- it’s hard to ration your time for each move. I know this is pretty much your point, but I don’t know if my opponent was hoping to play a quick game to pass the time before a train comes or if he wants to play until 4am the next morning, Y’know? Without this, it’s hard to know how much time you should be allocating to moves. When there’s a clock, you can divide your time fairly and without annoying the opponent
- toxic people can just not make a move for hours if you’re playing without a clock, claim they’re “thinking” and just avoid resigning
Playing chess online is fine and all (after all, you can easily get to play games any time you want, with people from all around the world), but I am one of those few people who really prefers to play in real life, using a real board, against people face-to-face. It's nice to be able to have some smalltalk, socialize with people, casually play at your own pace without any time pressure, comment on the game, analyze it, talk about stuff, tell anecdotes...
Wait... Did I say "without time pressure"?
Well, scratch that, because that concept seems to have disappeared from the face of Earth. (Well, at least where I live, and anywhere else that I have seen.)
Seriously, it seems to me that people have completely forgotten that, as incredible and preposterous as it might sound, chess can indeed be played without clocks! Imagine that! Chess without clocks? You crazy or something? And what's more mind-boggling is that chess was played for literally centuries without any clocks!
Here where I live you literally cannot find people who would play chess casually, without clocks. No chess club, no group, nothing. Go anywhere, to any chess club, any bar, any place where people might play chess, and they will always, always, always play with clocks. In fact, if you suggest playing without clocks most people look at you like you were some kind of lunatic. I wish I was kidding.
Try finding a YouTube video of people playing chess in real life without clocks. I dare you. You won't find one. (Well, at least I haven't found one. There might be, but even after a somewhat extensive search I haven't found a single example.)
What happened to casual chess? How did it disappear so completely?
I absolutely hate playing chess with clocks. They just suck all the fun out of the game. No playing leisurely at your own pace, no casual conversation, no socializing, no telling jokes and anecdotes, no commenting on the game, nothing.
Here where I live there are two chess clubs (well, three if you count one exclusive to grade schoolers). Believe it or not, not only in neither one can you just go and play casual chess against random people, just for the fun of it and the socialization aspect, but in fact the only activity that either club offers is a weekly mini-tournament. That's it. Neither organizes any other activity. No casual play, no teaching, no game commentary, nothing. The only thing you can do is to go once a week at an exact time, and play your five tournament games in complete silence and under tremendous time pressure. No conversation, no commenting, no game analysis, no socializing. It's the most boring and unfun activity I can imagine. And, as mentioned, if you were to suggest just playing casually, without clocks, they just look at you like you are crazy.
As you might guess, I don't go to either club, because it literally makes no sense. The clocks and the tournament format just suck every single piece of fun from the game.
I honestly have to wonder if there exist younger people who actually think that the clock is a mandatory part of the game. After all, there must exist tons and tons of people who have never played without clocks (except perhaps a few tutorial games at the very beginning).