Chess

THE DIGITAL chess clock (US Patent Number 4,884,255; inventor, Robert J Fischer) will, according to reports from Belgrade, be used in the Fischer- Spassky rematch, scheduled to begin on 2 September.

According to the patent document, the present timing system is bad: 'For instance, selecting 40 moves to be completed in the primary period of two hours means that each player has two hours to complete his 40 moves.'

Nobody had seen that as a problem, but Fischer points out that 'the result is often a mad time scramble to complete move 40 before the two-hour period runs out.' And time scrambles cause blunders. 'There are many people . . . who feel that one's ability to budget time should not be such a decisive factor in deciding who wins and loses competitive chess games.'

The Bobby Fischer Chess Clock ingeniously dispenses with conventional controls: each player starts with a time allocation, which increases whenever a move is made. In the forthcoming match, each will begin with 90 minutes, with two minutes added every move. You can never be in real time-trouble, because you always have at least two minutes, by virtue of having played the previous move. 'Various alarms' also warn a player when his time is running out.

An appropriately bizarre problem to finish. This position is reached after 1. e4 e6 2. Ke2 Nc6 3. Kf3 Qf6+ 4. Ke4. Now it's Black to play and mate in four. (Solution tomorrow.)