Fischer Timing
Definition
Fischer Timing is a time system named after Bobby Fischer. It includes the following rules:
- one gets an amount of time (say, 5 minutes),
- time used for each move is deducted,
- and an extra amount of time (say, 15 seconds) is added after each move.
- Or is it before each move, as wikipedia would have it? See discussion.
Remarks
Players' remaining time
- grows as long as they use less than the post-move increment
- and declines when they use more -- on average.
- is always at least the incremental amount for each move
The Players' overall time limit is linearly dependent on the number of moves (e.g. you can tell that a 300 move game with 30 min + 30 sec/move will last for a maximum of 210 min).
There is no spilling of unused time.
There are no periods. All you have to watch is the time.
Example
5 minutes plus 30 seconds bonus.
# Time Used ------------------ 1 5:00 1:00 2 4:30 1:20 3 3:40 2:40 4 1:30 0:10 5 1:50 0:20 6 2:00 0:30 7 2:00 2:00 8 0:00 lost
If it were only one second less in step 7, life would continue with 0:31 on the clock.
Fisher Timing and EGF tournament class
The EGF allows Fischer Timing for tournaments since October 2010. To decide in which EGF tournament class the tournament belongs, the adjusted time (TA) is calculated as follows:
- basic time (in minutes) + 120 x bonus time (in minutes)
or what is simpler to calculate: - basic time (in minutes) + 2 x bonus time (in seconds)
At the moment the minimum requirements for Fisher Timing are:
- Class A: minimum basic time 45 minutes, minimum adjusted time 75 minutes (e.g.: 45 minutes + 15 sec per move)
- Class B: minimum basic time 30 minutes, minimum adjusted time 50 minutes (e.g.: 30 minutes + 10 sec per move)
- Class C: minimum basic time 20 minutes, minimum adjusted time 30 minutes (e.g.: 20 minutes + 5 sec per move)
See also: http://europeangodatabase.eu/EGD/EGF_rating_system.php under Tournament classes.
Example tournaments where Fischer Timing was used:
- Princeton-Rutgers 1st inter-collegiate match, (April 2009 | AGA E-Journal, Volume 10, #14)
- 30 min reserve and 15 seconds per move
See also:
- Bronstein Timing if you don't like times to grow
- Total Average Timing for a generalization
- Capped Fischer Timing if you want a limit on the total time accumulated