12-09-2012, 10:34 AM
This deserves a thread on its own.
I think incremental times are the way forward. They do take getting used to. At the Olympiad I was on the top boards of the Women's event. It was obvious that the use of the incremental time control did change the nature of the game significantly.
Obviously there were no time scrambles but instead you got longer time pressure situations. Instead of having a 10 minute period of intensive thought and movement you could have over twice that approaching the 40 move control but more so towards the end of the game where you didn't have 5-10 minute blitz but instead perhaps 30 minutes of constant pressure on the players.
I think it is necessary for Scottish players of all levels to get used to that situation. It is clear to me that those who aren't used to it are at a significant disadvantage.
While mistakes can still be made, these are less common. Games do not swing to and fro. Instead you get more ground out wins or prolonged struggles to achieve the draw. Effectively, skill rather than luck plays its part.
It is known that I have wanted to introduce a congress with increments for some considerable time. There were two problems to this - the lack of sufficient clocks and the lack of a speaking clock for the visually impared. The former is becoming less of a problem and there are now two 'talking clocks' on the market. DGT has stalled in producing a third and I believe that they require 'sponsorship' of €20-30,000 to continue development.
I ran a lightning tournament using incremental times for a few years. The first year in particular there were a large number of complaints during the first few rounds. Eventually these disappeared and some of the most vociferous at the start were the most supportive at the end.
FIDE is about to change the Laws to allow an incremental clock to be introduced in th final stages of the game. However this will give only 5 seconds per move and though it may be a useful way of solving disputes over draw claims in the last two minutes (10.2 for those who know the Laws) it is nowhere near the same thing as the continuous 'pressure' put on by having to play every move every 30 seconds for a long period of time. (I know that several fast moves means that your time can increase but what I witnessed was that when this happened the player would take longer over one move and very quickly find themselves back in the same situation.)
Many of us will have seen the situation of an inexperienced player thrown into a league match with little practice of using a clock. Those without experience of increments are in a similar position to this. The time handling skills can be different. Until you are used to those then you are under more pressure and, just as for the beginner, the clock has a significance beyond what it should.
FIDE tournaments in the main will continue with the current time control of 40 in 90 +30mins with 30 sec per move. To ensure a level playing field these time controls must be adopted in Scotland. I would cetainly like to introduce that for the next Scottish. Most of the longer games finish around the 5 and a half hours mark with a few approaching 6 hours which is the current limit at the Scottish.
I think incremental times are the way forward. They do take getting used to. At the Olympiad I was on the top boards of the Women's event. It was obvious that the use of the incremental time control did change the nature of the game significantly.
Obviously there were no time scrambles but instead you got longer time pressure situations. Instead of having a 10 minute period of intensive thought and movement you could have over twice that approaching the 40 move control but more so towards the end of the game where you didn't have 5-10 minute blitz but instead perhaps 30 minutes of constant pressure on the players.
I think it is necessary for Scottish players of all levels to get used to that situation. It is clear to me that those who aren't used to it are at a significant disadvantage.
While mistakes can still be made, these are less common. Games do not swing to and fro. Instead you get more ground out wins or prolonged struggles to achieve the draw. Effectively, skill rather than luck plays its part.
It is known that I have wanted to introduce a congress with increments for some considerable time. There were two problems to this - the lack of sufficient clocks and the lack of a speaking clock for the visually impared. The former is becoming less of a problem and there are now two 'talking clocks' on the market. DGT has stalled in producing a third and I believe that they require 'sponsorship' of €20-30,000 to continue development.
I ran a lightning tournament using incremental times for a few years. The first year in particular there were a large number of complaints during the first few rounds. Eventually these disappeared and some of the most vociferous at the start were the most supportive at the end.
FIDE is about to change the Laws to allow an incremental clock to be introduced in th final stages of the game. However this will give only 5 seconds per move and though it may be a useful way of solving disputes over draw claims in the last two minutes (10.2 for those who know the Laws) it is nowhere near the same thing as the continuous 'pressure' put on by having to play every move every 30 seconds for a long period of time. (I know that several fast moves means that your time can increase but what I witnessed was that when this happened the player would take longer over one move and very quickly find themselves back in the same situation.)
Many of us will have seen the situation of an inexperienced player thrown into a league match with little practice of using a clock. Those without experience of increments are in a similar position to this. The time handling skills can be different. Until you are used to those then you are under more pressure and, just as for the beginner, the clock has a significance beyond what it should.
FIDE tournaments in the main will continue with the current time control of 40 in 90 +30mins with 30 sec per move. To ensure a level playing field these time controls must be adopted in Scotland. I would cetainly like to introduce that for the next Scottish. Most of the longer games finish around the 5 and a half hours mark with a few approaching 6 hours which is the current limit at the Scottish.