Chess Clocks

I am starting this topic because I want to discuss the various and different Chess clocks available.

There really are 2 divisions when talking about Chess clocks, analog and digital.  And the digital has a further sub-category of without delay and/or increment or with it.

I am going to discuss the analog clocks first and then, in a second post, discuss the digital clocks.

Now, it is my opinion that the wood analog clocks are the best looking of all clocks.  I would like some of the antique clock collectors to please post pictures of their favorite clock or clocks.

I personally like the Jerger that had a slight tilt back to it for easier viewing. 

The wood boxes are very aesthetic.  But the clock faces and hands along with the flag itself really can and often look very nice.  In the flag, I do like the look of the Insa clocks.

Back when I started playing chess, 1988, analog clocks were all that was used in tournament play except for the extremely rare digital clock, of course without delay or increment.  The little BHB clocks were the most used.  But some guys had Jerger and Insa clocks, and they were noticably niceer and better to look at and play a game with.

The quartz analog came along but they were pretty much all made of plastic.  I owned one but I certainly didn't like how it looked.  But then I was playing with plastic chess sets and vinyl boards only, so there was no clash of design.

Once I began getting into wood pieces and boards, the digital, delay clocks started coming on the market precluding me getting the Jerger I liked so much.

Now the digitals are all ugly, and I do mean unattractive.  They are made of plastic or wood and their displays are predominantly LCD ones with that grayish background and black numbers. 

Sure, there was a wood digital clock made, the Dual Timer, but it is no longer made and sold as new.  All others are either plastic, that is molded, or metal, aluminum. 

The analog clocks look very nice.  Look at some of those clock faces and hands and flags.

There was an attempt at marrying the delay with an analog, wood clock but that failed.

The analog is now the type of clock people get for remembrance sake and really have no good use in current tournament play, either US Chess or FIDE.  In those situations the delay or increment are demanded and the analog just can't provide that.

So, would you guys please post some pictures of your great looking analog clocks?.

The next post will have digital clock discussion.

Great topic, Eye. My Jantar...

I've had it professionally cleaned and it runs well and true.

Why don't you copy the pictures you like from clocks page at the Chess Museum?

He allows you to do that as long as you give them credit.

Here is their Jerger. It looks just like mine.

My Koopman. A real beaut. A unique minute hand useful in blitz.

From 1960. The five-year warranty expired over half a century ago.

My Hungarian MOM Export model. Funky art deco design. You take the bottom off to lube the lever. I had it professionally cleaned. Runs smoothly and true. The only pictures I have of it are from when I used it as a prop for these vingtage Lardy-manufactured Drueke-labeled pieces.

My Garde clock used as a prop with the Official Staunton Fischer set.

I also have a vintage Roland and a vintage Jerger Schachuhr I don't have pictures of yet. I'll snap a few and post them.

It's just not the same to snap to use someone else's pictures. My Jerger has chessboards printed on the clockfaces.

cgrau, I really like all the clocks you pictured.

I like the face and the printing on the Jantar.

I like that separate, red second hand on the Koopman.

And I like the MOM, or is that WOW when looking at it from above

Seriously, it like the smooth rounded look of that clock.  It would be a clock I would use a lot.

And the Garde is such a classic look.

This is what i was talking about the analogs looking so good.

That is EXACTLY why I thought the Garde Digital Turnier was the best looking digital clock on the market. The blend of old school with the new.  Had the looks of an old school Garde with digital output. They sold all they made and sold out fast so I can't see where slow sales was a problem.  Chess House couldn't keep them in stock.  

Maybe one day they will do another run of them.

I love the look of the Jerger clocks.  

According to The Chess Museum website, the company folded when the owner committed suicide.  Great collectables!

Dedicated shots of my Hungarian MOM clock...

With respects to Herr Jerger, quite sorry to hear his flag fell.

My Jerger. Love the chess board on the clock faces.

My Rolland, the smallest of my small collection.

Alright, we have seen some of the beauty of the analog Chess clock.

I guess we need to remember why we have and use Chess clocks in the first place.  Of course timers or clocks were put on games to not let them go on for really long periods of time.

In the late 1880's the flag was introduced to indicate the exact moment the time ran out.

I believe that sometime in the 1970's the first of the digital clocks were produced.  Of course I might be wrong about that, but digital clocks in Chess were not significant until the 1990's when delay and increment were introduced to tournament play.  Those first digital clocks were basically boxes with buttons on top and either an LCD or LED display, very electronic/mechanical looking, and they haven't changed much since then.

I see that DGT made and produced their first digital clock in the early 1990's.  I know that USCF came out with their first digital clock and the first that I knew existed that could use delay, in 1996.  I distinctly remember buying my first Excalibur GameTime in May of 1996.  That was when they were first available.

I want to address the looks of digital clocks first.  Because they have a digital display, they look very rectangular.  And because they are electronic in all aspects, they really don't use wood for the body or casing.  The plastic bodies of these clocks are often rounded with no real edges like the Excalibur GameTime, DGT and Omcor to name a few.  The metal bodied digital clocks are mostly all aluminum and have distinct edges making it a metal box for the body like the Zmart, Chronos and V-Tek clocks.

Like analog clocks there are different types of buttons.  There are the clocks with, well, buttons like the Excalibur, Saitek, Chronos and V-Tek clocks.  Then there are the ones with rocker arms like the DGT and Omcor clocks.  And there is the tourch sensor which you only see on digitals.

Putting it all together, the digital clocks look kind of like Radio Shack projects, especially the Chronos and V-Tek clocks.  The molded plastic clocks look kind of like a relative of R2D2 from Star Wars, still electronic and all, especially the Excalibur GameTime.

