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Tight time controls. I anticipate having time trouble [of course, I am one of the slowest players] but such is life. To be perfectly clear, we get 2 weeks of slush time, and have 12 hours to make our moves before dipping into our 2 weeks, but we get no extra time for making a move - is this right?

And now for a request. Might I ask the indulgence of people commenting on the games they're playing? I for one am interested in improving my designs, so I am always willing to listen, and, like now, actively solicit comments on my designs, good, bad or indifferent. 

Enjoy.

Joe, if each player takes 24 hours after his opponent moves to make a move, then the game will proceed at the pace of one full turn every two days, and spare time will run out in eight weeks. If you move once every day, which is the target pace, the worst case scenario is that your opponent always moves right after you while you move 24 hours after him. This would use up your spare time in about four weeks. In the best case scenario, the game could be kept going at the same pace without any cost of spare time if you both moved 12 hours apart. In the most likely scenario, you will use up less than 12 hours per day while keeping the game going at the pace of one move per day. 
An average of six hours per day would use up your spare time in eight weeks, which is the target time for a game to end, but even after spare time ends, grace time can be used to keep a game going.

Lol, Fergus, I am often known to take 12 to 24 days to make a move. My typical game plays with a grace time of 3 weeks and no other time at all. 

I'm not complaining, mind you. But I'm going to have to work to keep from giving free games to my opponents. Actually, I'm sure part of the motivation for the tight time controls was the extreme slowness of some of the games in the previous tournaments. And I have to admit my game with David Paulowich was the final one, and it may well have lasted 3 months past the ending of the other games.

'Lol, Fergus, I am often known to take 12 to 24 days to make a move. My typical game
plays with a grace time of 3 weeks and no other time at all.'

I can make a move several months. But this tournament is not for such games. So, you must make moves quicker than usually.

Fergus,

Please use my rated account for these games: nickwolffrated.  Thanks!

The time controls should meet these goals:

(1) A game should generally take no longer than two months, proceeding at a pace of approximately one turn per day.

(2) Players should be able to take off extended periods of time occasionally.

(3) Games should be allowed to continue for as long as it takes to finish them.

To meet the first two goals, the time controls should encourage those who will be taking off time to move as quickly as they can while able, both before and after taking time off. To encourage making moves before taking time off, making moves should be able to extend the time a player has available to take off. But it should not extend it to the point where a player can take several extended vacations or play very slowly. Using bonus time with a maximum on the time a player has available should accomplish these goals.

To encourage moving afterward, the chance of running out of time should remain. So the bonus time given for moving quickly should not be too generous.

The third goal may be met with grace time, minimum time, or a combination of the two. Grace time gets deducted from the time used. Minimum time extends the time someone has left when his time left falls below the minimum. So if a person has 12 hours of each, they will allow 24 hours to make a move.

With this in mind, I will add bonus time, maximum time, and minimum time values to the time controls I already posted. So here is what I expect to use for time controls:

Spare Time: 2 weeks
Grace Time: 12 hours
Minimum Time: 12 hours
Bonus Time: 6 hours for moving within 1 second (before 12 hours grace time is up)
Maximum Time: 4 weeks

For a tournament targeting beginners sure is a heavyweight line-up of participants!

Can't find a description of or rules for Modern Carrera's Chess ... any help in finding those would be appreciated.

Thanks, and hope everyone rings in the New Year in good health and spirits.

Fergus,

Perhaps you can put links on the list of games for the tournament to the individual games' rules pages.

Fergus, I have an idea. Instead of implementing Circular Chess in a 
hurry, you could make use of my zrf:
http://hem.passagen.se/melki9/circularchess.htm
In this varant only, you could make an exception and allow the use 
of an analysis engine. This is how they do it in ICCF, where computer 
analysis is permitted. In email chess the whole PGN protocol is 
typically sent. In this case you could send the move part of the ZSG 
file. Just save to file in every move. Then you will also get correct 
rules checking and no misunderstandings can occur. When a move is 
made, the receiving player can copy and paste the moves into his 
ZSG file. There is a point in allowing an analysis engine sometimes, 
if you really want to test how good a variant is. The ZSG protocol 
looks like this:
1. Pawn-ccw sa2 - ec2 White H M1
1. Pawn-cw nd2 - eb2 Black H M2
2. Knight sc3 - wa2
2. Pawn-ccw na2 - wc2 Black H M3
3. Pawn-cw sd3 - wa3
3. Pawn-ccw na3 - wd3
/Mats

I always like to have a link to all the games in the tournament.

Is the bonus time working properly? My opponents and I have exchanged several moves within the 12-hour grace period, and I don't think any of us have received the six-hour bonus.

Oh, and Happy Palindrome Day to one and all!

No, the bonus time has not been working right. I was supposed to enter a 1 instead of a 0. I have now manually edited the round file, and we'll see if that fixes it.

Happy Palindrome Day to you too.

What castling rule is for Modern Carrera's Chess? 3->Rook?

RANBQKBNMR

Where A = Knight + Bishop and M = Rook + Knight

It is on an 8x10 board; castling is done by having the king move three squares.

Thanks.

Fergus, I can playtest Circular Chess preset with you when it will be ready.

Vitya, no, there is no 'bare king' rule in HyperModern Shatranj. The operative rule is: 

'Victory is by checkmating the opponent's king. Any other result is a draw.'

It is true that every other shatranj variant I designed has a bare king rule. However, by this point, the game is close enough to modern chess that such a rule was not considered. I don't recall Roberto, Christine, or I even mentioning it during our various discussions.