chess for fun
BUSCHE, JOSEPH RAY
take a long time, but usually we don't take very long. I mean, what
is the point of thinking for an hour or so on a move, you might as
well just stop the game and analize the position. I have played
casual games with people who do take this long and invariably I don't
play them for fun anymore.
Playing with the clock is also good for simulating tournament conditions
or for just getting used to using one, but I feel that speed chess can
only help one's instincts for the game and is not good for truly raising
the level of one's game (at least for me).
My point I guess is that you can play serious games without using a clock
(as long as there is an understanding about using TOO MUCH time), cut
but that using a clock doesn't necessarily mean you are playing serious
chess. I think that the only reason clocks were even introduced was
to prevent people from taking to long on moves in matches or even
tournaments.
By the way I think that the Fischer clock is a great idea which should
hopefully remove time pressure blunders and is more in tune with the
idea of playing better chess. Is there any news as to whether this
clock will be used in future tournaments and matches?
Joseph
Gregory J. Demme
Fischer clock? I've never heard of this before.
Thanks,
Greg Demme
gj...@virginia.edu
Johannes Fuernkranz
>
>Playing with the clock is also good for simulating tournament conditions
>or for just getting used to using one, but I feel that speed chess can
>only help one's instincts for the game and is not good for truly raising
>the level of one's game (at least for me).
I've heard this again and again. Developing the instincts for the game is the whole
point. Grandmasters don't outcalculate or outthink you - they outinstinct you. They
just know what to do and check upon the 2 or 3 moves their instincts suggest to them.
Like you and me do, but our instincts don't suggest the right moves, that's the
problem.
Conincidentially, according to my experience (and this is not meant to be a flame,
Joseph), it's mostly class C and B players who claim that Blitz can't help them to
become Experts or Maters. I've never heard a master say that Blitz didn't help their
chess skills *significantly*! Any masters out there who tell me now?
Juffi
--
Johannes Fuernkranz ju...@ai.univie.ac.at
Austrian Research Inst. for Artificial Intelligence +43-1-5336112(Tel)
Schottengasse 3, A-1010 Vienna, Austria, Europe +43-1-5320652(Fax)
--------------- "Life's too short for Chess." -- Byron ------------------
Library Circulation Staff
[stuff deleted]
>By the way I think that the Fischer clock is a great idea which should
>hopefully remove time pressure blunders and is more in tune with the
>idea of playing better chess. Is there any news as to whether this
>clock will be used in future tournaments and matches?
>
>Joseph
>
What, exactly, is a Fischer clock?
Jeffrey S Davidson
Alan Losoff
gj...@Virginia.EDU ("Gregory J. Demme") writes
> Could someone please briefly explain what is different about a
> Fischer clock? I've never heard of this before.
cir...@iies.ecn.purdue.edu (Jeffrey S Davidson) writes
> What, exactly, is a Fischer clock?
The "Fischer Clock" is an electronic clock which has the ability to
add time to each players clock after each move. Fischer claims to
have invented and patented it, although the ill-fated Micro-Mate
chess clock had this feature over 10 years ago.
Fischer/Spassky II was played with this clock. I beleive each
player was given 90 minutes plus 2 minutes per move. If you make
a move in less than 2 minutes, you wind up with more time on your
clock after the move than before.
The Interactive Chess Server at valkyries.andrew.cmu.edu (ICS)
implements this type of clock, and it is very popular. I personally
find blitz chess at 2 minutes plus 12 seconds per move (ICS default)
much better than game/5 or game/??. It gives you the chance to win
that "won game" no matter how many moves it takes.
A similar idea is the USCF "Allegro" clock which will be marketed
"Real Soon Now". I saw a prototype this weekend. It is just a
standard quartz (analog) clock with a dial that lets you set a
start-up delay of 0-9 seconds. When you stop your clock, your
opponent's clock doesn't start for xx seconds. Thus, even in sudden
death or blitz you can make as many moves as you need as long as
you can make them in fewer than xx seconds. The difference between
this and the "Fischer Clock" is that if you make your move in less
than xx seconds, you don't get to keep the difference.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Alan Losoff al...@crt.com NO NEXTMAIL
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael Black-Robe Mage Schmahl
JRB: I often play games with friends without a clock. Sometimes the games
: take a long time, but usually we don't take very long. I mean, what
: is the point of thinking for an hour or so on a move, you might as
: well just stop the game and analize the position. I have played
: casual games with people who do take this long and invariably I don't
: play them for fun anymore.
