Idea for a new competitive time control: 'Bilateral Pause / Mutual Time-Out'

@plopsky said ^

To answer the original question, I think these are the most likely situations to occur:

"Oh someone is at the door, shall we pause?"
"Sure"
both players hit pause
"Oh it seems he unpaused right after I left and now I lost"

Or from the other side:
"Oh someone is at the door, shall we pause?"
"Sure"
both players hit pause
"It has been forever, is this guy ever coming back or am I wasting my li...

It isn't designed for when a player is busy or someone knocks on the door; it is intended for the end of a match, when—instead of playing quickly to win on time—the players agree to continue playing without a time limit. We could set a time limit, after which the clock starts running again if no one makes a move.

il video dove spiega bene il meccanismo
https://youtu.be/x3PF5k0s4Ik

@frabar33 said ^

To answer the original question, I think these are the most likely situations to occur:

"Oh someone is at the door, shall we pause?"
"Sure"
both players hit pause
"Oh it seems he unpaused right after I left and now I lost"

Or from the other side:
"Oh someone is at the door, shall we pause?"
"Sure"
both players hit pause
...

I guess then it is not so much a pause button but more a proposal to switch to a different time control. I could see that in very casual games ("lets both get 30 seconds per move" or "lets both get 5 minutes extra").

In competitive games usually one player will feel more benefit from the time pressure so I would not expect it to often happen. Also in most tournaments the length of a game is important to set the tournament pace so there it would not be very welcome either.

@frabar33 said ^

It isn't designed for when a player is busy or someone knocks on the door; it is intended for the end of a match, when—instead of playing quickly to win on time—the players agree to continue playing without a time limit. We could set a time limit, after which the clock starts running again if no one makes a move.

That's why increments exist. Time management is a skill and often players trade time for slightly inferior moves. If you want to play a game that lasts for ever play correspondence chess at 14 days per move and take your full time. If you and your opponent both do so and game lasts 100 moves that's a game lasting a bit over 7 and a half years.

For otb games it is very impractical as you'll have venue restrictions and in some cases would have a game on following round.