Time for Boards
I've just had someone complain that they should be allowed longer per board in a county event than for a normal club event (and presumeably even more in national events?)
Thoughts?
I allowed 25 minutes for 4 boards, but I'm not strict about it. It's a guide, and most peope meet it. It's designed to encourage people not to faff about and have long post mortems (as opposed to rushing the bidding and play).
Comments
I don't think that is valid. The timing for, say, a F2F EBU national event is no different to club events in principle i.e. around 15 minutes a two board round. The only time you get longer is for those events played behind screens. 25 minutes for 4 boards is quite minimal. I would have expected about 27/28.
Pretty much all the events that I play for which the "catchment area" covers the whole of England (e.g. EBU events, and county events which see a lot of out-of-county participation) have a time limit of 7 minutes per board, so I think that's what people will naturally have come to "expect" for county and national events.
WB 8.81.4.1 suggests 15-16 minutes for a 2-board round, but less per board when the rounds are longer. (Presumably those numbers are designed for face-to-face play – online, the cost of moving to a new table is lower, so there's a smaller reduction for having long rounds, although there will still be some per-round delay separate from the per-board delay as the players greet each other and familiarise themselves with each others' systems.) Even fairly long rounds seem not to go beneath 7 minutes per board in practice, though (e.g. the Swisses I played in typically give 49 minutes for a 7-board round or 56 minutes for an 8-board round).