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

I recently started thinking about time controls. My local chess club uses 40/75, SD/30, 5-sec delay throughout (let me write 40/75, SD/30, d5). It used to use 40/90, 15/30, 15/30..., and adjourn if it got too late. The change from 40/90 to 40/80 (40/75 when using delay) and from a series of 15/30 time controls to a SD/30 time control were made over a period of years, always with the goal of getting home at not too unreasonable an hour in mind.

I *hate* getting down to just the five-second delay. Endgames were not made for blitz, and there are any number of ways one can lose--he hits the clock but the clock doesn't register his move, he has a lapse of consciousness for a moment, he has a muscle spasm and is late moving his piece; it just comes down to a furious shuffling of plastic pieces instead of actually thinking about moves. So, I started examining longer delays.

The problem is, in order to use a longer delay--say, SD/20, 20-sec delay--you have to cut down the time available for 60-move games or else add too much time to 80-, 90-, or 100-move games.

As it turns out, all solutions I can think of have problems. Adjudications? Nobody wants them. Adjournments? My choice, but of course players can use computers to analyze adjourned positions. Sudden-death or game time controls? Then, because you get less time per move on average in a long game than in a short game under sudden-death or game time controls, players who play long games are punished for it by having less time per move, on average, than players who play short games--which may mean that very positional players are punished for their playing styles--and when you're matched against a strong player against whom you must think and against whom a game is apt to last a long time if you play well, you get less average time per move than when you're matched against a weak player whom you can beat easily and quickly. My own choice would be to go back to 40/80, 15/30, 15/30... + adjournment system, since then you always get at least two minutes per move--but many people complain about adjournments.

I don't see a problem-free system for setting time controls.

"G60 is neither here nor there. It counts like classical if you're rated under 1600, I think... (at least by FIDE rules - USCF is a different organization)."

As a player I don't have any particular fondness for the time control, although I'd just be happy that it's longer than rapid. But for a spectator, this might be a good balance. Even 25 minutes or something is pretty fast for a spectator, things change so suddenly... 60 minutes would probably be pretty relaxed for most viewers, would be enough time for an epic buildup. Of course a lot of people still wouldn't want to devote 2 hours to watching a chess game, but I think chess always needs to have some epicness for chess to be its true self. In any case it seems like this time control hasn't really been tried as an attempt at showing chess to the public.

A spectator sport or a gladiator sport?

You have to like it as a player before you invite people to watch you play. 

It could be seen as ironical but computers are in fact going to safeguard and protect the longer time controls.Fast time control supporters vastly overestimate the so called "fun factor" and forget they can get such fun readily by watching Gms -especially Joey -playing online bullet or blitz.Great players are great because they play near perfect chess.If you start watching  rapid games and checking with an engine at some point you will realize the quality of play is not that good and you just lost the most important element of true chess enjoyment,conditions that promote best play for both sides.As for the idea that we should kill the  Quality  in chess to make it more appealling to the hordes of  patzers,I find it disgusting.

Well sure I don't mind G60. Obviously you have to be willing to make some compromise. If I were a GM and it were up to me I'd play classical all the time. But I'd be willing to not play my favorite time control all the time if it helped the spectators, at least I'd be open to that. The question is how much compromise would I be willing to make. I certainly wouldn't want to play blitz a whole lot, but I might be willing to play a time control that's longer than rapid but shorter than classical, like G60.

I would have agree with the necessary to limit the time control in classical chess if top players had prove first that one and a half hour for the first 40 moves plus one hour for the rest it's more than enough!....but when I see the number one blitz player Magnus Carlsen run games out of time then everything seems so relative with what is better.

I believe that rapid chess or G60 doesn't help chess players to discover difficult variations and increase the danger of blundering. The nature of classical chess is the difficulty to approach the perfect play and adopt creativity were time control must give you the opportunity to evaluate four different variations in thirty minutes eitherwise what's the point of classical chess?

Sometimes chess is not about fun its only the ability to think deeper that gives satisfaction.

Right. I remember a discussion by Robert M. Pirsig in his famous book, about Dyonisic pleasure vs. Apollonic pleasure - the first being a "drunkard" kind of pleasure (such as we get from blitz), the other been a deep, intellectual, aesthetic, exalted kind of pleasure (which Bishop_g5 refers to at the very last sentence of his last post - which reminded me of Pirsig in the first place). 

We live in a (sad) world where everything must be shallow, fast, easy to understand, easy to do, where we have such a demented concept of time, where we don't understand effort, dedication, love. I could bla bla about it for 20 pages, but...

OP gives a couple examples of well played rapid games. I bet I could offer 10x more examples of botched games by top players. Anyway, is Shadade talking about pro chess, amateur chess?! Because it's a little confusing. I don't even see a problem: if you want to play blitz or rapid chess, plenty of opportunities.

I think solskytz nailed it, regarding "revenge-mode on".

Chess is a game of patience. People that don't have it should play something else.

It strikes me that what those who want faster time controls "for the spectators" are arguing for is faster time controls in *exhibitions*. Well, fine. I have no problem with grandmasters' playing at faster time controls in exhibitions.

But tournament chess is not an *exhibition*.

Well said Mindwalk.

That's naive. It's as much entertainment as it is a game. It's all about the $.

And who says the time controls in long chess are what they are ? Hopefully, it's the players feeding back their feelings as opposed to FIDE 'dictating' the time constraints.  

Again, Shahade's recommendation is to play rapid chess, not blitz. Games would still last about an hour.

As he points out, the best chess players are also the best blitz and rapid players with very few exceptions. The absolute quality of chess would still be better than anything the first five world champions could play at slower time controls with adjournments.

(#141)....and there are any number of ways one can lose--he hits the clock but the clock doesn't register his move, he has a lapse of consciousness for a moment, he has a muscle spasm and is late moving his piece;

....or eating your lunchable or slapping a mosquito or finger-drumming.

Completely agree with the OP!I am playing chess intensively for a year and a half. I have played about rapid 2500 games and 0 slow chess game. I have played many rapid tournaments with great fun, but for the moment i will not play any slow chess. Why? Because I Have family and life and I won´t spend one entire weekend playing chess for 14 hours.

Slow chess will never die, and neither will fast chess.  Different people like different things.  Some people like slow and fast chess.  The idea that we all must end up doing the same thing -- as if there is only room for one way -- is a false dichtomy, a sign of over-simplistic thinking.

So you have Carlsen being able to play chess at 2850+ level but it's better to have him play some 100 elo points lower because it's "fun".

So the entire history of chess is based on CLASSICAL chess but having classical chess tournaments it's "stupid" and "detrimental" because it's not "fun".

I'd expect an IM to be able to organize his thoughts logically, presenting good and convincing arguments in the process. Here it's all said and done in the name of "fun", "popularity" (isn't chess the most popular board game on planet earth already?) - pretty vague concepts that embrace a lot of things for a lot of different people.

I didn't see Shadade at the recent World Rapid & Blitz championships. He's bitching like an euphoric teen and yet... ?!

Pure conjecture.  And what if Steinitz, Lasker and/or Capablanca had been able to train with 3200+ rated computer engines like today's generation?

Yeah, a totally hypocritical argument. Folks that want classical chess to die don't really have a logical argument for it so they have to throw anything that goes in the mix to make it sound "logical".

Great reasons to not want to be away for an entire weekend, but for some of us, we enjoy being away for 2-3-4+ days playing in tournaments.