Incremental Time Controls
Bobby Fischer filed a patent in 1988 for a new type of digital chess clock which allowed time to be added after a player makes a move. Ever since, incremental time controls have remained the constant subject of controversy in the chess community.
Increment is extra time that is added to the clock every time you make a move. Sometimes it’s 5 or 10 seconds, but it can range as far as 30 seconds! While it helps chess players who find themselves in time trouble, others argue that it takes the talent out of chess.
Incremental time controls are primarily used in blitz games and shorter rapid games. In classical chess, 90 minutes are given for the first 40 moves, and then an additional 30 minutes is added for the rest of the game. I doubt many of us need THAT much time for a game. Bullet and hyper bullet chess give only the minimal increment, which is usually one second.
Many argue that every second counts, and just one second could mean the difference between a win, draw, or loss.
I personally think increment sets aside the talent of quick thinking and gives unnecessary time as a result. If you want to make the game longer, why don’t you make it longer to start with?
I think people are drawn more to non-increment games, because they are more exciting. It doesn’t matter if you’re down a queen, you always have a chance in a non-increment game. For example, you could make your opponent timeout. I don’t really care about my accuracy in games, I want to have on the edge of my seat games where I have to think quickly if I find myself in time trouble.
This is a game I played with my brother, @Finnarmy. I am playing with the black pieces, and it was a 15-minute game with no increment. A close game to the very end. My accuracy was 75.4 while my brothers was 75.3.
I played an opening called the Icelandic Gambit, but we're going to skip right to the end. My brother had some pretty big advantages the whole game, consistently at around a 3.0 advantage, and even at one point an 8.7 advantage. I think it's safe to say that my brother missed some winning moves lol.
We skip to move 35 where he has only 4.2 seconds left! I sit reasonably safe with 30 seconds on my clock after my brother checks me on move 35. At this point, my brother is just trying to drain my clock, preventing any pre-moves I may make with quick, sneaky checks. After a few more moves, he runs out of tricks and times out.
My brother is a deep thinker, he tries to make the most of every move. He prefers to play 15-minute games with a 10 second increment. This game he happened to think too long, missing the key moves he needed for the win. Would an increment have prevented a loss and maybe secure him a draw? Probably so. 5 seconds every move could have probably made the difference in this certain match.
Increment definitely has its uses as well! Let's look at a game played with incremental time controls!
This is a game I played with my other brother, @FredAlmighty. I was playing as white in a 15-minute game with a 10 second increment. Now, both my brothers are deep thinkers. Only one of them got me to play a game with increment with them lol.
I played the queen's gambit as white, which is basically all I play as white lol. After my brothers check on move nine (9. Qa5+), I hold a steady advantage. I have already said my brothers are deep thinkers, but I am a quick thinker lol. I play 10-minute games, which means I move relatively quickly.
I played quickly because I was WAY ahead. My brother's well-thought-out moves were a way better match than my quick and confidently played moves. My over-confidence caused me to miscalculate along the way, and it became my downfall. My brother promotes and checkmates me several moves after move 33 (a1=Q+). Terrible accuracy from me, at 64.3, while my brothers accuracy from the game was 71.2. Game review correctly analyzed the game as a giveaway from me. 
Welp, you can't have a debate without second or third opinions. So, I asked some other chess players what they thought about incremental time controls.
@chessknight222 said, “It depends on the situation. If it is OTB, increment is basically needed. Online I like 3+0 but in rapid, I think 2-5 second increment is ideal. Blitz with 1 second increment is also fun in events such as UTT and SCC.”
@iwillbeatyou2day said, “I think it’s nice when you are trying not to flag, but bad when you are trying to flag opponent.”
@Chesspawn921 said, “I prefer games without increment. When there is an increment, you can’t flag and there isn’t really any time pressure and time pressure is what makes the game more fun. If I played 1|0 and then 1|1, the 1|0 game would be more intense because there is no increment. If there is an increment, you don’t really have to worry about time management, and that makes the game less fun to watch and play.”
Outro
I can agree that incremental time controls have their uses, but I still think that adding more time to clock could be solved easily if people could just pick a higher time control lol.
Hoped you liked this, would definitely appreciate if you followed me and/or gave me some feedback!
If you are going to debate increment in the comments, please be respectful of others! ☺️
Thanks again,
- @FA-18_SuperHornet2007
