Why do so few players play 30 min live chess?

That is why i suggest we chain opponents to the computer. Tablets now. If they try to move away zap. Increase the sensitivity of the zap per attempt.

30 min game is great. But, on internet, it is not suitable. There are too many reasons.

On internet at most is 10 min. Beyond that, it's not reliable anymore.

Well, you can still play on internet 15 min, 30 min, 1hour or standard chess 2 hours for 40 moves. But often than not, you will be disappointed.

I do not play over 15|0 games. And even those are rare, my average time control is somewhere between 5|0 and 10|0.

There are some reasons like the opponents stalling, or the (paranoid under some level) fear of cheating, but neither of them convinces me.

The truth is I just cannot focus on a computer screen as I would OTB. Opening a new tab and checking the news is too easy when the opponent is thinking and attracts me even if the game would still need thinking. Thus, I prefer to play blitz here, and untimed/longer time controls at the club.

@varelse1, if you are playing an opponent making moves so much weaker that yourself you should quickly level up your ELO to a level where the frequency of blunders of your opponent will approximately equal your own blunder rate.  Above 1400 you will very rarely see a player hang their queen, and those who play on after doing so either think they still have a reasonable shot for a win or a draw; in my experience.

@zBorris, thanks, yes, I have joined one of the slower groups (DHLC), but I am actually happy with 30/0 and really don't feel the need to go any slower.  I would be more than happy if more people would just jump onto the 30/0 live pool on chess.com and increase the pool size.  I guess that is my objective with this thread, to encourage more people to play 30/0 on live...

@chasm1995, yes, this has been my experience too.  In fact, I still haven't met a time troll in 30/0 yet.

@bean_Fischer, I have played quite a few 30/0 chess games and have not been disappointed yet (at least not with 1400+ opponents).  I am not sure what you are referring to regarding reliability.  I have had many more problems with reliability with shorter time controls, especially in 5/0 blitz, with players AFK when losing.

@Irontiger, yes, it took me a while to focus on a computer screen to the same extent I would OTB, but I realized that this was a mental/perception issue that I had.  I was too used to seeing the computer screen as a transient interest, easy to flip from website to website, play quick 5/0 blitz, skip on to the next site as I wished.  So I decided to try an experiment.  I installed the chess.com app on my daugther's iPad (which I had, to that point, very rarely used), and then when she went to bed I resolved to play ONLY 30/0 chess games on it ONLY when I was sure that I would be completely uninterupted (or at least minimally interupted) for at least a full hour or two and record and analyze EVERY game to try and look for mistakes/improvements.  This change from PC to iPad was exactly the catalyst that my game needed, and I started to focus on the 30/0 iPad chess games to a remarkable extent and my ELO jumped quickly from the 1200s to the 1400-1500s; and hopefully will keep improving :)

@owltuna, a DGT chessboard? Is that some sort of digital chessboard that allows you to play online on chess.com while making moves OTB?  If so, where can I buy one!

DrJamesB, the guy I played against thought he could trick me by abandoning the game until there was only seven minutes left on his time.  What he didn't consider was that I waas checking the game every minute while I was looking at forums.  There's more than one way to skin a troll, it's how you kill it that counts.  

Because you need an hour of free time

To my knowledge chess.com does not support it.

G30 is far too short for a chess game.  I strongly prefer a minimum of 45+45 (and yes you can play that on chess.com).

I must have played the better part of fifty 30/0 live games on Chess.com without meeting an "AFK time troll" (I.e. someone who, out of spite, instead of resigning in a losing position, simply walks away from the game and let's their time slowly run out). However, I did experience for the first time someone get into a losing position, stop moving for over 15 minutes, and then start moving again with less than 3 minutes left on the clock. Here in my annotated game (will convert from annotated PGN to chess.com format when I have the chance).

[Site "Chess.com"]

[Date "2013-06-01 19:26:36 +0000"]

[White "DrJamesB elo: 1419"]

[Black "jamalot247 elo 1450"]

