BrainKing

Author: BIG BAD WOLF

A couple times a month I see a new question about a game timing out, and users who don’t quite understand how some of the time limits for games work on BrainKing. Well hopefully this will help out.

There are 2 types of time controls on BrainKing. Time per move & Time per game. (Time per move has 3 options). I will go over each control & option, and also explain the time per game (also called Fischer’s clock) a little more in detail – hopeful it can help some users out.

Time per move: X days, X hours. This is the original time control, and pretty easy to understand. Once your opponent makes their move, and the game is again waiting for your move – you have X days, and X hours to make a move. For the Time per move option, you have 3 sub-options:

1. Standard Vacation: And weekend days or vacation days you have set (along with auto-vacation) will extend the time of these games. So for example - 5 days, 5 hours is set. When the game shows up in your game sheet, it shows 7 days, 5 hours – because in this example, both “weekend days” are within the first 5 days so the game is actually extended for those 2 extra days.
   
   
2. Fixed weekend only: NO VACATION DAYS. Plus no matter what “weekend days” you have set in your profile, only 2 extra days for Saturday & Sunday are accepted. Plus what some people forget, no mater if you have vacation days set or are using auto-vacation days, fixed weekend only games will time out over vacation. On your game sheet, you can find these games quickly because they will have a green dot next to them.
   
   
3. No days off: This is pretty self explanatory – No vacation days, and No weekend days. If the time limit says 1 day, the game will time out in 1 day. No matter if you have vacation days set, or it falls on one of your “weekend” days. On your game sheet, you can find some of these games quickly because they will have a red dot next to them. (note: a red dot is next to the Fischer’s clock games also)
   

Time for game: This is the newest time control option for games. This is also called “Fischer’s Clock”. This is the control which confuses a lot of people, so I will spend a little extra time on this option. First thing to know is that there is NO VACATION DAYS and no weekend days for this time control. Like the “no days off” time option above, you can also find this quickly in your game sheet with a red dot next the time.

Controls look like: (example #1) Time: 7 days, Bonus: 1 day, Limit: 8 days

On tournament sheet, it will look like: 7/1/8

Time: 7 days – this is the amount of time you get to play the game.
Bonus: 1 day – this is the amount of time that gets added to the clock after every move
Limit: 8 days – this is the maximum amount of time the game can have.

So lets go through an example. 7/1/8

• Game starts, your turn. For sake of example (and to keep example in whole numbers instead of using minutes), lets say it took you ZERO amount of time to make your first move and submit it.
  
• Current time: 7 days
  
• Your opponent makes their move, and sends it back to you. On every move, the bonus amount of time is added to the time. So 7 days PLUS 1 day bonus – you now have 8 days to make a move before timing out.
  
• Current time: 8 days
  
• Again, for sake of this example, lets say it took you ZERO amount of time to make your next move and submit it.
  
• Current time: 8 days
  
• Your opponent makes their move, and sends it back to you. On every move, the bonus amount of time is added to the time. So 8 days PLUS 1 day bonus = 9 days. BUT the MAX amount of time is set to 8, so the time is automatically adjusted down to the max amount of 8 days.
  
• Current time: 8 days
  
• You lost your internet connection, and it took you 7 days, 12 hours to make your next move.
  
• Current time: 12 hours
  
• Your opponent makes their move, and sends it back to you. On every move, the bonus amount of time is added to the time. So 12 hours PLUS 1 day bonus = 1 day, 12 hours.
  Current time: 1 day, 12 hours.
  

OK, new example:
Time: 7 days
Bonus: 0 (nothing!)
Limit: 7 days

THIS IS THE EXAMPLE WHICH MESSES MOST PEOPLE UP. The important thing to see here is the Bonus time. Most people quickly see the 7 day time, and think they will have plenty of time to make moves.

• Example (7/0/7)
  
• Current time: 7 days
  
• Game starts, it takes you 6 days, 23 hours to make your first move.
  
• Current time: 1 hour
  
• Your opponent makes their move, and sends it back to you. On every move, the bonus amount of time is added to the time. So 1 hours PLUS 0 bonus = 1 hour.
  
• Current time: 1 hour
  
• Well you are off-line, and the game times out. Opps.
  

So be careful when you sign up for fischer’s clock games. The most important thing is the BONUS time. (middle number) Since the bonus will always be added to the time left, you will always know that you will at least have this much time left in a game. If you sign on every day, then a bonus of 1 day will always make sure the games will have 1 day when they are sent to you. Also again, no vacation days.