Does chaturaji as we play it actually make sense? Time control discussion.

These days I've been writing a super-deep endgame article as you maybe know, but because the concepts are so many and the calculations we perform during the entire game are often necessary, I very often think about the chaturaji time control. Firstly, I don't think 1+7 can even be considered rapid. In rapid games you should have time to think thoroughly and sometimes spend more than a couple minutes in a single move. Compare chaturaji to chess. In chess there are even 2 hour+ games, I wouldn't necessarily say we need classical chaturaji because no one wants that online, but some games with more time in both blitz and rapid are something I would like to see. Another thing I would like is having rapid as the main time control for chaturaji instead of blitz. Blitz is nice too, but we don't really think of the idea of 10 min Chaturaji because we are used to just playing moves without analyzing them too deeply. It's very common to see players with less than 10 seconds maybe even in the middlegame and then they just have to play on the 5 second increment.

I like blitz, but rapid raji is an important thing. Here are some time controls that I think should get more popularity:

• 3|2 Blitz
• 10|5D Rapid
• 2|30 Rapid

Let me know if you agree with this

By @spacebar (the head variants developer)’s word, 1|7’s purpose is for you to gain extra time for you to think by moving in a time faster than 7 seconds. 

The problem with Chaturaji is that no matter how much time you shove into someone, they’ll still play extremely quickly without trying to think first and make terrible moves (although this is more of a psychological problem rather than a problem with the game, to be honest). 
I suppose a fairer point for me to make is that Chaturaji was originally called “Chaturaji Hyper Fiesta” in 2019-2021 on 4 Player Chess; it was quite literally made for Hyperbullet and not for any other time control (the slowest game of rated Chaturaji I ever saw was 4 min, with the exception of Chaturaji Alt Teams).

I would like the idea of slow Chaturaji, but I don’t like the idea of the players being the everyday 2300s who get there from playing for 2nd. With such a long control, (in my opinion) we’re going to need Solo as the rating system from 1700+ onward and extremely high rated players with knowledge of both 2PC and 4PC balance theory. 

On this occasion I agree with what GS indicates, I can also add that there is a gigantic conformity for the second place in Chaturaji, if we want to have greater Time Control it must be with a Rating system SOLO ( 1 win, 3 lose ).

I don't like our pure solo, 2nd should be a 0 in my opinion, and 3rd loses less than 4th. Or another solution will be making playing for 2nd illegal

I don't really have a problem with second getting points. No one starts their game with their ultimate goal being to get second, but also if solo were to be a thing in chaturaji going forward I don't think it should start at 1700+. No offense to the 1700s out there but they have a ton of opening disasters and I've seen them lose very quickly. Anyways, I like the strategy with securing second, and I don't see a problem with it, but I don't have a 4pc history so Idk.

I don't think you understand, lol, as long as 2nd is better than 3rd and 4th, people will play for 2nd

Hell, even in solo you will see some idiots play for 2nd

As for time control, I agree with 3|2, but I don't have time for rapid chaturaji, and most people probably don't lol

If people have time for rapid 4pc and rapid 2pc then why not rapid raji? People are just not used to it, but I think chaturaji deserves it, you dont play 1|5 chess, you play 3 min+ non-bullet chess and 10 min+ rapid chess

interesting assumptions lmao

I made a post recently about the best rating system, and ultimately the best system is pure Solo to prevent people from playing for 2nd as best as possible

ok I agree, definitely anyone can get used to playing in rapid, regarding "Second Place", it is also a good idea that it be "Zero Points", I even have it proposed in 4PC standard and it is still a topic of discussion in the administration, everything about the Rating system, at present.

If people play for 2nd from the beginning with no reward then its pointless, we should not prevent playing for second so much to the extent that it has less saving resources and nuances that ultimately lead to the game being less fun for the fair players. 0 points for 2nd looks fine, and anyone plying for 2nd from the start will be doing nonsense. It should be bannable if there is no incentive to play for 2nd. I don't understand what's wrong with making that a rule. Instead of changing rating systems in order to prevent players from going for 2nd place, we can just explpoit it directly - "IMPORTANT: Players must play to win. If you play for 2nd or 3rd place instead of 1st, you might be play-banned"

I like longer time control -- I would like -- but 99% of people like to play fast. They play fast even if they have 2 hours on the clock, or 3 days.

This is a good idea, but the issue is that it's very difficult to enforce. There were numerous FFA standard discussions pre-merge, the consensus being that it's pretty difficult to determine the difference between playing for 2nd (i.e. actively helping another player get 1st) and someone having a skill issue (making mistakes that give the win to another player).

The issue isn't that people will play for 2nd from the 1st move; only targetters in hyper will do that. After one player is removed from the game, most of the time, there is one player who is clearly ahead, but the game is still balanced since the other two will theoretically work against the leading player to balance the game, increasing their own winning chances while not making themselves a target. The issue is that some people will just attack the weaker player instead of balancing just to secure 2nd place, since 2nd is better than 3rd or 4th. This is why solo is necessary to actually prevent playing for 2nd.

That being said, is it really a bad thing for people to minimize rating loss by playing for 2nd? Most of Sauce's chaturaji puzzles involve it...

I think second>third is a key component of chaturaji and it should be kept, I like the 0 in my opinion. Also, I wonder, what's wrong with 2300 playing for 2nd, if we can have 2900s playing for 1st? This would be pretty nice to exist.

If a key component of Chaturaji in a 2500’s mind is to have the option to play immorally and not have to win to gain, then idk what I’m supposed to say lol

I think the change in rating should be like this: the first wins, the second 'draws' *, 3rd and 4th lose equally.

* Zero points to the second, I'm okay, when s/he plays same level players; if a 2500 places 2nd when three lows are in the game s/he loses some rating; if a beginner places 2nd when three masters are in the game s/he gains some rating. Like in draw games.

(This seems the main topic here, but the thread title is about the time control.)

Exactly

I think that 2nd place should not gain any rating, it should be either 0 or a small loss less than 3rd. The thing is that while it should be equal to play strong vs 2 weak its not guaranteed that the other guy won't backstab you bc most people are trash at the game. I'm chess there are stalemates to save loses into draws. Chaturaji has 2nd place autoclaim and similar tricks to "draw" worse positions.

Basically this.

This is an interesting topic. I myself have recently been thinking about "optimal rapid" - rapid in which there will be enough time to think in critical positions, while not being too long.
What we have on the menu is either insufficient at critical positions (1|7 and 1|15D) or obviously too long (10|15). Which means that the "optimal rapids" are somewhere in the middle.
I like @TheUltraTrap suggestions.

My last rapid games with strong players lasted 15-25 minutes and up to 30-60 moves (1|7 control), but even there were mistakes (probably not enough time to think).
Let's say for a "perfect game" 30 minutes is enough and everyone makes 45 moves (180 total). That is an average of 6 moves per minute or 10 seconds per move. Obviously, there will be long and quick moves.
Another problem of 1|7 control - in the endgame can accumulate a lot of time, which is already useless. So it would be quite natural to swap the numbers. It is probably better to make a delay of "quick move" length than a small increment.

After all this reasoning, a time control like 7|3D seems optimal to me. Since we can't put in 7 minutes, I would suggest a 5|5D or 5|7D control.