What is ‘Increment’? ‘Delay’? ‘Flagging’? A list of time-related words in chess.
Any official chess game will have a time control, meaning how long the players are given in thinking time for the game. The purpose of this, counted by a chess clock that only counts down on a player’s turn, is so that a game does not go on forever: if you run out of time, you lose the game (with rare exceptions). The usual range of time controls in chess run from one minute to north of two hours each. Lichess, for example, uses the following breakdown per player, based on a 40-move game:
- Bullet: less than 3 minutes
- Blitz: 3 to 8 minutes
- Rapid: 8 to 25 minutes
- Classical: 25 minutes or more
They also include Ultrabullet for less than 30 seconds! FIDE has its own definitions, and other organizations can too. It’s easy to understand the terminology intuitively, and that formal tournaments tend to be slower to allow enough time for the players to make good moves. That can also include adding time after move 40; sometimes players will be given 90 minutes to make their first 40 moves, and if they do so successfully, they are given an additional 30 minutes to help with the rest of the game.
Non-live games can be played under the name correspondence chess, which used to be played by mailing individual moves at a time to each other, then known as “postal chess”! Now it is primarily online, with a day or three given for each move.
For live, and especially for over-the-board (OTB) tournaments, we also get some extra words that you’ll want to know.
Increment: The most common form of bonus time, added to a player’s clock for every move they make. Thus “90+30” or “90 | 30” means the players have 90 minutes on their clock to start the game, and will automatically receive an extra 30 seconds increment after every move. Likewise, “3+2” means starting with three minutes, and adding two seconds per move. This is how a player may have more time on the clock than they started with, if their first moves take less time than the increment.
Simple Delay: The clock does not start counting down for a set amount of time. For example, “25 minutes with a 10 second delay” means the clock would wait 10 seconds on each turn before starting to count down, and if a move is made within the 10 seconds, the player will not lose any time.
Bronstein Delay: Slightly different than Simple Delay. The clock will start counting down immediately, but will add up to a specified amount of time after the move, and no more than the time taken. A 10 second Bronstein Delay would add 3 seconds if the move took 3 seconds, add 8 seconds if the move took 8 seconds, and add 10 seconds if the move took 10 seconds or more.
Here are some other clock-related terms:
Flagging: Once upon a time, physical, analog chess clocks had little flags that indicated when a player had run out of time. If they overstepped the limit, the flag ‘fell’, having slowly been lifted towards the top by the minute hand, and signalled the end of the game. We’ve continued to use the term “flagged” to mean “ran out of time”, or sometimes aggressively where “flagging your opponent” means “played fast and forced the opponent to run out of time”.
Time pressure: When a player gets low on time, also known as time trouble. The fear of running out of time adds a lot of pressure, and frequently leads to blunders.
Time odds: When a players willingly starts with less time on the clock, for example two minutes against five minutes, used as a means of levelling the playing field. Similar to material odds, where for example “rook odds” as White would mean playing without the rook on a1. This also applies in Armageddon, to balance out the chances when White needs to win, and Black ‘wins’ by drawing as well as winning.
Premove: Inputting a move in online chess while it is the opponent’s turn. The benefit is that, assuming it is a legal move, you will not use any time on the clock (Lichess) or 0.1 seconds (chess.com). The risk is that your opponent may make a move you don’t expect, so it is usually only done in bullet chess or when under time pressure.
Resign on time: Allowing the clock to run out rather than formally resigning. Not necessarily done out of bad sportsmanship, as with a few seconds left it can be easier than conceding a tough defeat!
