Worth Adding a Classic Time Control?

Thoughts:
1. If Statistics could be filtered by time control(s) one could then see their rating(s) for the various time controls. Plots for each on the same chart would be very interesting, assuming the sample sizes are adequate.

2. It would be interesting the see the game time control frequencies for all of Chess.com. Then one might appreciate Chess.com's logic in the decision to not offer Classic Time control. Ages ago I recall Danny Rensch's expressed amazement that the 10 minute time control was far and away the most popular.

3. I'd love to see the bar chart for all time control frequencies, (no counts needed just the relative sizes, if the counts are proprietary.) 

Well put.  And that is, indeed, my personal strategy.  Now that OTB tourneys are starting up, my main focus is on 30- and 45-minute games.  I've found three clubs thus fat that host 2-round Swiss tourneys with those time controls:

1. G30 -- has 30/10 tourneys on weekends

2. Slow Chess League -- has 45/45 tourneys on weekends

3. Dan Heisman Learning Center -- has multiple 30/30 tourneys every day

(Disclaimer: I'm an admin for the DHLC)

Slow Chess League rejected my application, because I don't have enough slow games.

Martin Stahl, in defending chess.com's policy, posted some data on this, and it showed something like (I'm vaguely remembering) that something like 2-3% of games were 30- and 45-minute games.

Folks protested along two lines:

1.  Those games take so much longer to play, of *course* there will be many fewer of them; and

2.  This ignores the "if you build it they will come" argument -- that if a separate rating were set up for it (and it was one of the standard "play" options), more folks would play it.

I agree with this, games above 30|0 should be a separate category from 10|0 and 15|10

I really want to have a separate rating for classical and rapid. There is no reason a 10 minute and 45 minute game should be placed in the same category. Considering the number of recent posts about creating a classical time control, I'm hoping Chess.com will consider creating it. 

Agree. Strongly.

Statistics can obviously be misleading when taken out of context or when what they're representing is a bit unclear.

I am not familiar with the specific thread you are referring to, but to say only 2-3% of games is 30 minutes or longer may be a bit misleading. Because, as you point out, by definition there must be fewer long games as they take longer to play.

What I'd like to add to the discussion is this: there have got to be more meaningful statistics than comparing total number of bullet vs blitz vs rapid games on the site. Like, if we took the total # of minutes of chess played on chess.com, what is the percentage played under long (ie >=30 minute) time controls?

Looked at in such a way, a single 45 45 game could be "worth" literally many dozens of bullet games.

I hope I am making sense, sorry I've had a long day so hopefully my comments aren't indecipherable.

My 2 cents worth, anyway.

Definitely there are lots of good statistics, and if the kind of statistic that best makes or breaks the case, isn't already established and reviewed, the developers would know how and be able to establish it. Every click is a piece of data.

Perhaps a good framework for analysis of the potential users for long time controls would be the same analysis that was used in the recent past to rearrange the shorter time control labels. Changes that we members experience as enhanced user friendliness have alot to do with managing, balancing and optimizing member usage-demand on the website. It is a more subtle implementation of the "Build it and they will come" strategy discussed in prior posts. Changing labels of time controls steers us toward a time control that was relatively underdemanded and away from a time control that was relatively overdemanded. There is nothing nefarious in doing so. For example, if members experience shorter wait times to be matched with a random opponent then the steered demand benefits the member.

How many members who play OTB could and would be steered to a longer time control without unbalancing demand on the website is analysis methodology already in the developers' playbook. Maybe the optimally attractive long-time control is not 30/0. Sholom90 has access to people at DHLC who have very good ideas about the slow-chess player market.

I agree  Unfortunately not so simple to do. It’s not like adding a new column in a spreadsheet. But I agree. Bubbling up to the Play team. 

First round won! This might actually happen sooner than I was expecting, given that the founder of the site agrees.

Thanks for letting us know Erik🙂 

Thanks Erik!

thats rapid

Agreed, these statistics can be very misleading. Let's say we have two players: one playing a 45 minute classical game, and another playing 1 minute bullet games until the first person's game stops. The first person will have only played one game, whereas the other could have easily played 20 bullet games. For easy math, let's just say that 19 bullet games were played in the 45 minutes. That means that of the 20 games (19 bullet and 1 classical), 5% were classical. The small percentage of classical games isn't due to low demand; this statistic is simply a result of the high number of bullet/blitz games that can be played within the span of one classical game.  

To be honest, I think the lack of a classical rating is my biggest gripe with Chess.com. From what I've read, I get the impression that the Chess.com team just doesn't want to put in the effort to create a classical rating and stands behind flimsy statistics like the one previously mentioned. I don't think there are significantly more classical games played on Lichess as opposed to Chess.com, yet Lichess has a classical rating and Chess.com doesn't. And Lichess is fully funded by donations! Chess.com probably has several times more revenue than Lichess, yet they do not put in the effort to add this feature. I love a lot of the things Chess.com has done, whether it be adding the library feature to save games, or the drills/endgames feature, but the lack of a classical rating is quite disappointing. 

Regarding:
3. I'd love to see the bar chart for all time control frequencies, (no counts needed just the relative sizes, if the counts are proprietary.) 

The bar chart comparing time control game frequency can/should be normalized to take into account  the time control.  For example six 5 minutes games an hour vs. three 10 minutes games an hour assuming all time used. So  game count/(games per hour)  would crudely scale things

Message #31 is from Erik who is the chess.com CEO. The fact that he agrees and is bubbling up to the play team means there is a chance that this could finally happen.

I would like to see this happen. The world championships are decided by classical time controls, because it is considered by many to be the pinnacle of chess. I would be nice to see chess.com adding support for it and think that a lot more people would at least try it out if it were a category in its own right.

We are probably starting work on adding classical time control soon. 

great news!!

thanks everyone!!

I think the most popular rapid time control in professional chess is 25 10, and 15 10.  I really wish chess.com had more auto-pairing options. If I post an ad for 45 10, or 35 10, no one joins it. Perhaps there could be a 30 30 or 30 15 button?

That's exactly what I am hoping for in the (soon to be) classic time control.  For me, '30 | Anything' would be fantastic.