The club has reached a final decision (hopefully‽) regarding incremental time controls. For our Spring Swiss, starting on Monday March 28, we are going to divide into three sections:

• premier section (minimum rating of 1900) that will play G/90+30s (game in 90 minutes with a 30-second increment) which allows the section to be FIDE-rated
• reserve A section (minimum rating of 1600) that will continue to play G/90 SD (game in 90 minutes, sudden death)
• reserve B section (under 1600 and unrated players) that will also continue to play G/90 SD (game in 90 minutes, sudden death)

Games in all sections would start at 7:30 pm. This allows us to continue to offer lectures, to maintain the same tournament start time for those who cannot come earlier, to give our strong players the option to play FIDE-rated games (which IA David Cohen has volunteered to coordinate), and to offer to most of our members a game guaranteed to end at 10:30. It is a school night, after all!

We can always change our policy in the future, but this is what we’re hoping to try for the next tournament. Thank you to all for your helpful feedback comments! Please continue to let us know how this works for you as we go forward.