Chess time controls: how they are written and which to choose

The standard form is minutes + seconds: the first number is the time each player gets for the whole game, the second is what is added after every move made.

• 5+3. Five minutes each, plus three seconds per move.
• 15+10. Fifteen minutes plus ten seconds - the most common amateur rapid control.
• 10+0. Ten minutes and no addition at all.
• 90+30. Ninety minutes plus thirty seconds - a standard classical control.

Longer classical events sometimes use a two-stage form - a first allowance for a set number of moves, then extra time added once that number is reached. It appears at serious events and almost never at amateur ones.

The boundaries are calculated from the total time available for the whole game, counting the increment over an assumed sixty moves - so 3+2 is blitz even though the increment adds up. Bullet, anything under three minutes, is not a separate official category and is treated as blitz - blitz rules, rapid rules.

Two different ways of adding time, and clocks support both. The difference matters in a scramble.

For an amateur event, use an increment. It removes most of the unpleasantness at the end of games: no scrambles, no arguments about knocked pieces, and endgames stay playable rather than being decided by hand speed.

One rule that overrides the table: for a mixed-strength field, longer is better. In blitz a beginner loses in thirty seconds and does not come back; with fifteen minutes they at least play a game - looking after first-timers.

The most useful arithmetic an organizer can do, and the one most often skipped:

Two consequences worth acting on:

• Decide the finishing time first, then the control. Not the other way round: «we finish at ten» and «seven rounds of 15+10» cannot both be true.
• Add slack. Real events run slower than the arithmetic: people arrive late, games finish unevenly, rounds start a few minutes behind.

Announce the control and the expected finishing time in the listing. People plan their evenings, and an event that overruns by an hour loses the ones with a train to catch - schedule and breaks.

• Digital clocks. Mechanical clocks cannot add time at all - with them the only option is sudden death.
• Clocks set before the round, not during it. Setting twenty clocks while players wait is how evenings lose half an hour.
• The same setting on every board. Obvious, and still the commonest equipment error at club events.
• Spare batteries. The most frequent minor failure at any tournament - and what else to keep in reserve.

If clocks are short, an increment is still worth having on the boards that have them: the top boards are where a scramble does the most damage - using phones as clocks.