@Ugalde I wanna remove 30+0, because it's extremely silly conceptually to invest an hour into a game, and then proceed to flag in a position where you are a rook up.
There is a reason why the vast majority of OTB tournaments nowadays are played with Increment (.. or Delay) - it's just superior.
None of 15+15, 20+10, or 20+15 are really much shorter than 30+0, despite what you may believe due to the much longer basetime of the latter. Increment adds up quickly.
As I detailed in the starting post, you end at 1800s total thinking time (30 minutes) in..
- 15+15: 60 moves (900s + 15x60)
- 20+10: 60 moves (1200s + 10x60)
- 20+15: 40 moves (1200s + 15x40)
In every game that takes longer than these, (so eg a 46 move long 20+15 game), 30+0 is passed (1200 + 15x46 is 1890, so you're already at 31:30 thinking time).
Of course the spread is a bit different, as you can't think for 25 minutes on move 5 in 20+15 (which you can do in 30+0), but that's something you shouldn't be doing in the first place.
Overall, if you look at your avg movecount/game, while excluding the extremely fast wins/losses (if the game ends by move 20, you're unlikely to be in huge timetrouble no matter the TC, so those games aren't very relevant), you should probably have somewhere in the ballpark of 45-55 moves, with most ending around move 40, and the odd one taking much longer (70+).
45 moves would make 30+0 shorter than 20+15, and 2.5 minutes (not the most crucial, generally) longer than 20+10; but the "odd one" is comparably unplayable in 30+0 (risking that you have to start premove mouseraces, making the last 15 moves in 1 minute).
Now, playing without Increment also has some advantages. The two main ones are
- It's thrilling! Premoving, Mouseracing, Flagging, and surprising tactics that pop up in massive timetrouble are quite fun.
However, these 'thrills' are better kept for TCs where they fit (Blitz, Bullet). Already in Rapid they're out of place, I can't imagine many Classical players going "I really need tge mouseracing, else it's no fun")
- You know how long a game will take, before you start it. 30+0 will take at most one hour (both using up their time fully). So, if you have an hour, you can play it. Simple stuff. 20+15, meanwhile may take much longer. If you get an 80 move game, suddenly the game can take up to 80 minutes. That makes it harder to plan whether you are able to fit a game in.
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Thus, the question essentially boils down to whether it's more important to you..
- .. to know, ahead of the game, how long it will maximally take ("I have 60 mins, I'm good"), or
- .. to be able to (halfway-) properly play out endgames, & not turn Classical into a flagrace
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Which of these two points is actually more important to the players, I don't know. That's what this thread is for.
My personal take is that Classical without Increment is pretty much garbage & stuff like 'making anti-premoves while down a Rook' does not fit the spirit of the category at all, but I'm not playing in the pool, so I'm not too concerned what 'the actual community' ends up deciding. I just made this thread to give you guys a discussion platform :-)
