time per game sucks, you guys

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nklristic

I don't see that you've proposed a concrete time control per move. Until you do, this is not a serious proposition. Give your proposition, and then we might discuss it in a better way. 

In the meantime, consider playing 45|45 games. That kind of games will have a lot of time on the clock, and a pretty big increment as well. Of course, not many people are prepared to play, but until some 1 500 - 1 600 rating there are players willing to play it regularly. There are some higher rated as well, but it is more difficult to find a game above 1 500 or so. The only downside is that you will have to wait for a few minutes, but if you are already ready to play longer games, it is more or less a drop in the sea anyway from your perspective.


333OnlyHalfEvil
5sec and 10sec/move for short games. 20sec and 30sec/ move for middle games. 1min and 2min /move for long games.

2min/move tends to take like 30-60min for games that make it all the way to the end.
333OnlyHalfEvil
45|45 has the same problems I’m criticizing in the previous posts. It is a little less problematic than the shorter games, however. Time per game plus time per move added is certainly a better choice than straight time/game.
333OnlyHalfEvil
Also, the time convention where you get a certain amount of time for a certain amount of moves and then some more time gets added if you make it past that amount of moves is so random. It’s so weird that that would be a thing but time per move would be left out completely.

I’m telling you. Time/game is just tradition left over from the analog clock days. It would be a pain in the butt to make a time/move analog clock in comparison to a time/game one.
333OnlyHalfEvil
I’m not necessarily saying to get rid of it completely. I just think time/move should be an option and chess clubs should have different tournaments that feature different time conventions.

You all don’t think it’s weird that time/move is nowhere to be found anywhere? No websites and no chess clubs that I’m aware of even have it as an option, let alone as the standard feature.
nklristic
333OnlyHalfEvil wrote:
5sec and 10sec/move for short games. 20sec and 30sec/ move for middle games. 1min and 2min /move for long games.

2min/move tends to take like 30-60min for games that make it all the way to the end.

Ok, first of all, I wish to thank you for the constructive post.

I will point out a few problems however.

First of all, in order for chess.com to take this into consideration, FIDE would have to do it as well. If not, chess.com would just lose a lot of its users because they wouldn't offer time controls that are standard for chess today.

But let's not dwell on that for now.

I want to point out the lack of flexibility of your format. Not all moves are the same. In classical chess format today, there are moves where people use 2 seconds - some obvious recapture or an obvious opening move, etc.

On the other hand, there are complex positions where people burn half an hour, sometimes even an hour of their time. But for online purposes, I could safely say that sometimes I take 7 minutes on certain moves where I am either unsure how to proceed or when I think that I have something in a position, but I have to calculate. So 2 minutes per move is not even long enough for me, let alone OTB play.

And if you say, 10 minutes per move for OTB classical chess, in critical moments that is not enough either on the one hand, and on the other, that game would drag a lot - imagine a game where both players would play 60 moves each, it could take up to 20 hours (and much longer games than 60 moves ones have been played). And if you say, ok 10 minutes for them is too long, give them 2 minutes per move still, I remind you that 2 minutes in critical positions is not nearly enough.

The quality of OTB classical chess would plummeted.

The same thing, but for shorter games goes as well. It is not flexible, but there is another problem. You need to know your online audience as well. Most people here who plays blitz play 3|0 or 3|2. 10 seconds per move is 20 minutes per game for 60 moves. People who plays blitz are not used to games this long. happy.png

And for 20 seconds per move, again, that is not flexible for those who wishes to play somewhat longer game and it can last for a way longer than they are prepared to play. Most people in rapid pool is playing 10 minutes per side.

On top of it all, on every move there would be an added pressure that you have to watch not to flag. The games would be of much lower quality as a result as well.


eric0022
333OnlyHalfEvil wrote:
5sec and 10sec/move for short games. 20sec and 30sec/ move for middle games. 1min and 2min /move for long games.

2min/move tends to take like 30-60min for games that make it all the way to the end.

 

So far the closest to this is a delay time control, but Chess.com does not such such features - at least for the moment.

333OnlyHalfEvil
Thank you for the long post. I’m going to wait a bit to reply to it to give some more people a chance to chime in if they want to. Hope that’s okay with you.
nklristic
333OnlyHalfEvil wrote:
Thank you for the long post. I’m going to wait a bit to reply to it to give some more people a chance to chime in if they want to. Hope that’s okay with you.

Of course.

I will just sum it up, because some people don't like reading longer posts.
The most important issue is the lack of flexibility - because in practice not every move is the same (total game might be too long, and there will not be enough time in critical moments), and for longer games, constant time trouble mode. I think because of these 2 things this is not a better solution.

Martin_Stahl
333OnlyHalfEvil wrote:
@martin_stahl, thanks for the explanation. You get the points I’m making, right?

 

I know it's been requested to add a time per move option for live and can understand a the desire, but don't really think it would work very well in practice, especially online with lag possibilities.

333OnlyHalfEvil
Interesting no one else replied. Ok, in reply to your flexibility comment, fyi, your concern is invalid because you’re sacrificing flexibility over the whole game for flexibility for a single move. The entire game is more important than a single move.

Just curious, has anyone commenting on here ever tried Time/move? If so, where did you try it and and how many games would you estimate you’ve played of it?
dude0812
333OnlyHalfEvil wrote:
5sec and 10sec/move for short games. 20sec and 30sec/ move for middle games. 1min and 2min /move for long games.

2min/move tends to take like 30-60min for games that make it all the way to the end.

There are moves on which I would spend 10 seconds and there are moves on which I would spend 10 minutes. 2min per move is a horrible time control.