Adjournment
Have you ever heard that saying, "never put off until tomorrow that which you can do today"? That's excellent advice for life, but it wasn't until the 1990s that chess tournament organizers started taking it seriously. Learn everything about adjournments and how they affected chess tournaments in the past!Here is what you need to know about adjournments:
What Is An Adjournment In Chess?
Adjournments were something that used to happen often in the past when games took a long time to finish during chess tournaments.
Usually, if a game lasted for more than five or six hours, players could stop the game for that day. They would then rest and only restart playing the next day. After all, chess geniuses need to eat well and have a good night's sleep if they want to perform at their best!
When adjournments were a thing, one of the players would make a sealed move before the game stopped. A sealed move was a secret move that only the person who played it knew what it was. The player would write that move down and put it on a sealed envelope, which the arbiter would only read when the game resumed. Can you imagine keeping that secret for a whole day?
After writing down the sealed move, both players would go back to their rooms to rest. They even had a team of helpers (called their "seconds") who would help them analyze the game and decide what to play next.
Let's look at a game from back in the day when adjournments were still a thing. GM Boris Spassky and GM Bobby Fischer reached this position after the 40th move of their last game of the 1972 World Chess Championship. Spassky sealed the move Bd7, so he was required to play it.
Final position of the last game in the 1972 World Chess Championship.
After analyzing the game with his seconds, they realized Spassky's last move was losing. He should've played Kh3 instead, which could've helped him draw the game. Spassky resigned before even continuing the game the next day.
Why Did Adjournments Matter?
Adjournments were important because classical games took much longer back then. After playing for five hours straight, both players would be exhausted. Can you imagine playing chess for that long without taking a break?
Adjournments gave players a well-deserved break to rest, so the game's quality would not decrease.
Nowadays, it's not common to see adjournments happening in chess tournaments. Instead, time controls are now faster to avoid such long games, even for classical time controls.
The reason behind this is simple. Computers are much stronger than any human player. If players could go home to rest, they would plug the position in their engines and play out the lines suggested by the machine.
Are you still not convinced that this is a good reason to stop adjournments? Then go to our chess Bots page and try to beat the ChessKid bots!
Wrapping Up
You now know what adjournments are, how they work, and why they're not as common anymore. Now head to our Play page to play a live game against kids from all over the world!