That has got to be the best question I've heard all year. I read Braunlich's statement again, and it doesn't say ANYTHING about that.

I don't see why not. People do that in online games a lot too, though it only works there if the move is something totally unexpected.

<Am I making an illegal move in classical chess by moving when my opponent has forgotten to hit his clock?>

No, only a foolish one. Wait for him to notice it first. According to the USCF it's not illegal in Blitz so it's not illegal in slow chess either.

<It's too late now because of the bad blood, but they should have been declared co-champions.>

You can't strip somebody of half a title because the loser isn't happy about losing. If they did that, there'd be no point in having any playoffs ever.

You can't strip somebody of half a title because the loser isn't happy about losing. If they did that, there'd be no point in having any playoffs ever.>

You can, but I don't think it would be a very effective mind game. Your opponent could have already moved, and when you hit your clock, they can hit it back immediately, losing no time at all. You can do this now under the current "perceived rules" and the only difference is your opponent would have to wait to move instead of waiting to hit the clock.

<Am I making an illegal move in classical chess by moving when my opponent has forgotten to hit his clock?>

How do you feel about tiebreak points?

<Imagine using a sprint to break a photo finish in a marathon.>

Is it really all that different from extra-innings? Or how about those silly shoot-outs they do in certain soccer games?

I agree this particular playoff was pretty silly. At the end it wasn't a contest of chess skill. But surely there are reasonable playoff formats they might have used in its place. Like maybe playing individual Classical speed games until somebody wins.

Chessboard and pieces are irrelevent.

Thanks for the clarifications, all. I am a left-hander so I like having the clock on that side. :-)

10 seconds a move used to be a really popular format before speed chess took off. I wouldn't mind seeing that come back. I still don't like Blitz playoffs, but that would be a lot better than 5/G.

Chessmaster 6 (and presumably later versions) has this time control available if you want to experiment with it. They also have a thing called Hourglass time, in which the time one player uses gets credited to the other player. For example, if each player starts with 30 seconds, and white uses 5 seconds on his first move, then he's got 25 seconds and Black has 35. If Black uses 6 seconds for move 1, then White has 31 seconds on Move 2, and so forth.

I'm left handed too, but I still always put the clock on the right when I have Black, just because I got used to it that way, and now it feels like putting a white square in the wrong corner to do it the other way. I just got used to thinking "Reach left when you're playing white, reach right when you're playing Black."

When I first started playing rated games, I thought Black had the choice, but someone pulled rank on me and showed me the rule saying it went on Black's right side. So I just got used to doing it that way myself so that nobody could force me to do it a way I didn't want. Later on, I pulled out the book myself to show that Black didn't have the choice.

Then they changed the rule so that Black did have the choice. (So I was just ahead of my time?)

<I wouldn't have a tiebreaker in any event except the world championship and elimination matches/tournaments.>

A tiebreaker is a lot better than draw odds for the defending champion. But I wouldn't use Blitz. I still think the best tiebreaker is the one used in the Bronstein-Boleslavsky match. Keep playing single classical games until somebody wins one. I wouldn't even mind if they had play every single day with no timeouts, until somebody broke. It's better than blitz.

I complained: <I'm not sure if the better chessplayer wins or the player with the better reflexes.>

And he said:

<Exactly. We would be presented with an interesting problem if one of the players was physically handicapped, making it impossible to move quickly. Wouldn't blitz play then be a form of discrimination against handicapped people?>

You mean, the 2008 US Women's Championship.

And I don't know... I feel as if was decided by the entire tournament, where Irina (and I have great respect for this player) failed to demonstrate her superiority in their individual classical game, then in the tournament, then in all the other tiebreak games.

<square dance: <vollmer> i like your idea. the sudden death game should be 10sec/move. its much better than these stupid time and color odds armageddon games.>

I think the spirt of this solution could have been accomplished (and the issues actually seen avoided) simply by using a time delay or increment.

I assume that there is a logical reason that chess moved away from 10 seconds/move- namely, that the outcome of the game seems even less likely to be decided on "chess merits" than in blitz, since some positions simply require more than 10 seconds to calculate/ think about. Expanding this to say three minutes/move for classical games, any halfway decent theoretical novelties at the top level would win almost by default.

I suppose my question is: what are the benefits of 10 seconds/ move over normal blitz with time delay or increment?

<Is it really all that different from extra-innings? Or how about those silly shoot-outs they do in certain soccer games?>