Increments Suck

No real tournaments have increments.  Scrap increments & add time-delay to Live Chess.

Cheers, Narz

With a time delay it's still extremely important to monitor your time, with increments not so much.

That sounds like a pretty good idea. It'd be nice if time-delay was at least an option here.

Glad to know others agree.

 This isnt true, I have played in many tournies in Portugal and Spain that had increments . In fact one of the most popular fide time controls is G/90 but with a 30 sec increment from move 1.......

hmm, I guess it's just a USCF thing.  Either way, I don't like them.  Time delay is great, that way if you're in a totally winning endgame you won't lose on time.  But increments suck because you can just play waiting moves fast in order to gain more time to think & that's BS, in my opinion.

Playing with increment reduces luck. Some of us prefer that a winning position is winning eventhough the clocks might show 1 sec vs 0.1 sec. I loove increments.

That is true assuming you don't throw the game away with your waiting moves. The quicker you make your move, the greatest is your profit in seconds, which can lead to some hastily made mistakes. From the blitz videos I've seen on youtube, masters don't seem too worried about earning time in endgames, they are ok if they can make the move within the increment so they don't lose on time.

 heal time-delay, hurt +increment

I've seen a Master lose after severe time trouble to an expert (OTB).  It's true that it's a fine art finding waiting moves that don't throw the game away.  However, doing such to gain time is bad practice & has no place in OTB chess (besides to make a 40-move time control, which is why I'm not a huge fan of split time controls either).

Thanks.  It's not a democracy here but perhaps the staff is reading.

perhaps i'm missing the subtleties in the distinction, but the point is to have some extra time per move. increment or delay... doesn't seem like it would matter that much, but again, maybe i'm missing something.

I havent played with the time delay yet ( must be an American thing ! ) so I wont pass judgement on it until I do. I have played a lot with increments and I like them because with them the more logical ( correct ) outcome of a game is reached more often without the undue influence of the clock. I wonder how many here are condemning increments that have never played with them ? 

 I am referring to only otb chess , sorry if thats not what this discussion is about. Are you talking about chess.com live tourneys ?

Chess.com uses the Fischer clock where you get to keep the time given to you on each move.  Bronstein recommended that you get an extra chunk of time for each move, but only if you had used up all the extra time in making the move.  With a Bronstein clock, you can hold steady or fall behind, but you can never gain time on the clock as you can with a Fischer clock.  What is "time delay?"  Is that like Bronstein clock?

There are several time control options that have a name including the word "delay".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_clock#Time_controls

What exactly are you talking about when you say "time delay", Narz?

* Bronstein delay (as explained in the Wikipedia link)

Bronstein delay—with the Bronstein timing method, the increment is always added after the move. But unlike Fischer, not always the maximum increment is added. If a player expends more than the specified increment, then the entire increment is added to the player's clock. But if a player has moved faster than the time increment, only the exact amount of time expended by the player is added. For example, if the delay is five seconds, the player has ten seconds left in his clock before his turn and during his turn he spends three seconds, after he presses the clock button to indicate the end of his turn, his clock will increase by only three seconds (not five).

* Simple delay (as explained in the Wikipedia link)

Simple delay—when it becomes a player's turn to move, the clock waits for the delay period before starting to subtract from the player's remaining time. For example, if the delay is five seconds, the clock waits for five seconds before counting down. The time is not accumulated. If the player moves within the delay period, no time is subtracted from his remaining time. This time control is similar to a Bronstein with time added before the move.

* or something still different?

Here is an FIDE Arbiter explaining the difference between Fischer, Bronstein and Simple delay.  He says that Bronstein and Simple are basically the same with the only difference being whether the time is added before or after each turn.  He also says that Fischer clock controls are becoming very popular in FIDE events.  I don't think Bronstein clocks have ever been used in FIDE events.

A few years back, then staff member piotr suggested that Bronstein clocks be used in Live Chess, but Patzer24 said that he preferred Fischer clocks.

I know that in OTB events here, which I have played with Narz, that it is a simple delay. Most often a 5sec. An event would be listed as say Game/60 (so SD, no delay) however those with electrionic clocks would be able, per TD, to set the clock to G/55 with a 5 second delay.

With that information, I assume that Narz is intending to make a comparison between "simple delay" and "Fischer increment" as defined in the above sources.

