This seems like a very useful analysis. I'm surprised that there have not been any replies.
At the moment I mostly play daily chess on chess.com, and untimed games at my local social chess meetup group. I am thinking about devoting some time to rapid games online and that's what brought me to this thread. I was curious to know which time controls were popular.
However I would not make my decision to invest my time in a particular control based only on which is the most popular. I would also want to think about what is likely to support my chess improvement long term. And also what I enjoy.
Most Popular Time Controls: Weighted Correctly
Sort:
Jan 12, 2023
0
#2
Thank you so much for this! I had an inkling that 10|0 had the most time spent, but not by this margin. I was considering a change for what format I focus on most and this helped tremendously!
Feb 15, 2023
0
#4
maximumfocus wrote:
Hello all! Today I wanted to respond to eric's article on time controls for live chess. In the article, the time controls are simply compared by number of games played, which can be unfair to slower time formats! Before I go on, here's the article I'm referencing:
https://www.chess.com/article/view/interesting-chess-data-time-controls-and-game-results
Another way to compare time formats is to multiply the number of games played by the time one player is given. For example, a 30 minute game takes 6 times longer to play than a 5 minute game, so each 30 minute game counts as 6 separate 5 minute games!
Here is a breakdown of the new most popular time formats, by time that players committed to actually play chess!
10 4,364,370.00 5 1,646,320.00 30 1,328,280.00 15 | 10 1,235,000.00 3 841,539.00 5 | 5 417,460.00 3 | 2 251,800.00 1 241,872.00 2 | 1170,787.00
Now, a couple of notes. First, I multiplied simply by the time one player has in a game, so by 30 minutes for that time control even though technically the total game length is 60 minutes. Doubling the results would be the same thing!
Second, it would be fair to point out that a lot of longer games don't take as close to the full time give as a shorter game would. In a 3 | 2 you are likely to end with tens of seconds each, while in a 30 minute game it could easily end after 15-20 minutes! So this list might be more biased towards the longer games.
Regardless, I wanted to share this ranking as I think it shows when you do a little more math, longer games are actually quite popular time investment wise!
The only way to know the true rankings would be for chess.com to release statistics on time actually played for each time control!
Please let me know your thoughts so this poor OCD soul can decide which time control is the perfect one to play!
Can you update the stats
Hello all! Today I wanted to respond to eric's article on time controls for live chess. In the article, the time controls are simply compared by number of games played, which can be unfair to slower time formats! Before I go on, here's the article I'm referencing:
https://www.chess.com/article/view/interesting-chess-data-time-controls-and-game-results
Another way to compare time formats is to multiply the number of games played by the time one player is given. For example, a 30 minute game takes 6 times longer to play than a 5 minute game, so each 30 minute game counts as 6 separate 5 minute games!
Here is a breakdown of the new most popular time formats, by time that players committed to actually play chess!
170,787.00
Now, a couple of notes. First, I multiplied simply by the time one player has in a game, so by 30 minutes for that time control even though technically the total game length is 60 minutes. Doubling the results would be the same thing!
Second, it would be fair to point out that a lot of longer games don't take as close to the full time give as a shorter game would. In a 3 | 2 you are likely to end with tens of seconds each, while in a 30 minute game it could easily end after 15-20 minutes! So this list might be more biased towards the longer games.
Regardless, I wanted to share this ranking as I think it shows when you do a little more math, longer games are actually quite popular time investment wise!
The only way to know the true rankings would be for chess.com to release statistics on time actually played for each time control!
Please let me know your thoughts so this poor OCD soul can decide which time control is the perfect one to play!