A New Official Live Time Control: 5 | 5

Starting today, we have added an official 5 | 5 blitz time control to the menu of "official" options in Live Chess. Like the others, this time control will allow players to be quickly matched in a pool of players looking for games of that length.

This time control replaces 5 | 2, and players whose most recent game was 5 | 2 will notice that their default is now 5 | 5. This was done to keep these members in a fast-pairing player pool. (Of course, it's still possible to customize a 5 | 2 seek, but it may now take longer to match.)

Why 5 | 5 ? The main reason is to provide better coverage across the spread of game lengths in the blitz category:

3 | 2 : ~4.3 mins per side (per 40-move game)

5 | 0 : 5 mins per side

5 | 5 : ~8.3 mins per side (per 40-move game)

10 | 0 - 10 mins per side

Basically, 5 | 5 makes a "better" (more distinctive) neighbor for 3 | 2 and 5 | 0...

We hope you enjoy the new option! (We will shortly update the Android and iOS apps to keep everything parallel.)

That's all for now!