Speed-up Time Controls .. (6 months for one game..ugh)

( i am too often guilty of procrastination.. i need stricter limits.. how about any of you ?)


I think quite a bit of improvement to speed up games can be achieved with some imaginative new time controls.
Already in the chess world there are many types of timing in use.

Many good level games can be 20 or 30 gamedays. Clearly with aet of 6 days (nearly a week) then we can expect a single game sometimes to last 6 months or a year !

One can imagine for many fans of AW this can be a bit excessive and people may not have 6 months to dedicate to only one battle. With exams and work, well this may be worth looking for alternatives.

To try to finish a game within a month we could try the following :
First, Get rid of boot and aet and just have a simple limit that is very clearly shown on your turn page for each game icon. (at present game needs opening to see info)
Then, Each player has  say an accumulate of say 5 real-days. after each turn the player gets 1 days grace plus an extra day. So he gets 2 days before the accumulate starts being used up. If the player moves quickly he keeps one extra day which is added to the accumulate.
I think this is like a combined bronski fisher time control.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_control

Afterthought...
Perhaps by special request player could ask for more time if they give a reason which could eg. be holiday and complex game or exam.. etc.

Well  this is just a first guess approximation.  The details would need some debate.  
Also I think we should be debating more the difficulties of the present timing system.
Clearly for some people it may not be a problem , but we should hear a variety of viewpoints before dismissing the idea .
Chess clocks allow a variety , theres no technical problem of course,, just a bit of programming.

I agree that it would be interesting to implement something like this. On the contrary, I also think it would be helpful to have the "limit" not be set in stone. For example, some of the different games I've tried while AWBW was down give you a limit, but don't boot you when you exceed the limit. Instead, once you've exceeded the limit for a turn (usually 1 or 3 days) other players have the option to vote for skipping or booting you.

This way, there is pressure to keep you moving fast (1-3 days/turn) but if you have a longer leave of absence coming up, you can warn via comments/messages and most people are pretty forgiving. I know this was the case with me- I know very few people on the site and yet all of the players I was involved in a game with were gracious enough to allow me a week and a half leave while I prepared for and participated in my wedding, followed by my honeymoon. Nobody wants to boot you because it ruins the game, but if you're a repeat offender, they have the option which saves them the rank points in ranked matches. Similar would be the case in AWBW league matches- you don't have to boot the opponent if you want a fun, fair battle, but if they never take their turn on time, you can boot them and still get the win without set draw or resign.

I personally like that system a lot. Especially with the option to either AET or boot the player. You get AET as a warning/light penalty and a boot as a heavy penalty. Makes multiplayer matches much more realistically completable.