Clocks and Time Management

As always, opinions are my own, not those of Lichess.org.

Today (Dec. 8, 2024), world champion Ding Liren again fumbled under acute time pressure. My condolences; the games are fascinating to watch, but must be harrowing for players.

July 2022, world champion Magnus Carlsen announced, "The conclusion is very simple that I am not motivated to play another match." He noted that reducing the time control and playing more games would make him more likely to return.

November 2015, IM Greg Shahade concluded Slow Chess should die a fast death.

May 1997, world champion Garry Kasparov resigned rematch game 2 to Deep Blue in an equal position just after having made the time control.

From 1984 to 1985, world champion Anatoly Karpov and challenger Garry Kasparov competed in a format which allowed for an unlimited number of games.

Having played thousands of games of chess, shogi, Scrabble, and go, and having read hundreds of books & watched hundreds of videos about the world's best chess games, what are my thoughts?

As a real-life and online event organizer, I need players to complete games in a somewhat predictable time frame. It's OK if some games can run somewhat long, but move increments greater than 30 seconds per move can unpredictably cut into my schedule. Delay or byoyomi time controls are more predictable than increment time controls.

As a spectator, I have the luxury of coming and going as I please, but move increments greater than 30 seconds per move can also unpredictably cut into my schedule, and I don't have any idea when the players will move. At least with delay or byoyomi clocks I can have some idea when players will move, so if I find the position dull I can enjoy a meal and come back.

As a player, I need time to think about each move, but also as an amateur it can be difficult to find entire weekends or weeks to commit to playing serious games. It doesn't matter to me whether I have an increment, delay, or byoyomi clock, although move increments greater than 30 seconds per move can unpredictably cut into my schedule. However, I need adequate thinking time per move: where's the fun in traveling hundreds of miles to play in an event, only to have a game decided by my missing a single tactic, or by resigning in an equal position? I might as well just observe games if I can't seriously compete in them; for serious games, I need increment or delay or byoyomi greater than 30 seconds per move.

Therefore, I believe using long delay (60 seconds/move) or byoyomi (1 minute/move) is in everyone's best interest, although Carlsen indicates (as does Shahade) that the world championship would interest him more if games were faster and more numerous. Which raises the next question: are Greg and Magnus right?

FIDE has a World Cup event and a Candidates event, which in my mind can be slower endurance games worthy of far more attention than they currently get. It's wonderful to read about 20th-century FIDE round-robin events and see so many excellent slow games. There is also room for a world championship "rapid" format as Shahade and Carlsen suggest:

Something like 30+5 second increment sounds perfect to me. And when I suggest 30+5, please note that I’m choosing a time control this slow only to appease the masses. I think 15+5 is more appropriate.

Again, I do not fully agree and personally I would prefer to watch delay or byoyomi time control games, for many of the reasons they share.

As an aside, it somewhat breaks my heart to see shogi and go communities moving toward using increment clocks and away from byoyomi and multi-byoyomi time controls. I have utterly failed to persuade the Scrabble community that delay or byoyomi are reasonable and necessary, so I do not think I can be a competitive Scrabble player.

(My own tournament record shows a strong propensity to seek G/60 d/5 or slightly slower weekend events, out of scheduling convenience. But were I to rejoin the IRL tournament scene, I would desire games with 1-minute byoyomi or 60-second delay which take roughly the same time commitment.)

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Image credit: Ananya Ganni