winawer77 wrote on 09/25/13 at 05:47:50:


That's unbelievable, sounds like a bad joke. I guess some people like to feel the sense of power and drama that comes with being the one to decide a game. A slight improvement might be to have it adjudicated by computer, at least it's a little more objective. Houdini might find a ridiculously complex tactic or be at a loss in a certain endgame, but then so could the adjudicator.  
 

Some years ago, 2 regional tournaments decided to abolish adjournments after some players complained about my intensive computeranalysis made during the adjournments. You can read more about it on my blog: 
http://schaken-brabo.blogspot.be/2012/05/afbreken.html

The amount of endgames during tournaments is an additional fun aspect, indeed a few percent left is not much, but those boards are all surrounded by a huge crowd of spectators!!

A time control of 90 minutes + 30seconds/move isn't that bad at all, then you have 2 hours for 60 moves. More time increasements/move have other disadvantages, because then a whole group of amateurs could stay away from that tournament, because of the risk that a game lasts too long, there is also a need that players can drive home at a reasonable time. But my mayor concern is that tournament games are slightly reduced from 2 hours to 1:50 to 1:40 etcetera, which is destructive for endgames.

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GMTonyKosten wrote on 09/22/13 at 23:34:32:

I strongly agree.
REfocusing after moving the eyes and attention away from the board, to the score sheet, is very disruptive. 30 seconds is not enough time to then refocus and think clearly.

But the bottom line is that the Tournament Director must have either adjournments (yuk) or a predictable and reasonable time by which all games of the round will be finished.

I think the best solution begins by acknowledging that all chess clocks available for purchase today are crummy in terms of their flexibility. If we have truly programmable chess clocks with granular configurations for all concepts and all implied concepts...

Divide the "fat" first time-control segment into two shorter or *thinner* segments.  Each might be 20_moves/50_minutes + delay_30_seconds.
Further, any time remaining at the end of segment is only partially carried forward to the next segment!  For example, perhaps only 50% of the remaining time is added at the start of the next segment.  Phrased slightly differently, any time remaining at the end of segment results in only a *partial-accumulation* of the prior segment's remaining time.
That way players get the time they need, but they cannot save all unused time and in so doing bloat the maximum duration of the game and thus of the round.


Under these two basic ideas (thinner segments, partial-accumulation of prior time), the players no longer have all the usual *guesswork* about how to manage their limited time.  At the start of the game, neither player has any way of knowing whether the game will last of 33 move-pairs or 99 move-pairs; thus they must guess about how much time to save early in the game.

Very few other sports, either analog or digital sports (like chess), have this element of guesswork about time.
By having thinner segments, none longer than 20 move-pairs, the endgame has time if it needs time.  But if it turns out that the endgame does not need time, then the endgame's time is not available for excessive and perhaps self-destructive consumption by the earlier segments of the time-control.


Mathematically it is impossible to reliably know that the round's longest game will complete within 5 hours if the time-control allots, to each player, on average 3 minutes for every move of a 90 move-pair game (2 * 3 * 90 = 540 minutes = 9 hours).  So we must pick our poison.
The thinner and partial-accumulation principles give us more ways to make the poison as palatable as possible.
. .

I was thinking more of this:

"One cannot help feeling a bit sad realizing that such works of art (and Timman - Velimirovic, Rio de Janiero 1979) are unlikely to be seen in the future due to modern time controls and the lack of adjournments." 

IM Jeremy Silman, reveiwing the book The Greatest Ever Chess Endgames.
 

Agreed. I was just reading in Winter's Capablanca book: Lasker and Capablanca were negotiating over 12 moves per hour (=40 in 3:20) vs. 15 moves per hour (=40 in 2:40). In the event, Capablanca took more time than Lasker in most of his games. No wonder they could play good endgames. 

Adjournments today would be a bit like adjudications, but that would not favor either player. Not only the Soviets would have a Geller in the room to find ...Rxh2!!. Excellent endgames would return. I suspect the real roadblock is that sponsors (and media) have become reluctant to pay for extra time in the playing venue, etc. But the Amsterdam ACP Golden Classic, with 40 in 2:30 and adjournments, worked fine.

I miss the adjournments.  It was a part of strategy and could be hugely thrilling.  In the days before tablebases and computers, there was often a real question of whether a position could be won or saved.

I find today's time controls annoying.  You spend hours of hard work, reach a complicated ending and then you have no time to think it through.  What's the point of that?  

I agree with the OP.  "Chessplayers need to think; decreasing time is damaging the beautifullness of chess"