Rapid Arenas with Increment #19050
Description
After reading this discussion about having sporadic rapid arenas with increment, I noticed that I would be able to help with the code needed to achieve this proposal, since I have already read about how the scheduler works. However, I do not know for sure if this would be of interest.
According to this old comment by @ornicar, having arenas with increment has some drawbacks, but at the same time, it might be okay to have more increment arenas. I do not know what his current opinion is.
Currently, we have the following Rapid Arenas on normal days, all 10+0:
- 00:00 UTC - hourly
- 02:00 UTC - hourly
- 04:00 UTC - hourly
- 06:00 UTC - opening thematic
- 08:00 UTC - hourly
- 10:00 UTC - hourly
- 12:00 UTC - hourly
- 14:00 UTC - opening thematic
- 16:00 UTC - hourly
- 19:00 UTC - daily
- 22:00 UTC - opening thematic
A conservative change proposal would be to change a single hourly arena to a time control with increment.
Currently, the code contains logic that changes the 5+0 arenas to 3+2 four times a day (see here and here), although only two of those four really happen (the other two are replaced by the Daily and Eastern Blitz Arenas).
- 01:00 UTC - indeed becomes a 3+2
- 07:00 UTC - skipped due to the Eastern Blitz Arena (5+0) that starts at 06:00 UTC
- 13:00 UTC - indeed becomes a 3+2 (but opening thematic)
- 19:00 UTC - skipped due to the Daily Blitz Arena (5+0) that starts at 18:00 UTC
Similar logic could be used to change one of the 10+0 rapid arenas to 8+2 (or another increment time control).
Note that although there are no +2 or +1 Rapid time controls available for quick pairing Rapid games, 7+2 is being used for official Lichess Swiss tournaments.