THE WAY GRANDPA PLAYED CHESS:
TRADITIONAL TIME CONTROLS
The earliest time controls required players to make a certain number of
moves per hour or else forfeit the game. Back in the 1920's, the common
time control among master level games was fifteen moves per hour. Each
player started the game with his clock set to 11:00. He had until the clock
read 12:00 to make fifteen moves; if he failed to make his fifteenth move
by the time the clock read “12:00”, he would forfeit the game.
But “making the time control” then bought a player another hour. If the
player made his fifteen moves before his hour was up, he got another
hour added to his time. He would then have to make his 30th move before
his clock read “1:00”. (By the way, the players got to keep any extra time
and from the first hour and “carry it over”. If a player managed to bang
out fifteen moves in ten minutes, so his clock read just “11:10”, he would
then have an hour and fifty minutes to make his next fifteen moves – his
extra 50 minutes from the first hour was carried over.)
Fifteen moves an hour is a pretty stately pace, positively glacial by today's
standards. Over the years, traditional time controls gradually increased.
By the late 20th century, the common traditional time setting was forty
moves in two hours, followed by twenty moves for each hour thereafter.
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