Please allow me to discuss a disturbing rule change which is currently in effect. That is the use of the "time delay" on digital clocks? "Time stands still for no man" is irrelevant when this feature is in use!? Many years ago, we played chess with mechanical clocks. Each player was alloted the same amount of time. If your time ran out, you lost the game. Period. Now, a player can run his clock down to seconds left, but if he makes his move quickly enough (within 3-5 seconds) his clock doesn't advance at all? The first player who has properly paced himself and used his time wisely is confronted with a circumstance whereby both players end up thinking on his time. If the second player who is in time trouble continues to move "rapidly" his clock will not advance at all??? In effect, time stands still???! Therefore, it becomes necessary for the first player to pick up his pace of play in order to hope to cause the second player to pause for a moment and think?!
Why this rule was put into play I will never know. It simply makes no sense that the player who has conducted his game properly should be penalized and his opponent rewarded by having 3-5 seconds to reflect before his clock begins to advance again? Simply put, correct play gets tossed out the window and a wild scramble insues? Why is that good?
Therefore, if for whatever the proponents reason is for justifying the time delay of 3-5 seconds, I believe it would only be fair to require that at least 1 second elapse off of the clock for each move made!!! That way, when a player ends up with 15 seconds left on his clock, he has exactly 15 moves in which to checkmate his opponent!! Or, he may decide that a Draw is a better solution; if he offers it with enough time left for his opponent to consider it.

The "delay crowd" wants 5 seconds, the rest of us want 1 back. Think about it. It's only fair. Furthermore, the clock was introduced in order to prevent players from sitting and not moving. In the age of changing rules expressly to accommodate directors who want their rounds to start on time, the use of the delay rule actually extends the length of the game?! It simply doesn't make sense that a player in severe time trouble can execute numerous moves without his clock advancing at all???

Hence, a motion will be made at the next USCF Delegates meeting to change the rule accordingly. ie. "the advance of at least one second per move will occur for all clocks using time delay." Don't worry, the clock manufacturers will gladly sell you a new clock with that feature (if they don't already have it built in now).

NM Leland Fuerstman

You realize that "conducted the game 'properly'" puts a normative value on something that, strategically speaking, is really just a result of the ruleset. At one point games weren't timed at all, and in that version of the rules time management wasn't of strategic importance. Time delay simply changes the strategy, and all you're really saying is that you like the old version better.

That sums it up, right?

I like time controls where you get something like two minutes added to the clock each move (and start with maybe half an hour or fifteen minutes). I don't know can that even be called chess; pieces never get knocked down in mad time scrables which change the win/loss status of the game five times in as many moves.

Is time delay the same as increment?

Anyways, if it is the increment we are discussing, then judgements like "conducting one's game properly" and "penalized" do not make sense as both players are aware of the time control and there is nothing "proper" about playing a game with an increment as if there wasn't one. If the increment is introduced, it changes the way the game should be conducted. And if your time management strategy causes you to be "penalized", maybe, you haven't conducted your game "properly", afterall.

Leland,

Apparently, time does stand still for you and your ilk. Have you heard that women are allowed to play chess too now?

The time delay is an indispensable feature that has been possibly due to the advent of digital clocks some decades ago. When the computers became too strong, the games could not be adjourned anymore, so the sudden death time control (quickplay finish in FIDE speak) had to be put in place. Time delay feature allows the games at the sudden death stage to be decided by the skill of conducting tactics and strategies on the chessboard, as opposed to hand speed.

Speaking of that, when was the last GM tournament that used adjournments? Anybody know?

I don't know when the last one was played. I do know that in 1980, I had an adjournment in one game. It was really very exciting - and I drew the game. My only draw...my only non-loss.

I dropped out of the chess scene in 1982 - so I am not sure what happened after that.

Not sure about tournaments in general, but as far as I know, the last World Championship match to use them was Kasparov-Short. At least I'm pretty sure that Kasparov-Anand didn't have them, and I can't think of any subsequent championship match that did.