With what I know now I clearly prefer Fischer increment over Bronstein delay, and I clearly prefer Bronstein delay over "simple delay":

Fischer increment > Bronstein delay > simple delay

My reasons are the following:

* Fischer increment is used widely in FIDE events all over the world. For example, you will remember that the recently played world championship match was played with a Fischer time increment of 30 seconds per move during the later time control stages. (So I am not the only one clearly preferring Fischer increment over Bronstein delay and simple delay :-) )

* The Bronstein delay has the disadvantage that it penalises players who take less time for their move than the time given by the time delay. If the delay is 30 seconds, and the player makes a move in 5 seconds, he has waisted 25 seconds of his time that he could have used for thinking ahead about his following moves. So the Bronstein delay encourages a strange way of using one's time, namely to always take about 25 (out of 30) seconds for each move, even if the move itself is obvious.

In addition, the Bronstein delay imposes a very strict time rhythm on the players, which is even harder on the players than playing a Fischer increment game. My impression is that the Bronstein delay was only an attractive option as long as it had not yet been possibile to program the Fischer increment mode into digital chess clocks.

* The simple delay has a further disadvantage: If I understand it correctly, there are times during which the clock simply does not show me how much time I have left. Let us say my clock shows 1 second left while the simple delay is 5 seconds. Then I will see my clock showing 1 second left all the time, until I happen to use not 4 , but 6 seconds for a move and the time on my clock counts down from 1 to 0 seconds and I will lose on time.

During the 5 seconds of time delay on each move, I will have to hope and pray that I have been thinking only 4 seconds and not 6 seconds before I make my move in all cases in which I do not make my move instantaneously.

For me, the purpose of a chess clock is to show me how much time I have left to make my move. "Simple delay" seems to not fulfil this purpose during the first X seconds for each move. "Hoping and praying" might have been necessary during times of mechanical clocks, where it simply was very hard to see how many seconds you have left on your clock. With modern digital clocks, there should no longer be any need for any such "hoping and praying".

I personally have a Kronos which counts down the 5 seconds of delay, and once that five seconds has passed only then does it start to count your regular time, however it is showing me both times at the same time. So I always know how much time I do have left.

I have to say that I do prefer the Fisher to the Bronstein. Atleast in theory, almost everything that I have played, (here in the US) is simple delay, maybe I will have to look into playing the others in some Club games.

I do agree with Narz, in prefereing simple delay (maybe only because that is what I have always played) because the time delay ensures the you dont lose in a clearly one position because of time, however it does nothing more. IF you have large advantage, and it is simply a matter of moving the peices to complete the mate, then the delay will be enough. However if you have a complex position the delay will probably not be enough to give you time to consider all the variable and there for probably make a mistake and lose. I can see how this may be seen as a negative, but the way I am looking at it is, there is a time control for a reason, if you wanted to play a longer game use a long time control, and by adding time to the clock moving quickly and gaining time because of it, seems to be "cheating". Think of it this way, the fairest way to do a time control would be Sd no delays, however once you get into the endgame, say a won king pawn ( or even a KQK) the game is over, but someone may not resign trying to draw on time. With the delay that takes away that problem.

@ilmago...

The "hoping and praying" part at the end of your post regarding not seeing the time isn't an issue IMO, delay clocks (well, mine at least) show the delay ticking away 3-2-1... then the amount of time left.

I think I understand your other points -- here's my contra fischer-increment pro time-delay case:

First, I'm principally talking about blitz here, not slower time controls, *(at slower time -- I'm not sure what I prefer)...

In blitz, time delay prevents a player from adding time to the clock with quick hands (or quick-mouse) and it also makes pre-move guessing games completely irrelevant. A three second delay means that if you get into time bad time trouble in blitz (and we've all been there) there's nothing to be gained by the ugly, unchess, clock butchering piece spraying "tornado hands" we've all witnessed at the end of normal blitz time and which adding time increments basically encourages -- the faster you move, the more time you get added to the clock so go crazy man... Increments also encourage fast hands in the opening: if you can smack out ten moves of your canned opening in the blink of an eye, you can add nearly 30 seconds to your time at +3 fischer. The opening gets played like Bruce Lee practicing with his nunchuks. 

Chess should never be a sport where the guy with the faster hands gains a significant advantage. Time delay means... hey, go ahead and move the pieces like a grown-up in the opening. That Bruce Lee clock-slap style won't buy you an extra second. As for pre-move: chess shouldn't be a guessing game where if you guess right you win 3 seconds.

Time delay, basically means 5 minute chess is still 5 minute chess (Put 3 or 4 mins on the clock to compensate for the delay)... but if you get to a won ending that doesn't require much thought or accuracy you can make moves at a quick but reasonable human pace and still win. That's all i want from a blitz time control. I hate having to physically race against the clock while my opponent challenges not my mind, but my dexterity.