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45+45 is a bad time control

Mennonite, In the phrase "professional competition right up to world championship level where games commonly exceed 5h in duration" I was referring to professional competitions and not the 4545 league. Eg current FIDE candidates has already had several games of that length and they only use 30s increment.

Galfrid, that's fine if you have unlimited time and want to play. For the purposes of compromise and practicality, I normally arrange to play even if I only have about 3h or so of time to spare. If I had to allocate 5h or even 4h (which is only 100 moves under 4545 time controls) it would be much harder to find a suitable time. I've not yet reached the point of resigning due to over-run but I've certainly got the point of thinking about once or twice.

Mennonite, In the phrase "professional competition right up to world championship level where games commonly exceed 5h in duration" I was referring to professional competitions and not the 4545 league. Eg current FIDE candidates has already had several games of that length and they only use 30s increment. Galfrid, that's fine if you have unlimited time and want to play. For the purposes of compromise and practicality, I normally arrange to play even if I only have about 3h or so of time to spare. If I had to allocate 5h or even 4h (which is only 100 moves under 4545 time controls) it would be much harder to find a suitable time. I've not yet reached the point of resigning due to over-run but I've certainly got the point of thinking about once or twice.

Not convinced. I haven't seen many complaints in the 4545 league about excessive game times, so whilst 45+45 is a bad time control for you, I don't see that you have demonstrated that "it is a bad time control" per se. I did see one person once arguing for 60+30 instead, which whilst having the pro of curtailing the game times of eg the 100 move plus games, has the rather significant con of increasing the times for all the huge number of games of up to 60 moves.

You say it is likely that players will terminate long games unnaturally, and that you are sure this must have happened more frequently in the 4545 league than the two games in the database that actually did go past 150 moves/5h. What's your evidence and how many games are we talking about (as a percentage of total games in 4545 history)?

Contrary to what you say in this discussion, I don't at all see why a 45+30 TC (discussed above) is less optimal than a 2:1 or 3:1 ratio. I would like to see 45+30 and also 60+30 TCs added to the graph.

I would prefer to see the lines on the graph as single straight lines, and had to do a double take at the multiple inflexion points; but I see you have used a non-linear x-axis with a line plot rather than x-y plot, in which case the lines should actually be curved rather than point to point straight lines on that axis I believe.

Finally, let's not equate theoretical max game time (clock time) to actual game time, as opponents often play at significantly different paces.

In summary, to make a compelling argument to back up the title of this blog, you need to give some actual statistics of the percentage of games in the 4545 league that do actually exceed certain key thresholds (eg 3, 3:30, 4, 4:30, 5h) and then demonstrate why this is a problem to the wider 4545 community.

Not convinced. I haven't seen many complaints in the 4545 league about excessive game times, so whilst 45+45 is a bad time control for you, I don't see that you have demonstrated that "it is a bad time control" per se. I did see one person once arguing for 60+30 instead, which whilst having the pro of curtailing the game times of eg the 100 move plus games, has the rather significant con of increasing the times for *all* the huge number of games of up to 60 moves. You say it is likely that players will terminate long games unnaturally, and that you are sure this must have happened more frequently in the 4545 league than the two games in the database that actually did go past 150 moves/5h. What's your evidence and how many games are we talking about (as a percentage of total games in 4545 history)? Contrary to what you say in this discussion, I don't at all see why a 45+30 TC (discussed above) is less optimal than a 2:1 or 3:1 ratio. I would like to see 45+30 and also 60+30 TCs added to the graph. I would prefer to see the lines on the graph as single straight lines, and had to do a double take at the multiple inflexion points; but I see you have used a non-linear x-axis with a line plot rather than x-y plot, in which case the lines should actually be curved rather than point to point straight lines on that axis I believe. Finally, let's not equate theoretical max game time (clock time) to actual game time, as opponents often play at significantly different paces. In summary, to make a compelling argument to back up the title of this blog, you need to give some actual statistics of the percentage of games in the 4545 league that do actually exceed certain key thresholds (eg 3, 3:30, 4, 4:30, 5h) and then demonstrate why this is a problem to the wider 4545 community.

I have had experience playing both 45/45 and 60/20 games, and I can say the time cushion provided by the former made its games less stressful clockwise.

So personally, I don't think 45/45 is a bad (intense wording, by the way!) time control.

I have had experience playing both 45/45 and 60/20 games, and I can say the time cushion provided by the former made its games less stressful clockwise. So personally, I don't think 45/45 is a bad (intense wording, by the way!) time control.