The tradeoff is that it is incredibly easy to program. It lacks delay and increment, and it can only be set for one time control – for G/90, say, instead of 40/90, SD/30. The DGT 1001 ($29.95) is a small clock designed for the beginner. The tournament clocks, while slightly more expensive, possess a full range of features and settings. The scholastic clocks are tournament-legal but lack certain features that more serious players would expect this is reflected in their relative cost. Based in the Netherlands, DGT manufactures the e-boards and e-pieces used to transmit moves to the web at all the biggest events, and they also produce a full line of clocks.īroadly speaking, we can divide DGT’s product line in two: a scholastic segment (1001, Easy, Easy Plus) and a tournament segment (2010, 3000, NA). All clock prices are drawn from the USCF Sales website as this article went to press.ĭigital Game Technology, or DGT, is perhaps the leading purveyor of chess technology in the world. In what follows I first offer descriptions of all the clocks ordered by manufacturer, and I conclude with a series of recommendations for different types of players. I have also lent some of them out to friends and students for their inspection and comments. My analysis is drawn from extensive hands-on investigations and over-the-board play. The clocks under consideration in this article will vary as to how they implement both delay and increment, and I will note these differences accordingly. In both cases, and in contrast to delay, a player can accumulate more time than she started with via the increment.Ĭurrent US Chess rules do not specify which type of delay is preferred, although simple delay is the de facto standard. Time is added to a player’s clock with each completed move, although some clocks (notably DGTs) also add the increment time when a player’s clock first starts. US Chess rules consider these two forms of delay to be mathematically equivalent.įischer or ‘bonus’ mode, named after its inventor, the American World Champion Bobby Fischer, is usually described in America as an increment. With Bronstein or ‘add-back’ delay, invented by former World Championship Challenger David Bronstein, clock time begins to decrease when it is a player’s turn to move, and the time used, up to the specified delay, is added back when the player hits the clock. Most American players are familiar with simple delay, where a player’s clock does not begin to decrease for a specified amount of time (usually five seconds) after pressing the clock. Chess Federation rule book differentiates between delay (pause) and increment (added) time modes (Rules 5, 42), and it recognizes two types of delay. What’s the difference between delay, Bronstein, and Fischer modes? What’s the difference for the practical player? One of the difficulties in assessing the features of competing clocks is the terminology. Which one is best, and for whom? There is no single answer to this kind of question, but readers should be well-equipped to make educated buying decisions by the end of this article. The good news is that a slew of new clocks have come to market, with options and price points to appeal to every type of chess consumer. The venerable Chronos clocks are still generally available, although they have been hard to come by in recent years, and programming them remains a challenge even for seasoned users. They don’t allow for delay time, now assumed standard, or increment (5E), and digital clocks are to be preferred to analog clocks in all cases (5F4).Įvery active tournament player should own a digital clock, but which one? Two traditionally popular manufacturers – Excalibur (Gametime II) and Saitek (Chess Competition or ‘Blue Scholastic’ clocks, Competition Pro) – have ceased production. You can find all of the details online at, but the bottom line is this: analog clocks, while still legal, are on the way out. Rule 5F deals with the ‘Standard Timer,’ enumerating the criteria by which a chess clock can be considered tournament legal. Others, like the rewriting of Rules 5E and especially 5F – passed at the 2015 Delegates Meeting and enacted on January 1st of this year – warrant closer attention. Some of these changes are minor and of little practical consequence for the majority of players. Among their many duties are the consideration of various motions, some of which deal with changes to the Official Rules of Chess. The in-text links do not go to USCF Sales but to Amazon (with the exception of the Vtek), and so prices may vary widely.Įach year the Delegates to the United States Chess Federation meet at the U.S. Note that all prices listed in the review are from as of mid July 2016. My thanks to the good folks at Chess Life for allowing me to do so. A penultimate (and unedited) version of the review is reproduced here. This essay has been printed in the 70th Anniversary (September 2016) issue of Chess Life.
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