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 d6 3. Nc3 f5 {Not an opening I am familiar with, so I thought I should just attack the center rather than take and activate his bishop} 4. d4 exd4 5. Qxd4 Nf6 6. Bd3 Nc6 7. Qe3 fxe4 8. Nxe4 Be7? {I understand wanted to break the attack bearing down on your king, but now my knight can mess up your king side pawns} 9. Nxf6+ gxf6 10. 0-0 Bg4 11. Re1 Qd7 {Ok, he is clearly looking to run away from the mess on his king side with a queen side castle, but this would leave his king and queen on the same diagonal, far too delicious a meal for my white bishop IF I can figure out a way to exploit it... Perhaps the knight can provide the needed support...} 12. Nh4 f5 {Ok, he has opened an attack on my unprotected knight, but the bishop is pinned until the king castles, this gives me one big fat tempo to attack the bishop and seal the post-queen-side castle trap... Obviously I was starting to get very excited with this position, these kind of positional traps against a solid 1400+ player are why I play chess} 13. h3 0-0-0 {The trap is set, at a minimum now I will be up material and that is with perfect play} 14. hxg4 Bxh4 {Oh dear, poor chap, that knight was riddled with poison, he may look like a tasty meal, but he was a distraction from the main event!} 15. Bxf5 Bxf2+ {Interesting, if I take with the king then the rooks can pin my bishop and my prey will be able to scamper away, lets take with the queen and make sure I will still be up material} 16. Qxf2 Ne5 {My friend, your knight will not rescue you from the dark times ahead} 17. Bxd7+ Rxd7 {Ok, up material, but this is no time to relax, still a lot of play on the board, perhaps an attack on the king will put him on the defensive and let me dictate play} 18. Qxa7 Nc6 {That's fine, happy to get the tricky knight pinned and out of play} 19. Qa8+ Nb8 {Time to activate my bishop and connect my rooks, this is a won game and we still both have over 20 minutes on our clocks!} 20. Bg5 {At this point in the game my opponent stops moving for OVER 15 MINUTES, what the hell? Have I finally found one of those 30/0 time trolls that people have assured me, while extremely rare on 30/0, do still exist? I start surfing chess.com forums waiting for that tell-tale clicking sound that indicates that my opponent has finally moved... with less than 3 minutes left on his clock it finally comes...} h6 {h6?!? your 15 minute deep think led you to h6, either you, my friend have been time trolling or there is some deep variation I am missing... lets be charitable and assume the latter} 21. Bh4 Rdd8 22. Qa5 Nc6 23. Qf5+ Rd7 24. c3 Ne5 25. Bg3 {at this point my opponent ran out of time. Perhaps there was some thing deeper I am not seeing... Perhaps not... Time troll or not? That is the question...} 1:0 (on time)

I guess my question is, do you consider jamalot247 a "time troll" or a regular player? If he is indeed, by consensus opinion, a "time troll" then he is the first I have experienced under the 30/0 setting. Personally, I like to think better of my 30/0 colleagues and hope this delay was a "deep think" that involved a lot of calculation rather than a cheap trick of sorts. These time-based tricks will always backfire on my opponents as I have the sound on and can clearly hear when they move, thus I can just surf forums like this dreaming of all the tasty elo points that are coming my way :)

@Chasm1995, I think I had the exact same experience as you (see my previous post)... Not sure if he was trying to trick me or not... He did make me wait over 15 minutes for a pretty simple move.  Either way I keep the sound on so I can hear loud and clear when my opponent eventually moves, so, like you, I just scan chess.com forums waiting for that click.

@MJ4H, yes you can play a custom live 45/45 game on Chess.com, but it is not one of their standard options and as such you may have to wait even longer for a strong opponent.  When you click 30/0 (the longest live standard time control) you join a pool of other players that will match you with an opponent within your filter range relatively quickly (can take a few seconds to a few minutes depending on how many people are in the pool and how you have set your filters).  The more people who start playing 30/0, the less time we will have to wait, hence this thread promoting 30/0.  Rest assured that if chess.com offerred a 45/45 standard option then I would be promoting that time control!

@owltuna, I really like the idea of the DGT chess board; I think it would give me the best practice towards OTB play.  It is a shame they are so expensive and that chess.com does not support them.

If it was the dame thing, then it was a different person, Doc.  Either way, though, it happens much less frequently than in any other time control.

Why not join the Dan Heisman Learning Center and play Slow Chess League tournaments using G/45+45 and now even G/90+30 time controls? These are time controls that allow you to play what Dan Heisman calls "real chess" and really make improvements. Our tournament formats that allow you to negotiate for playing times that can fit these longer time controls into your schedule is the way to go. Tournaments attract more serious players, so you aren't going to snag a G/30+0 game with somebody that disconnects after 5 minutes because he thinks you take too long anyway. And there's a lot more than that offered. Why not stop by, join, and try it out?

The younger generation and their centaur colleauges killed standard chess it's history dead it isn't coming back.

You would still be up material after taking the knight with the rook, and would have opened the king up more too. 

LOL

Reminds me of one opponent I had, played normally. I was ahead I think a queen and a Knight. But my opponent wanted to play it to the bitter end. It was mate-in-1, any beginner could see it. My opponent stops moving, with 12 minutes left on his clock. So i started surfing the web, eventually came back. When my opponent had one second left, he moved! Shaking my head, I tried not to smile as I mated him.

I don't play 30 min chess because my attention span doesn't last that long, and sometimes its just too frustrating waiting long minutes for your opponent to make a move which seems a pangfully obvious one to make.

But it's surprising that more players don't play 30 min, seeing as so many times I've seen remarks that a bullet/blitz victory was scarcely deserved because it was only the short clock which "saved" the king + pawn vs king + two rooks, bishop, knight and queen game.

Seems to require explanation to some - read the scoreboard. 30 min games are more suited to players who don't appreciate that sometimes, particularly in bullet, an extra ten seconds can be worth a queen.

I like 30 minute chess because even though I don't usualy use more than ten minutes, I have the extra time when I need it and players very seldomly waste your time and let their clock run.  Since I have started playing 30 minute games, only one person tried to waste my time and I neded up winning that game becaue the other person ran into time trouble in the end.

That's why I prefer to get my time through incement. If some troll wants me to sit there for a long stretches of time, he needs to keep moving.

I have to agree the the slower the time control the more enjoy for me. 

Hmmm.... For sure, that's only up to a certain point.