I only play games without a clock when there is no clock available, and even
then, I'm reluctant. An hour on each move is excessive, indeed, but (especially
when there's a time limit on the game, like dinner to be made) even short of
this extreme games can tend to drag on. The clock doesn't detract at all.
: Playing with the clock is also good for simulating tournament conditions
: or for just getting used to using one, but I feel that speed chess can
: only help one's instincts for the game and is not good for truly raising
: the level of one's game (at least for me).
15-30 minute chess is held by many to be the best practiice speed, because it
hones the instincts but still allows enough time to avoid serious mistakes
(unless the player takes too long anyway).
: My point I guess is that you can play serious games without using a clock
: (as long as there is an understanding about using TOO MUCH time), cut
: but that using a clock doesn't necessarily mean you are playing serious
: chess. I think that the only reason clocks were even introduced was
: to prevent people from taking to long on moves in matches or even
: tournaments.
There's not just the problem of too long (there's one (true?) anecdote where a
GM took 14 hours to make a move...), but there's also the problem of allowing
one player the same amount of time as the other. Inarguably, time is a valuable
resource.
: By the way I think that the Fischer clock is a great idea which should
: hopefully remove time pressure blunders and is more in tune with the
: idea of playing better chess. Is there any news as to whether this
: clock will be used in future tournaments and matches?
The Fischer or incremental clock is not really much of an improvement over the
standard tournament clock. The only difference is that instead of making time
pressure blunders at move 40, one forfeits around move 20....
--
1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. Ng5 Bc5 5. Nxf7 Bxf2!
Daniel Sleator
the internet chess server, ICS. (Of course I'm sure the idea has
occurred to many others.) After each move a constant (the increment)
is added to the time remaining for the player who just moved. My
implementation allows the time to go negative and return to positive.
The opponent can win on time only if he/she calls the flag while it is
non-positive.
I believe that the fischer clock is something quite different.
(Please correct me if my description is wrong.) With the Fischer
clock, a player is given a quantity of time, say 1 minute, at the
beginning of each move before which his/her "real" clock will begin to
decrease. So whether you move in 1 second or 1 minute makes
absolutely no difference. The fraction of the minute that you don't
use is NOT carried over to your real clock.
When the incremental clock was first installed on the ICS, many people
complained and refused to use it, because it was "non standard". Now
2/3 of the games played there use increments. A game "5 0", meaning
five minutes with zero increment, is indeed a different game than, say
"1 6". (one initial minute, with six second increment.) In my
opinion (just my opinion) it's a better game --- one that emphasizes
chess quality over the tyrrany of the clock. You can actually reach
an endgame, and play it out in civilized fashion.
Some people still do like zero increment games better. The reason
seems to be that even if your opponent has an overwhelming advantage,
there's still always that chance that he/she will run out of time
before mating you. Also having a good network connection gives you a
bigger advantage over your opponent with zero increment.
It's true that a 10 minute game (10 0) is guaranteed to end in at most
20 minutes. However it's occured to me that the "equivalent"
(assuming 40 moves) 2 12 game, may on average be shorter. This is
because a player seeing a clear loss will immediately resign. In the
10 0 game, the same player might play on hoping for a clock victory.
Daniel Sleator (Darooha)
Jason Derek Olson
The Fischer clock works as follows: Each player is given a certain amount of
time, let's say 30 minutes. After each move a certain amount of time, which
can be set before the game is added onto the persons clock who has just moved
So lets say white shows up late to his game and has less than a minute on his
clock, he immediately moves and the pre-set time is added to his clock. I think
in Fischer/Spassky each player started with an hour and had 2 minutes added
after every move. So the afore mentioned tardy player could blitz out a few
opening moves and build up a lot of time, relative to less than a minute.
