Bronstein Timing is similar to Fischer Timing. Players have some time at the beginning of game and then after each move they receive a bonus of a few seconds (let's assume 3 seconds for now). The difference is that if you use less then 3 seconds (the bonus), you receive back only the time you used for your move. So you just get back to your previous time.

 

Have you ever played with this timing?

Do you like it?

Do you think we should have it in Live Chess?

Sounds nasty. I haven't heard of it :-).

I'm trying to figure out what is the point of such bonus cutting. Probably if someone is attacking and has "natural" moves while the other has to "use his brain" to defend.. To not let the side with better position to gain time advantage as well. Sounds fair :).. But I haven't played on such timer. 

Yes, your time can never increase (only by the bonus).

I seeee.. so on every move you have extra time (3 seconds in your example). BUT this extra time is not added to your time. This way after each move your time couldn't increase. :) Clever. Really clever.

I've played few games on 5 5. But it's not blitz anymore. It's more like 15 0 game. In this case Bronstein would do a better job.  

I think for the live chess we should just stick with regular minutes and increments.

Matt: Why do you think so?

Bronstein timing is very similar to the time delay that is now the standard timing method at USCF tournaments. My guess is that a lot of people are familiar with time delay, but would get used to Bronstein very quickly.

Actually... I AM playing with Bronsteins timing at chesspark.com. There are 2 seconds before your timer starts.

And I do like it.

lubo, if there is a 2 second delay before your timer starts on each move, that is a time delay, not Bronstein. In Bronstein, the time is added back after you've made your move.

In practice it looks like insignificant difference. Probably I'm wrong.  But I can't see the big difference.

Let's compare a 2 second time delay with a 2 second Bronstein bonus.

 

Imagine a situation with 4 seconds left on your clock. With the delay, you could make your move in 5 seconds and still have 1 second left on your clock. With the bonus, if you took 5 seconds, you would lose.

 

More importantly, with a delay, you always have at least that amount of time to make the move. This is not so with the Bronstein mode. The USCF uses a 5 second delay on the theory that in simple drawn endings that one player could push on in indefinitely, the defending side just has to make their moves in under 5 seconds no matter how little time is on their clock. 

Makes sense