Hello,

Just started playing chess after many years off and am addicted again! Just a quick question. When you go to a club or play in a tourney what is the average or common time limit used for those games? 

 

Thanks for any info! Love the site! 

5 10 15 i think

Tournaments in my area range from 30 minutes for each player up to more than 2 hours. 60 or 90 minutes is the most common though. Casual games played at clubs are usually 5 minutes for each side.

casual games are 5 mins? crazy! i guess its good practice?

It depends how high you play.

we usually play here long game without the time, but we manage to finish it in less than an hour.

i looked into a local club. i will go check it out. thanks for the input guys! :)

The chess clock varies from event to event. At my club tournaments I got used to 15 min. for each player for all moves. Sometimes we would play 5 min. games for fun. I have never played 5 min. competitively, but I know you can. Then there are quickplay tournaments, which are one day events. This is probably the majority of competitive chess I have taken part in, besides club. Here, I have seen time limits of 15, 20, 30, 40, and 45 min. per player for all moves, with 30 min. probably being the most common. Then there are weekend tournaments, of which I have only done a few. I believe the norm is something like 35 moves in 75 minutes. A quickplay finish of 15 min. for all remaining moves is common then, as far as I remember. I am pretty sure league play has a similar clock setup, but I have never belonged to a league, so maybe someone else can answer that. I have not taken part in international chess either, but unless I am mistaken, the norm is: 2 hrs. for each player to reach move 40; an extra 1/2 hr. per player to reach move 60; some sort of quickplay, maybe 15 min. per player, to finish the game.

FIDE events now seem to have 2 time controls that are popular for open events here  in Europe. One is G/90 but with 30 second increments for each move from move 1 and the other is G/2 hours with no increments. Rapid plays here (quick play in the US) is typically G/20 min though other time controls are sometimes used like G/15. In clubs "blitz" is very popular and thats G/5 min . Many players now prefer 3 0 blitz but I like the classic 5 0 myself.