Classical Chess
The traditional, longest standard time control, typically ninety minutes or more per player, sometimes with additional time added after a set number of moves.
Classical time controls are used for top-level over-the-board tournaments and world championship matches, where the extended time allows for deep calculation.
Etymology
Classical is attested in English from the 1590s in the sense of the highest rank or authority, from Latin classicus, and is familiar from parallel uses such as classical music, recorded from 1836. In chess the word marks the traditional long time controls, as opposed to rapid, blitz and bullet, which are grouped together as fast chess. Wikipedia's Glossary of chess carries classical as a headword for the standard tournament time control, and the Fast chess article defines the faster categories against it by exclusion, with rapid capped below sixty minutes. The chess usage therefore arose retroactively, as a name for ordinary tournament chess once faster formats needed distinguishing labels; no dated first use of classical in this chess sense was found in the sources fetched.
First documented: n.a. — n.a.
Translations
Translations for this term haven't been added yet.