"Bill Smythe" wrote in message ...
"John Fernandez" wrote:
.... My personal
favorite is 40/100, 20/50, SD/10, +30 seconds added from move 1. ....

The only reason multiple time controls existed in the first place, was that
the technology did not exist to have an increment.

Therefore, it seems a bit inconsistent to have even two, let alone three,
main controls with increment.

Better, I would think, would be a single time control with increment.
Perhaps, in this case, the problem isn't so much that the main control was
too fast, but rather that the increment was too fast (for this type of
event). Maybe 90+60 would be preferable to 90+30.

Bill Smythe


Well, the problem is the allocation of blocks of thinking time.
The longer the game, the more thinking time you need. With a single
time control, even if you have 30 second or 1 minute bonus increment,
if you reckon on having a 40 move game, then you will have used up
most of your initial blcok of time. It does make sense to inject a
chunk of more time into the game, should the game last more than 40
moves. Even with a 60 second increment, you will only be receiving the
time in a trickle.

If you compare your 90 minutes plus 60 seconds a move to 40/100,
20/50, SD/10, +30 seconds, you will note that after 40 moves:

90 + (60 * # of move) = 90 + 40 mins= 130 mins

With multiple time controls, the players have:

100 + (30 * 40) = 100 + 20 =120 mins to make 40 moves

Here, it looks like your system is more player friendly: they will
have received an extra 10 minutes of thinking time. Moreover, if they
use up their initial 90 minute allotment, and get in Zeitnot, they
will receive a minute of added time for each mive they make.

Yet, if the game lasts 60 moves:

90 + 60 mins= 150 minutes for a single TC game

100 + 50 + (30 * 60)= 150 + 30 = 180

With your system, the players are only given an extra 20 minutes to
complete moves 41-60. With multiple time controls, they get 60
minutes. Note that with multiple time controls, the players receive an
extra 30 minutes (or 20%) in thinking time, above the amount that you
system provides.

Game of 80 moves
Multiple TC : 180 + 10 + 10 = 200
Single TC 150 + 20 = 170

Note that because of the injection of the final block of thinking
time, even after move 80, the players using the Multiple Time Control
system will have benefitted from have an extra 30 minutes.

Game of 100 moves:
Multiple TC = 210 minutes
Single TC = 190

Game of 120 moves:
Multiple TC = 220 minutes
Single TC = 210 minutes

Game of 140 moves:
Multiple TC = 230 minutes
Single TC = 230 minutes

Only when a game reaches Move # 140 will your Single Time Control
system provide as much thinking time. Thereafter, the players will
gain an EXTRA 30 seconds per move, because of the larger increment.

A system of Time Controls allows for the front loading of time to
the stage of the game when it is most likely to be useful for the
player. Only a small number of games go past move 60. From the looks
of things, players using the multiple time control system would only
start becoming worse off after they have reached Move 80. At that
point, they must "pay the piper" for having had their thinking time
frontloaded.

A possible improvement, which would take the best of both systems,
is a Time Control of:

40/80 (or 40/90), 20/40, SD/10, with an Increment Bonus of 1 minute
per move. This would only add 10 (or 20) minutes per player, to the
length of a game that lasts 80 moves. Even so, for an 80 move game, it
would involve less time than a 40/120, 20/60, 20/60 pre digital
format.

"Isidor Gunsberg" wrote:
.... Well, the problem is the allocation of blocks of thinking time.
The longer the game, the more thinking time you need. ....

You included a lot of detail, and several specific time control schemes, in
your post.

What it all boils down to, though, is that in most increment schemes, the
increment is faster than the average time per move in the fixed controls.

With 40/120, then 20/60, then 20/60 indefinitely, with no sudden death and
no increment, the average time per move is 3 minutes.

If, instead, the time control is 1/3 (one move in 3 minutes), then 1/3, then
1/3 indefinitely, with no sudden death and no increment, again the average
time per move is 3 minutes.

Furthermore, these two schemes have the same structure -- N1 moves in M1
minutes, then N2 moves in M2 minutes, indefinitely.

Yet, the latter is precisely an increment, in its purest form -- no main
time, but 3 minutes per move throughout. It's just that the "blocks" you
speak of are 1 move each.

Any time the increment is shorter than the average time per move, you will
eventually reach a point where the players have to move more quickly than
they did at the start of the game. Sudden death, with no increment, is the
extreme example.

So it gets back to the age-old argument of fixed-move-number controls vs
sudden death. Do we want the former, for quality chess, or the latter, to
avoid adjournments and late-starting rounds? Increment schemes are simply
an attempt to compromise between these two goals. Different increments are
appropriate in different tournaments (championship vs amateur, 1 round a day
vs 2 or 3, etc). But a 30- or 60-second increment (in an otherwise slow
time control) will never eliminate the need for the players to eventually
move more quickly than they did in the initial stages.

Bill Smythe