Sure, there have been some attempts at using wood with digital clocks to make them look good.  The Duel Timer and Garde tried.  But the Duel Timer looks like some steampunk device:

And the Garde just doesn't look aesthetic on the clock face:

I actually looked at the Duel Timer to buy one time, but it went out of business and my friend that owned one had problems with his not working right.

I don't know, I wish someone would come up with a design for the digital clock that actually looked nice with a wood set and board.  The current ones all look like too metallic and electronic or like the robot from Lost In Space, "Danger Will Robinson!"

I'll get into timing and clock details in my next installment.

cgrau, I love that MOM clock and of course the Jerger is wonderful.

Alright, let's go on to timing details and such of these clocks.

Of course the analogs are simple and straightforward.  You have 2 clocks sitting side by side with analog faces or displays, a circle of numbers and hands to indicate hours and minutes.  The clocks are set so that the time for the game is subtracted from six o'clock.  When the time runs out, the clock will be at 6 o'clock.

Most of the analogs have mechanical, wind-up time keeping mechanisms in each of the 2 clocks.  Some later models came out with Quartz mechanisms or movements and were electrically powered with batteries.  But these clocks still were analog with the hands showing the time. 

Time controls at the time analog clocks were used, were slower than today.  Sudden death timing was the exception and not the rule.  I remember playing in my first tournament in 1988 with a time control of 40 moves in 80 minutes and then 15 moves in 30 minutes, continuing on until the game ended.  The only time scrambles happened when players would use up too much time on their clock and get into time trouble.

Since the delay and digital clock took over, the game timing has shortened.  Now it is common and usual to only have one time control, sudden death.  Sure there's the typical 5 second delay, but in 60 moves that only adds 5 minutes of playing time for the player.  For instance there is a tournament here in Peoria today, I'm working on eyes today, with the time control of G/80, d/5.  It was this same tournament in 1989 that had time controls, with analog of course, of 40 moves in 80 minutes and then 15 moves in 30 minutes, repeating until done.  So now a 60 move game will give the player 85 minutes of total thinking time.  Where in 1989 the same 60 move game would have had one player having 110 minutes to use on his clock, in total.  The times, they are a-changin'.

The digitals give the feeling of a much more accurate time keeping.  That is not always necessarily true though.  If the digital timing mechanism is off, there is no way to adjust or correct it.  With the analogs, even the Quartz models, there is a little slider switch that allows fine tune adjustments of how fast or slow the clock runs.  But the digitals show the time down to the second and sometimes 10ths of a second.  This gives people the feeling that the digital has to be accurate.  Well, I have a friend that actually checked a digital clock that comes from the Netherlands...d...g...t...and found it off by almost a full minute after 90 minutes.

Of course these digitals can be set for multiple time controls and keep track of the number of moves, something that cannot be done with any analog.

And because of the delay and increment timing in tournament games, the digitals are now necessary for anyone that wants to play tournament Chess and not have a disadvantage that the analog would have without the delay or increment option.  I'm saying we tournament players are actually forced to use digital clocks and cannot use analog clocks.

As I pointed out in an earlier post, these digitals definitely do not look as nice as the better analogs of yesteryear.  I also do not see any company or manufacturer feeling the need to make a better looking digital though.  DGT has kept the same basic clock design since their first one in the early 1990's, that rounded edge plastic with the rectangular display and rocker arm buttons.  Chronos, Zmart and now V-Tek have shown no desire to make their clocks look better than any Radio Shack project.  No, they all seem content to have their products look metallic, plastic and more robotic or mechanical.

So, the differences of the digital clocks comes down to timing, setting, using and seeing the timing.  We get down to how easy it is or is not to set the clock.  We look at how many timing options we can have and save as presets, which brings us back to setting the thing. 

We look at the button action whether it is a true button, rocker arm or touch sensor and how it "feels" when we use the clock. 

We look at if we can tell from a distance who is on the move.  Some clocks have LED indicators, while others have the buttons or rocker arms look different when it is time for them to move or not. 

We look at the display to see if we can read the numbers quickly and easily.  We also look to see what information is shown on the display at any given time.

And we look at the reliability of build of the clock.  Will the thing stand up to tournament play or will it fall apart?  And we have seen some clocks fall apart.

I'm sorry to say that the best digital clocks available today don't look good at a wood board with wood pieces.  FrankHelwig shows a Chronos II sitting next to his sets and boards that he has pictured for us over the months.  That clock is sleek and smooth in profile, but is doesn't look as cool at the MOM clock cgrau has pictured above.

Now, understand that I own only digital clocks and have sold all my analogs.  The reason is that I am a Chess player first and foremost.  I have no use for an analog clock to keep time in my Chess games, any of them.

It sure would be nice if someone would come out with a wood, digital clock that looks kind of like a Jerger or the Koopman or MOM clocks of cgrau.

I played with an analog clock up til 2013, when every opponent refused to play with it and their digital one was used instead. I haven't bought a digital one yet but will probably opt for a cheaper DGT NA this year. I love analog clocks, just the faint ticking sound alone is nice. I always accept playing with an analog clock in both casual or tournament play. Easy to set, actually has a falling flag, and I'd agree they look nice too. I'd compromise with an analog clock with digital face if they were more readily available.

Oh and about clock time, if you have an analog clock you add the time directly at the beginning, such as 5 minutes for a delay 5. Since most tournament games I've played last well under 60 moves you actually get more time on the clock using an analog most times! Which is a big deal if you are playing for example a G45/d5. 

Im done rambling now. 

This is my favorite type of clock: