Fischer Time Controls and Venues

[NickFaulks]

Set the clock to count clock presses.

I don't generally like the clock to be one of the participants in the game ( or even the arbiter! ), but here I can accept that the potential problems are very small.

[David Williams]

then you could have a time control of:

• 90 minutes + 30 seconds per move for the first 100 moves
• 5 minutes extra to finish the game, with no increment, after 100 moves have been played

I can see that working in a Congress, but the big problem is evening matches. There a 30 second increment is out of the question, so how will you know when 100 moves have been played?

This is a game with both increments and a quickplay finish. You could argue it's not a game with increments at all, just one with 101 intermediate time controls! Presumably once you are past 100 moves and down to less than two minutes you can stop the clock and make a draw claim?

[Roger de Coverly]

This is a game with both increments and a quickplay finish.

There's another possible idea. Play all the moves in 90 minutes or whatever, but add a five or ten second increment when either player goes below two minutes remaining. It's to avoid having to make any decisions on unable to win claims. In essence it's making a clock substitution as suggested by the FIDE rules as an arbiter ruling. It doesn't then matter if both players decide to take 88 minutes over their first 20 or 30 moves. They've got to determine the result in effect by playing buzzer chess from then on.