Hardcore players

I have a question for any of you who played in a hardcore tournament.

Did the zero timeout and 21 day timebank create any problems as far as being in different timezones, etc?

The reason I am asking is because someone has posted in the help forum wondering if regular games can have time controls of 0 timeout with only a timebank that will run down before the game is lost on time.

It would be somewhat like using a real chess clock, but with more time of course. But nothing would get reset when you make a move, so eventually there will be a real time crunch adding pressure to the players.

You would have to stay on top of the game and keep moving as often as possible to keep from running out of time.

Anyway, hearing your thoughts on the hardcore game experience might be helpful!

I recall someone holding up the 2012 championship for six weeks by putting his vacation flag up when he was down to his last few hours on a game.

Originally posted by Kewpie
I recall someone holding up the 2012 championship for six weeks by putting his vacation flag up when he was down to his last few hours on a game.

I thought the vacation option was disabled for those entered in a tournament. At least I remember that was the case at one time.

No players are still hiding behind the vacation flag. I can't understand why this has been allowed to continue. Surly a bid of code can be written to knock off their vacation flag.

Originally posted by Kewpie
I recall someone holding up the 2012 championship for six weeks by putting his vacation flag up when he was down to his last few hours on a game.

This is the reason why there is no 2013 tournament then?

Originally posted by mwmiller
I have a question for any of you who played in a hardcore tournament.

Did the zero timeout and 21 day timebank create any problems as far as being in different timezones, etc?

The reason I am asking is because someone has posted in the help forum wondering if regular games can have time controls of 0 timeout with only a timebank that will run down bef ...[text shortened]... out of time.

Anyway, hearing your thoughts on the hardcore game experience might be helpful!

i always get down to about 5 days.

Originally posted by RBHILL
i always get down to about 5 days.

Does the 0 timeout feature present any serious problems for the players, do you think?
Did many of the hardcore games end in a time loss because the timebank got to zero, or did they mostly end by checkmates or resignations?

Originally posted by mwmiller
Does the 0 timeout feature present any serious problems for the players, do you think?
Did many of the hardcore games end in a time loss because the timebank got to zero, or did they mostly end by checkmates or resignations?

They ended by resigning.

Originally posted by RBHILL
They ended by resigning.

OK, so I think what you are saying is most games played out as they normally do, and the stringent time controls (zero timeout, 21 day timebank) did not cause players to lose games by timeout any more than what would be considered normal.

Is that about right?

Originally posted by mwmiller
OK, so I think what you are saying is most games played out as they normally do, and the stringent time controls (zero timeout, 21 day timebank) did not cause players to lose games by timeout any more than what would be considered normal.

Is that about right?

I would say yes. The only way they probably run out of time is if they leave the site.

I played in one of those 0/21 tourneys and found it an angst-ridden experience, even to the point where I couldn't sleep properly and had to get up in the night to make moves. Decided I'd never enter a 0/21 ever again. I'm in a location where 95% of my opponents are making moves during my normal sleeping hours, which probably explains the extra stress.

Originally posted by Kewpie
I played in one of those 0/21 tourneys and found it an angst-ridden experience, even to the point where I couldn't sleep properly and had to get up in the night to make moves. Decided I'd never enter a 0/21 ever again. I'm in a location where 95% of my opponents are making moves during my normal sleeping hours, which probably explains the extra stress.

I have played in these types of tournaments 3 or 4 times.
I think it is very easy to get overwhelmed, but there are some simple approaches to make life a little easier.

a) you have 40 games to play simultaneously so don't enter one unless you have a reasonable amount of free time. At 40 moves a game say, that is 1600 moves you have to make. A lot of games are over before 40 moves anyway.

b) Probably 2 or 3 of the players are going to resign/stop playing early on.
They will be even more overwhelmed than you are, and give up. They will lose all their games on timeout
This is like a 10% reduction in game load

c) I would stop worrying about time zones and "beating" the time on the opponent clock. You are worrying about the wrong thing. You should be trying to make good chess moves in the time you have.

d) Let's say you are playing against someone who never sleeps, so its your clock that is always counting down. That makes the game 21 days.
For a 40 move game, this is 2 moves per day. It is not so much.
Say once in the morning and once in the evening

e) Let's say you are playing against someone who plays twice per day but you are always counting down their clock. You will still have to make the same 40 moves before they time out

f) and then how about if you and your opponent are not clock watching and just play, so you may be able to use most of the 40 days so its 1 move a day


So a simple approach might be:
Try and make at least 2 moves per day of your elapsed time

There are some other ideas about targeting specific players or faster players in order to have games at different stages (rather than all beginning / middle / end).
I would be interested in what other people have tried.

Originally posted by delnz
I have played in these types of tournaments 3 or 4 times.
I think it is very easy to get overwhelmed, but there are some simple approaches to make life a little easier.

a) you have 40 games to play simultaneously so don't enter one unless you have a reasonable amount of free time. At 40 moves a game say, that is 1600 moves you have to make. A lot of games ...[text shortened]... than all beginning / middle / end).
I would be interested in what other people have tried.

Conditional moves are very helpful in this tournament too.

Also, I think it would be good practice to try a 1-0 split (1 day per move, no timebank) tournament as practice before attempting a hardcore tournament for the first time.

Depending on the group size, that might be 10+ games that have to be played at least once a day. It gives some idea of the pressure, but you can always put on vacation flag if you need to.