Neat. The main problem I see is that since your time is relative to your opponent's, and since taking 10 minutes gives your opponent 10, you have in effect wasted 20 minutes.
Also, how is it possible to get an equal amount of sand in both halves of the hourglass at the beginning? I think it's going to have to be electronically done.
Hey guys, thanks for reading this in advance.
As you know from the title of this forum, I wanted to put a new idea forward about a new version of chess. Mainly because it would be easy for chess.com to adopt the idea. This is it: Hourglass Chess. It works like this; when both players are ready, an hourglass (which is not necessarily an 'hour'glass) is flipped from neutral to white (any side), the moment he makes his move, he flips the hourglass and it becomes blacks turn. This continues until mate, draw by agreement, resignation or until someone's sand has runout. As you can see, this helps players play like live chess, but this means that as long as take the same amount of time as your opponent, you should be fine. If you take longer, the sand will build up in his half and this will give him more time. And obviously, if you don't take as long as your opponent, you get more time you can use on one particular move that requires alot of calculation. Giving handicaps to lesser players will be easy, one half of the hourglass will simply get more sand to begin with.
Thanks again,
Vincent