Adjournments were a common feature for many decades, and were still being used in some weekend swisses when I moved to London to 1988 and started regularly playing chess the following year.
However, quickplay finishes soon become the norm, even in some events featuring elite players.
The next big innovation in time control was the introduction of a 30-second-per-move increment that, theoretically at least, did away with the need for adding on any other extra time.
In the London League and the Central London League the normal time control is now 75 minutes with a 15-second increment.
This does away with the requirement for recording moves once your clock goes below five minutes, and more importantly, from the viewpoint of organisers, makes long-lasting games less likely as it is hard to play accurately for multiple moves when down to a 15-second increment.
In weekend chess the trend is towards the even faster 10-second increment, and at York this was used with a basic time allocation of 80 minutes.
All of this is a preamble to showing how my round-three game progressed (I took a halfpoint bye in round two) in which I had white against Nick Shakhlevich in an Exchange Variation of the French Defence.
Each diagram is accompanied by the number of moves, the evaluation of Stockfish17 and Dragon1, and the minutes remaining (rounded to the nearest whole minute).
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| 10 moves White slightly better Spanton 70m Shakhlevich 46m |
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| 20 moves Black winning Spanton 50m Shakhlevich 10m |
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| 30 moves Black winning Spanton 41m Shakhlevich 2m |
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| 40 moves White winning Spanton 29m Shakhlevich 0m |
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| 50 moves Equal Spanton 20m Shakhlevich 1m |
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| 60 moves Equal Spanton 18m Shakhlevich 0m |
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| 70 moves Equal Spanton 15m Shakhlevich 0m |
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| 80 moves White winning Spanton 12m Shakhlevich 0m |
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| 90 moves White winning Spanton 11m Shakhlevich 1m |
As can be seen, Black established a winning position by move 20, but had just 10 minutes, plus the 10-second increment, for the rest of the game, meaning he had used about 73 minutes in gaining his advantage.
Shakhlevich stopped recording moves shortly thereafter, having fallen below five minutes on the clock, but the engines reckon he was still winning 10 moves later, albeit having just two minutes, plus the increment, to complete the game.
Another 64 moves were to pass before the game concluded, meaning Black was effectively playing at 10-seconds-a-move for a very large portion of the game.
To play dozens of moves with just a 30-second increment is tough enough, but to do so at a reasonable standard with a 10-second increment is next to impossible, at least at club level.
LESSON: clock management in modern chess is more important than ever, and should rank near the top of player's priorities along with the traditional factors of king safety, smooth development, having a plan, etc.
One of the tips on how to play at these fast time rates is to research at home how to play positions you are likely to meet and also to make rapid decisions when there isn't anything that critical. Thus your opponent playing the French should have had some ideas in how to defend the Exchange and not spend excessive time on them.
ReplyDeleteRdC
If you're a habitual time-trouble merchant, a 10-second increment can work like a trap, giving the illusion of time without much substance.
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