Time Controls Formula

(Updated 29/07/22)

Hello,

This may be useless information for the majority of players, but I thought it was interesting, and I've been in the position in the past where I wanted to improve my rating in one particular category, but wanted to find a certain type of time control (no increment, shortest initial time, longest delay, etc.) which fit into that rating category. To solve this dilemma, I did some extensive backward-engineering, analysing the full range of available time controls, and found the formulae used to determine Hyperbullet, Bullet, Blitz, or Rapid.

x: Initial Clock Time [sec.] - 60 for 1 min., 120 for 2 min., etc.

y: Added Time [sec.] - Increment or Delay, 0 for none.

Increment Games:
x÷60+y>7.5 : Rapid

x÷60+y≤7.5 : Blitz

x÷60+y≤3 : Bullet

x÷60+y<0.5 : Hyperbullet

Delay Games:

x÷40+y>11.5 : Rapid

x÷40+y≤11.5 : Blitz

x÷40+y≤4.5 : Bullet

x÷40+y≤1.375 : Hyperbullet

Example: 1|3

Initial Clock: 1 minute ( x=60 ). Added Time: 3 seconds ( y=3 ). x÷60+y=4, which is less than 7.5 (but not less than 3) , so 1|3 is a Blitz control.

Example: ½|4D

Initial Clock: 30 seconds ( x=30 ). Added Time: 4 seconds ( y=4 ). x÷40+y=4.75, which is less than 11.5 (but not less than 4.5), so ½|4D is a Blitz control.

whoa ur smart

all u can say is good math, and i am too lazy to read that during summer break rn

If we move 1|3 to bullet (or Blitz it doesn't matter) the games would last too long which probably doesn't make sense for Blitz, let alone bullet. I personally think admins were smart on this one to put 1|3 in Rapid. It's also a tool for those Rapid haters who are mostly nonsense bullet and blitz players who don't know that Rapid and slower chess games are superior. The only thing I would change is set 4|1 to be the fastest time control for Blitz together with 3|2 5|1 and 5|0 and remove 4|0 and 3|1 because all you get from these 2 is flagging and impossible to play if you play on trackpad.

The other solution would be to remove 1|3 completely. This time control is useless, even more useless in Rapid, as well as 1|4. Just delete them.

1|5 and above 2|4 and above 3|2 and above (although 3|2 is blitz in regular chess) 4|1 and above should be Rapid or to be exact the lowest time controls for Rapid. You can possibly remove all blitz time controls for Solo and leave only Rapid time controls. I can only see 4|0 ruining Solo completely, players are flagging, playing terrible moves, everyone is fighting each other in chat and still they're forced to play 4|0 everyday because there's no other queue.

It's actually really sad to see players throwing, giving away the win. Solo used to be a game mode where you're supposed to use your brain and learn how to play it.

nooooooooooooooooooo means 1/10|1D is not hyperbullet according to this

exactly, its not supposed to be

1/2|0 is very close to hyperbullet move 2 and the game is in hyperbullet mode

Wish it were initially hyper

Is it ok to spam this? 1/10|1D should be hyperbullet 

is not

agreed with this though

Are these formulas also used to determine the estimated duration of a game? If not, what is the formula used for that?

well now it is after the merge also 1/2|0 is also hyperbullet. 

also this thread needs updating as it is so out of date (the formulas have changed)

Thanks for the bump. I've updated the formulae. Much nicer now, and a lot fewer exceptions to work around. I get the feeling that they actually used equations this time, instead of just hardcoding which TCs were in which categories.