Adjourned CFC games?

Is it still possible to adjourn CFC rated games?

I have decided that the games at our regular Friday night advanced class at Sobeys in the Tecumseh Mall will be CFC rated. The kids and parents prefer regular rated games and longer games vs. shorter. Normally we have a chess lecture at 6:30 until 7:00 pm and play a game with a time control of game in 30 plus a 15 second increment starting at 7:00 pm. The games are already played under CFC rules requiring recording of the moves and this will continue to be the case. After the game, we analyze the games with the children. We will change this format slightly and start at 6:00 pm with the lecture and start the game at 6:30. The time control will increase to game in 45 minutes plus a 30 second increment which should be a long enough time control for a regular CFC rating. A sixty move game might run to two and a half hours under this scenario. Most games will finish by nine o' clock and depending on the age of the child we should still be able to do an analysis with most of the children that finish early. Most of the kids also have chess coaches so if the game finishes too late for us to analyze the game then they should still be able to have their coaches analyze the games with them later.

If the games last long after 9 pm we will probably go to an adjournment. Some of the kids stay up later and we might let the games go to as late as ten o'clock but we have to be aware that the room where we play along with the store closes sometime so we can't be having games that go much past 10 pm or so. There was a FIDE event that featured adjournments as recently as last year. I am familiar with what the rules for adjournments was when they were more common. Is there any problem to use them now in CFC events?

Most of the kids have a 200 to 500 point gap between their CFC and USCF ratings. Most of the kids play more games in the U.S. than Canada because we live on the border of Detroit and no one has stepped into the gap since Denton Cockburn left Windsor and there was not very many CFC events organized and their ratings are seriously lagging their playing strength. John Coleman has tried running CFC tournaments but few adults participate. I am hoping that by CFC rating these games we will be able to start closing the gap between the two rating systems thanks to the recently introduced bonus point system. Even with the "inflated" USCF ratings relative to CFC the Michigan Class Championship saw about a dozen of our kids participate with three of them with established ratings gaining on the order of 100 rating points. Some provisionally rated players gained even more.

The question was answered on the Chesstalk board. Thanks!

I missed or forgot the answer given on chesstalk (i.e. is it still possible to adjourn CFC rated games?), but it seems to me that at least FIDE has long given up allowing the practice for their rated events (at least high-level ones, if not all of them). That is, with modern digital clocks, faster time controls and the possibility of engine or tablebase analysis all being factors, I assume.

In a way it's a pity that at least FIDE no longer seems to permit adjournments, as parts of old chess literature that deal with adjournment analysis advice and anecdotes go to waste, but on the other hand I always felt in the back of my mind that a player analyzing on his own by moving the pieces, or receiving outside help, whether from people, books or machines, during an adjournment interval, seemed like a form of legalized cheating, in light of the impermissibility of receiving such aid at other times during a game.

FIDE did move this subject from the Laws of chess to Guidelines A. This shows that adjournment has practically disappeared from FIDE high-level tournament.

Guidelines I. Adjourned games

I.1.1


If a game is not finished at the end of the time prescribed for play, the arbiter shall require the player having the move to ‘seal’ that move. The player must write his move in unambiguous notation on his scoresheet, put his scoresheet and that of his opponent in an envelope, seal the envelope and only then stop the chessclock. Until he has stopped the chessclock the player retains the right to change his sealed move. If, after being told by the arbiter to seal his move, the player makes a move on the chessboard he must write that same move on his scoresheet as his sealed move.