OTB Time Limits

When playing over the board games by the clock, what is the usual or typical period of time that a player is allowed in which to make a move?

None.  They have the whole clock to make all the moves they want/need.

O.K. I'm not quite understanding what happens.  Are you saying that there is a total amount of time for the whole game, as opposed to a time limit for each individual move?

Yes--in general, the time is for the whole game, and you can spend it as you wish. For example, in a "G/30" time limit, each player starts the game ("G") with 30 minutes on his clock, and the entire game must be concluded before he runs out of time.

There are also time limits dependent on the number of moves played. For example, here in the US a fairly common tournament time control is "40/2 SD1" which means "Each player must make the first 40 moves within two hours; after that, the players are credited with an additional hour of sudden death time." So this game could last as long as six hours if the players use all their time.

Other time controls are possible, and can mirror those used online. For example, I've seen people in the club set their clocks to "2/12," which is 2 minutes of initial time for each player, plus a bonus of 12 seconds for each completed move. These games, perhaps counterintuitively because of the short initial time, can actually go for a long while since you can "bank" the time you don't use.

Good explanation - thanks!  But suppose I run out of time in the middle of the game and my opponent still has time left?  He gets to make one more move and then the game is over?  And what happens when the time runs out for both and neither player has achieved a checkmate?  I mean, how do you score the game?

Well, that's straightforward enough.  Thanks.

It's not quite that straightforward. If one player runs out of time (he "flags," from the old days when the wind-up clocks had little plastic flags that would fall when you overstepped the time limit) and the other still has time remaining, the game is a loss only if the opponent has enough mating material on the board.

So say you have only a king and your opponent has only a king and a bishop. He doesn't have enough material to ever checkmate you, so the game is a draw. If your opponent has a king and a rook (or any other combination of elementary mating material, or even a lone pawn that could promote to a queen), you lose.

So what happens if I run out of time, but I have a clear superiority in material.  Say I am just a slow player but make all good moves and might have won easily had I not run out of time? 

You have to be at least a certain number of pieces/amount of material up to be considered for a draw, or so I hear.

You might have heard, right here in this thread, that if your opponent does not have material to checkmate, it is a draw.

In all other cases, even if you had 7 queens for example, you run out of time, you lose.

Thanks.  I think I've got my answer.

To be more precise, it's a draw if your opponent cannot checkmate you by any sequence of legal moves. There's nothing about "insufficient material" in the FIDE rules at least. Let's take the following scenario:

I read in a chessbook insufficient material only applies to a king vs a king and a knight. Any answers or ideas? The book would have been by Yassir Seirwan(please excuse the spelling). former us champ.

I prefer G90 or 40 in 2 hrs with 1 hr. SD. The older I get, the more time I like. G60 has started to seem fast. I used to love to play G30, but now avoid it.  

The club I play with typically plays G/45 in weekend tourneys.  I think Seriwan meant that any non mating combo is a draw (knight or bishop).  However, even if the pieces remaining can only theoretically mate (two knights for example is generally impossible to mate with without the defenders cooperation) it is a win.