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

Indeed. It should be known by everyone, a fan of RJF or not, watched or read his biographical mediums he often excelled or surpassed his contemporaries in blitz. It was Botvinnik, who denounced playing Blitz as serious training regimen.

But as said, it is redundant to mention that.

Eh, I was wrong. I agree it was kind of startling to read that because I accidentally made a false statement, but whatever. Let's move on.

The point I was trying to make with posting that was that there are great historical players who fundamentally disagreed with the very concept of making chess as fast as possible, as chess is far too complex to appreciate in less than three minutes.

I really don't understand why Ashavpathi percieves chess as something that is not popular, or needs revival.  The advent of the internet, if anything, has saved chess and made it as popular and as studied as it is today.  The time control had nothing to do with this.  People will play whichever format they like.

To be fair, playing blitz doesn't automatically mean you especially like it. Especially if Fischer did it more so when he was young. A quote about blitz would certainly add something to just the fact that he played blitz. I play blitz myself but I don't like it much compared to long chess. It's just that sometimes I don't have time for a longer game and it's more practical to play a short time control as otherwise I would play no game at all.

But yes, certainly he wouldn't have disliked blitz on the level of Botvinnik. That guy truly did not like blitz.

"I really don't understand why Ashavpathi percieves chess as something that is not popular, or needs revival.  The advent of the internet, if anything, has saved chess and made it as popular and as studied as it is today.  The time control had nothing to do with this.  People will play whichever format they like."

Right, but it's like saying bughouse should be the main official format of chess (e.g., the format of WCC, top class tournaments, etc). It's a little insulting when a form of chess that is so much less serious represents the game.

Bughouse is where four players play for the first mate and captured pieces are exchanged between the teammates, right? In Russia they call it Shvedka (Swedish Chess)

But if we dumb it down to appeal more widely then it won't be chess any longer.

Besides, we already have plenty of pastimes to keep the masses amused that require zero mental effort to watch.

I personally prefer long time controls (>= G45) since I don't feel quite so pressured by time and can actually focus on playing good moves and develop a plan.

That has been my point. Indeed, if you make chess not abstract, and not complex, then it's not chess.

I agree with the statments made by Elubas and gchess33

I believe, that, the 'faster-time-control'/'Intuitive' form of thinking.. {ie. that which is acquired, through many-many hours, & even years of experience}.. should have a More prominent 'platform' {read 'prize money}... Than, the S-l-o-w-e-r, 't-cees'..{if you will} - Including, on the 'In person' played, 'World {chess} Championship'!

It's already been established, that, the 'average' chess spectator.. Aint, gonna 'hang around' as much.. to watch 2 players, 'shift' in their chairs.. {or  repeatedly stand up, and temporarily 'walk away'}.. In a 'live' game, viewed sense - While one of the players - S-L-O-W-L-Y, and thoughtfully, decides, on their Next move!

Ergo - More 'eyeballs' watching a 'World' chess Championship'..{played, at the 'faster' time controls} - Should logically exceed, that which is 'paid out'.. at the {slower}, if 'tradition-bound'.. 'classical' played, time- control ! ..Not, 'rocket science' here!  [ :

Yet in tourneys there are multiple games going on at the same time. With decent commentary there will almost always be action going on. In fact, blitz and rapid leave less time for any type of commentary and cut-aways for things like player biographies, etc. 

The simple matter is that there is a limited audience for watching chess and speeding it up isn't going to improve things.

Very good point, Martin_Stahl. How many people here have actually watched live broadcasts? The commentators always have something to talk about, always. They can choose a game to talk about and in a few minutes, progress will have been made in at least one other game.

I think a time scramble in OTB is way more intense (and thus better) than an online time scramble. That's certainly what I experienced when playing OTB and watching tournament games in person.

I was used often to think all my time in OTB games. Specialy in difficult and complex positions you need much time. Much time is better for serious OTB games, while less time is for fun and on line games mainly.

Played in a 60+10 tournament this weekend. Several of us agreed during one analysis session that the time control was much faster than what we preferred, and the last half of the games were rushed.

For myself, I had two promising positions (one endgame one middlegame) where I was the only one with winning chances... but with 10 minutes on my clock (and I was never far behind my opponent on time) I had to settle for draws without being able to really press my opponent.

Made me think of this topic and all the stuff ashvapathi had been saying about players prefer faster times. In this case it's the organizers who prefer faster time controls (I don't blame them, easier to direct and less time out of your day).

I'd much rather play 90+30 and even better if it had multiple time controls.

I agree with ch. I have felt pushed for time in much better positions and lost too many times before. Begginers prefer fast time controls because they don't know how to use the extra time.

Oh yeah, for sure. A lot of times I can only find events that are 50 or 60 minutes for each player. I would much rather play longer time controls. I just appreciate, though, that at least what I'm playing is very far from blitz. It's no blitz game, and you can think. So it's still very refreshing compared to online chess.

And yeah, it seems to me too that either I or my opponent would have been happy to have extra time in the critical moments. To me it looks like we care about the game and want to play the right moves. And we're willing to spend hours at the board to do so! And we enjoy every minute of it!

The only time I possibly didn't feel this way was maybe when I was rated 1200 or less, something like that. Sometimes I would run out of things to think about. But even then, not that often.

Yes, much better than blitz, and still fun. It's not like I'll never play another tourney at that time control

If I always got to choose as a player, no matter the time control, you'd get 30 second increment. That way the game never turns into nonsense if both players are very low.

But I understand for TD/organizers this is troublesome when someone gets e.g. R+B vs R and the game lasts an hour longer than any other game.

I would completely quit following chess, stop reviewing games top players played, and not play in any OTB tournaments if slow chess "died a fast death". How many blitz tournaments have I traveled to and played in? 1. How many slow chess tournaments? Quite a large number. 

Other than vastly lowering the quality of games, what would be accomplished by destroying slow chess? Spicing up chess commentary? Not worth it.

I would not be opposed to their being more rapid and blitz tournaments, that's totally fine. But leave my slow chess tournaments alone. Besides it seems like slow chess is much more popular for otb tournaments players than speed chess.