MARK RUBERY CHESS
The flag on a chess clock was introduced in 1899 as up till then it was difficult to decide precisely when one’s time had elapsed. In modern times the standard time control during International events was 40 moves in 2.5 hours although the flag was a cause of controversy when players were left to make many moves with scant time available.
The introduction and acceptance of Digital clocks today was spurred by former world champion Bobby Fischer, who in 1988 filed for U.S. Patent 4,884,255 for a new type of chess clock. Fischer’s digital clock gave each player a fixed period of time at the start of the game and then added a small amount after each move. In this way, the players would never be desperately short of time. Fischer’s time control feature was employed initially in 2004 and is now used in all top-level classical tournaments.
The cruelty of being in time pressure in days before we went digital was never more graphically illustrated than in the following position from the 1973 Petropolis Interzonal between Reshevsky and Savon.
Having been in desperate time trouble Reshevsky arrived at the 40th move with only a few seconds left to make the final move of the time control. Instead of mating his opponent in three moves the veteran American GM thought there was a mate in one as the existence of the black bishop on b1 had slipped his mind.
40.Qxg6+?? (40 g5+ Kxg5 {…Bxg5 41 Qg7#} 41 h4+ Kxh4 42 Qf4# was how the game should have ended) …Bxg6 0–1
The prolific American tournament organizer, Burt Hochberg, gave the following compelling eyewitness account of the incident:
‘Werner Hug, the Swiss international master, came tearing into the room like a bull elephant, yelling “Reshevsky blundered! My God, what a blunder! He had a mate and sacrificed his queen!…” a few minutes later, Reshevsky was pacing the press room looking absolutely distraught. In that atmosphere of general excitement at the approaching end of the tournament, Reshevsky stood alone-God only knows what was in his mind. No one had dared speak to him. Savon, looking sheepish, followed his compatriots around as they examined the other positions on the demonstration boards. No one was speaking to him either; he looked like a little boy who had done something bad and was sure to be punished later, but for the moment was on his best behaviour.’