Time Touble

Afternoon ladies and gents.

I rekon I might be getting to the stage where I'm good enough to start entering local tournements. (Ha! The eternal optimist. Stand by for a thrashing...) But one thing concerns me: Tournement Time Controls.

Could somebody please explain to me, as if you were explaining to a child, how tournement time controls work? Why, for example, do players sometimes repeat moves so they can 'reach time control'? What is 'Time Control'? How do those nifty double clocks work?

Stupid question, I know, but I'd rather ask and find out than assume and make a very silly mistake.

ED.

Clearly, the title of this post should be 'Time Trouble'. In my haste to post, basic English seems to have deserted me, alas....

Both players have the same amount of time to make their all their moves in. After you have made your move click your clock, your time will pause and your opponent's clock will immediately start and vice-versa until the game is finished. In most long time control tourneys directly after Black's 30th or 40th move, depending on the tournament the time has to be paused and say 15 minutes or so will be added onto both players clocks and the rest of the moves will have to be made in that time. When I was in my 1st tourney game, I forgot to click my clock at all until about 10 moves in! My much older opponent didn't bother telling me this and just let my time run low! On the board though I won in about 20 moves.

 Ah, I see. Is this what is meant by 'reaching time control'?

Also, from, I suppose, a 'strategic' point of view, do you pace yourself and keep a close eye on the clock, and say, make a certain number of moves before a certain time has elapsed, or do you just play?

Yes, obviously vary your move speed, and even style based on the time controls. e.g. I would play a blitz game very differently than if I had 2 hours for my moves.