sharp.

1) A 30 move game would end at 1.30pm at the very latest.
2) A 60 move game would end at 2.00pm at the very latest. (this is when all games should have finished assuming the start was on time last season).
3) A 90 move game would end at 2.30pm at the very latest. How many of them were there last year in reality?
4) A 120 move game would end at 3.00pm at the very latest. How many of them were there last year in reality?

No provision in rules for minimum break time. So should players try to do a simul over 2 boards to avoid a 30 minute default and/or handicap their afternoon game. Where does their morning game get moved to in order to free up the board for the afternoon game? What happens to the opponents in the afternoon game? What if both opponents in an afternoon game are still playing their morning game? What is the cut off?

No provision in the rules for adjudication. When would that kick in anyway? 2pm everyone stops play and arbiters have to go around every game in progress to adjudicate? Who would be first in that queue? What happens if arbitration of the morning games is not finished by 3pm?

I could go on but a simple solution, in the absence of reverting to the old time controls, is to only play the morning game or afternoon game. Alternatively you could cut down the increment to 20 seconds per move and the 90 move game would finish at 2pm leaving only really long games in progress (very few I would assume).

[robin moore]

Andy M,

As Glorney chief trainer, how are you going to train our squad to deal with increments at the event (if you turn up) ?

[Andy Howie]

Increments are pretty much the way we are heading now. Non increments have been moved from the Laws of Chess appendix and are now only in the guidelines and are likely to disappear completely by 2020 / 2021.

Vote was had at SNCL AGM and overwhelmingly approved. If we do have a problem with long overruns (which based on the last 3 or 4 years of using them at various tournaments up and down the country, is very much the exception, not the norm), there are other time controls with increments that we can use that are still compliant with the minimum 4 hour playing session required. (150 mins +10 seconds that we are using here in Scarborough).

If you don't like increments, you are going to find that tournaments you want to play in are very very limited due to the changing of the Laws of Chess

[Andy Howie]

Andy M, I am curious, You are playing in the Northumberland Masters, which is using the same time time controls and for 4 of the 5 days has 2 rounds a day, but are objecting to the SNCL one. Perhaps you can explain the difference for me?

[amuir]

I am playing Northumberland purely to play some chess. At the moment I am very inactive and in danger of forgetting how the pieces move. It is an individual tournament so I don't have team mates to consider if I want to sulk.

Glorney training will not involve clock control.

[robin moore]

I am getting edgy about the apparent lack of Glorney plans. So far it's at an unknown venue on unknown dates with an unknown squad trained by someone who doesn't believe in the time control and who lives at the opposite end of the country to the main contenders for selection.

[Alex McFarlane]

I am playing Northumberland  purely to play some chess. At the moment I am very inactive and in danger of forgetting how the pieces move. It is an individual tournament so I don't have team mates to consider if I want to sulk.

Glorney training will not involve clock control.

Sorry Andy but clock control is very important.  Several people who have accompanied juniors on foreign trips have commented that games were even until players were living on the increment when experience of that showed in the opposition play.

That is another reason for moving to increments - we don't want to disadvantage our junior teams.  As a great pusher of improving junior chess you should therefore be supporting incremental tournaments for the experience needed by our juniors.

[amuir]

The Glorney will be fine. We have a very low bar to hurdle. Last year we spent an unaccounted £33k to finish 5th. So let's get behind the team and the manager and don't shoot ourselves in the foot as usual. I can't really talk about the location or makeup of the squad as it has not been selected yet. I never got trained on clock play in my day.