Russell Sherwood Sunday, October 31, 2021
Always have a Reserve
We have had an interesting few weeks, myself and Mrs S. Two trips to A&E (ER) and issues with high heavy metals in my blood, causing something of a backlog in many activities, and this leads me onto this week's Tip.
Always have a time reserve - In the examples above, I had 20 days or more left on the clock in all my games, which removed any worries around defaulting games. You would think this is the last thing on the mind of an ill CC player, but almost any competent Tournament Director can give examples of players who reach out from hospital!
In traditional time controls, the player can, of course, utilize the leave time within the event and this is a valid approach but my preference is to still maintain my reserve, over and above this. In Triple block, with leave time being already built into the player's allowance, it is imperative that a reserve is allocated by the player!
Why do this? I can recollect too many cases of player's who have defaulted games and then become very unhappy with the correct application of ICCF rules, these situations being completely avoidable by the application of a reserve.
What is the cost of this time reserve - If we take a fairly fast triple block event of 350 days. Each player has 175 days thinking time - if I want to use a 20 day buffer than I am saying I will make my moves in a max of 155 days - 11% less, no exactly a hindrance!
CorrespondenceChessTipoftheWeek
