IM Greg Shahade: "Slow Chess should die a fast death"!

This should have been the end of discussion. What argument can there be with this?

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Well, if you want to get a USCF or FIDE rating, you've got to be willing to suffer through 4+ hour games which try the soul of modern man.

Plenty of USCF tournaments at 30 0 rated as standard.

So the idea, then, is that we have three time controls for chess tournaments: slow, rapid and blitz?

There already are. As for slow dominating, anyone knows that's the best time control for improvement. Most serious players I know would say it's the most satisfying also.

Well said. There really isn't any problem with the status quo and this is how I responded to the blog, as well. We have multiple ratings for different time controls and plenty of events for every speed of chess. There's absolutely nothing wrong with the way it is now and I argue that we have it better than ever. Mr. Shahade's notion of REMOVING classical chess entirely is just insane. The guy obviously was on an emotional rollercoaster for some reason when he wrote the blog. Unfortunately for him, he's permanently damaged his credibility in the world of chess.

There is a FIDE official rapid rating, I believe there's a USCF rapid rating too, but I don't live/play in the USA so maybe I'm wrong here

The way the USCF does it now is ...mindless. They have blitz, quick, and regular ratings. The retardation comes into play when they say that any game which is between 30 and 60 minutes of a primary control counts for BOTH your quick and regular rating. So, as a result, we now have NM's running around who went from 1200 to 2200 playing nothing but G35/5d swiss's and the like. It's an embarrassment to chess in the states. We literally have NM's who have hardly played an endgame.

I didn't realize there was rapid at the top levels. For FIDE Rapidplay:

The Laws to be followed will be as set out in the Laws of Chess, Appendices A and B. All "Rapidplay" games will be eligible for rating. That is, each player must have at least 15 minutes, but less than 60 minutes thinking time; or the time allotted + 60 times any increment or delay is at least 15 minutes, but less than 60 minutes for each player. Only those "blitz" games where each player has at least five minutes, but less than 15 minutes, after adjustment for any increment or delay mode, will be rated. Thus, the time control of 3 minutes plus 2 second increment or all the moves in 5 minutes is acceptable. Both players must have the same allotted time.

I see that FIDE also gives three ratings according to time control. That sounds right. I don't like that the USCF folds rapid along with slow games into its ratings.

And your post, as well as mine and the last couple above it, highlight exactly why my goals in chess center around FIDE and not the USCF even though I live in the States. As a result, I'm left trying to financially figure out how I'm going to get into and out of Manhattan and the Marshall Club often enough to play in tournaments but ...I know that FIDE is what matters and I like the rules, time controls, and attitude there better.

In the meantime, I can play 45+10 rated rapid FIDE games online with FIDE Online Arena and at least get SOME FIDE action under my belt. I was going to go to the chess club tonight and play a couple of G35/5d's but I don't know if I'm going to find my way there in the end. There's always next week. I just would rather play 2-3 hour games tonight and improve exponentially.

It is nice that we have so many choices. 

Because you cant sit still, doesnt mean long time controls need to go away.

I'll give you two....the north pole or the south pole.

And pleez stop it w/ that "This should have been the end of discussion."

That's such a worn out old power trip saying of yours. Grow a creative gene or at least inquire where you can get one. 

Dr Z: Interesting. I hadn't heard of Chessmetrics before.

Reading up on it, I see a Chessmetric rating is based on a player's results compared with his contemporaries. Which is valid of course.

However it doesn't claim to provide answers as to how well, say, the moves Capablanca played in 1927 compare to Carlsen's moves today.

What's astonishing about Dr. Regan's method is that it purports to calculate a standard rating for any player's collection of games based on the player's game listings, so we can compare Capablanca and Carlsen directly.

At least that's the theory. I'm sure Dr. Regan and others need to bang away at this a while longer and see if it holds up.

Not sure why some are seeing the need to label this an attempt by America to ruin chess. It wasn't America that started this, look to Kirsan and FIDE for the continuing degration of slow time controls over the past 20 years. Look at the Zurich chess challenge, and it's organizer who wants classical chess to be G/40.

Oh, grow up!

Sure they can all play very strong chess at faster time controls. My question is can they reach that level of ability that they have without the classical chess foundation? If all they did was played 30'+5 and quicker would they have built up the same skill set? They could train the as has been done in the past, but they would be losing out on a lot of calculation/visualization practice from slow otb games.

Has there been any attempt to find an optimum time control between blitz and slow chess where a "rapid" game is substantially shorter but doesn't compromise quality of play much?

I certainly wish they would speed up the game of baseball like they have done to chess !  

Anyone have an opinion about Fide Online Arena? I'm considering signing it up for their rapid chess.