So in the Fischer/Spassky match all either player had to do was move at an
average of 2 minutes per move and their clock would stay at 1 hour left through-
out the game. Fischer said this clock would prevent time scrammbles, which lead
to sloppy chess. Polgar/Spassky used the same clock if i'm not mistaken.
Daniel Sleator
post it again. I believe that the definition of the Fischer clock
given by Alan Losoff is wrong. The correct definition is contained in
my post. What we use on ICS is NOT a Fischer clock. What he
describes as the USCF Allegro clock IS the Fischer clock. (I think
the incremental clock makes a lot more sense than the Fischer, by the
way) Here is my previous post:
Roy Eassa
> Daniel Sleator (Darooha)
OK, I'll respond. I believe that the Fischer clock is just what you
describe as having been installed on ICS. You *can* accumulate time. A
new clock, marketed by the USCF, will have the "delay before resuming"
feature you mistakenly attribute to the Fischer clock.
The Fischer clock gives you a bonus of time *after* each move; this bonus
is added to whatever you've saved up so far. You can, by moving faster
than the bonus amount per move, have a growing kitty of time.
Alan Losoff
slea...@cs.cmu.edu (Daniel Sleator) writes:
> I believe that the definition of the Fischer clock given by Alan
> Losoff is wrong. The correct definition is contained in
This is certainly possible. Neither Dan nor I have ever actually
seen a Fischer Clock. I have seen an Allegro Clock. It is very
limited, in that it does not allow accumulation of incremental time
and it allows the delay to be only 0-9 seconds.
>From what I've read, I think the Fischer Clock is similar to the
ICS clock (it IS digital). The Allegro is very different from
either. It is designed primarily to improve "sudden death" time
control which has become poplular in USCF rated events. It also
accomodates the strong bias many USCF players have against digital
clocks. (Current USCF rules allow a player to refuse to use any
digital clock.)
> (I think the incremental clock makes a lot more sense than the
> [delayed start clock], by the way)
Absolutely. I enjoy ICS play immensely. But the Allegro clock
meets it's goal too. The Fischer Clock, if it's not like ICS,
should be.
In either case, the MicroMate (which was one of the first digital
chess clocks, if not THE first) implemented one or both features
years ago. It was incredibly feature-rich, but also almost as hard
to set as a VCR.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Alan Losoff al...@crt.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Richard V. Nash
Losoff) writes:
>
..
> A similar idea is the USCF "Allegro" clock which will be marketed
> "Real Soon Now". I saw a prototype this weekend. It is just a
> standard quartz (analog) clock with a dial that lets you set a
> start-up delay of 0-9 seconds. When you stop your clock, your
> opponent's clock doesn't start for xx seconds. Thus, even in sudden
> death or blitz you can make as many moves as you need as long as
> you can make them in fewer than xx seconds. The difference between
> this and the "Fischer Clock" is that if you make your move in less
> than xx seconds, you don't get to keep the difference.
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
> Alan Losoff al...@crt.com NO NEXTMAIL
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
The problem with this is that you have no insentive at all to move before your
'grace period' is up. With a start-up delay of at most 9 seconds this is not a
problem, but if the grace period were 2 minutes then everyone would always take
atleast 2 minutes for each move, no matter how trivial the move.
--
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| Richard V. Nash | Visual Understanding Systems, Inc. |
| na...@visus.com | Tel. (412)-488-3600 Fax. (412)-488-3611 |
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
Michael Black-Robe Mage Schmahl
JDO: The Fischer clock works as follows: Each player is given a
:
Instead of sloppy chess, we simply get time forfeits... This time
control you describe above could be simulated with a 40/140 40/80 or
30/120 30/60 (not implausible time controls), and having each player
keep the responsibility of making sure he has budgeted enough time
for the rest of the game. It's the same as the Fischer time (if you
play at a rate of one move per two minutes you always have at least
one hour), but if you have 1.9 minutes per move you don't end up
forfeiting.... The Fischer clocks are just an annoyance, as if they
are adopted, standard (normal, analog) clocks won't be able to be
used anymore.
--
I find it amusing that "Earth Day" is an anagram of "Death Ray".
- Jeffrey Klein
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