June 15, 2005

Chess clocks with upper limit

We have tournaments where the clocks have an upper limit of 30 days! New tournaments will have this "cut-off" with a 50% chance (pure random). Please be careful to select tournaments that match your personal preferences.

In such "capped" tournaments you cannot accumulate more than 30 days on your clock, no matter how fast you play.

Example:
You have 29 days 23:59 on your clock.
Then you make your move.
Your clock shows 30 days 00:00 (turtle or rabbit alike)

How do I recognize these cut-off tournaments?
In the tournament list is a column "Cut". This value is 30 for cut-off tournaments and 0 for the "classical" tournaments. The tournament page itself shows the cut-off as "10d + 48h < 30d" in the tournament properties on the left side. You can see this at
Tournament list ACL
Tournament ACL-E205

Which tournament type should I choose?
If you normally make your moves in a steady pace, you should choose the cut-offs. Then, you will no longer have to wait such a long time if someone lets his clock run out (in a lost position).
But if you sometimes get in time trouble yourself, you should stick with the "old" tournaments, where you can accumulate enough time to compensate business trips etc.. These classical tournaments are also better if you plan a longer holiday trip (but even better is not starting a new tournament under such circumstances).

Posted by Thomas Stahl at June 15, 2005 12:36 AM
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