Single Comment

Roberto's suggestion seems too complex to implement, and it seems too
difficult to enforce. Since it would require the cooperation of both
players, it could not be enforced simply by exacting time penalties for
noncompliance. It would be more practical to just enforce stricter time
controls that would be too hard to meet without coordinated sessions. 

But even putting aside the logistical questions of how coordinated
sessions could be enforced, enforcing them just doesn't work out well
when two players have very different schedules. Roberto and I have been
able to rapidly play games in sessions of moves, because, despite living
thousands of miles apart, it is mainly north-south distance, and we live
in the same time zone. But it would be more difficult for someone in
California and someone in eastern Europe to find the time for coordinated
sessions with each other. If we had a tournament with time controls such
as this, we would probably have to limit it to people within a certain
range of time zones.

As for the time contols used for the tournament, they were chosen to be
flexible enough for people in different parts of the world with very
different schedules who may occassionally have emergencies when they would
have to stop playing for a while. Even given this, some people dropped out
because they didn't have enough time to play.

Nevertheless, given the experience I have now had with these time
controls, I would now consider tweaking them. I might make the spare time
two weeks instead of one and reduce by half the amount of extra time and
bonus time given after each move. This would prevent reserve time from
amassing as much, as well as give players some more time for emergencies
at the beginning of rounds.