Does anyone know the difference between an “actual winning chances” claim and an “insufficient losing chances” claim? I was reading the clock rules page (uschess.org/tds/clockrules.php) and at the bottom of the page, it has in bold print, “Be careful what you claim”. It seems as if both claims are equivalent to draw offers, but what am I missing here?
No losing chances: This is better worded as “insufficient mating material.” Suppose White has a king and queen and Black has a lone king. Suppose White’s flag falls before completing the time control. The result is a draw, not a win for Black. That’s because Black has insufficient mating material. There is no sequence of legal moves that results in Black checkmating White.
Insufficient losing chances: This is the much more nebulous claim that a player in time pressure would not lose the game if there were no time pressure. As an extreme example, suppose White has a king on the square a1 and 6 pawns (say the pawns are on the squares a7, b7, c7, d7, e7, and f7 – I did say this is an extreme example). Suppose Black has a king on h8 and one pawn on h7. Suppose White is in time pressure. If White’s flag falls before completing the time control, White can not claim a draw based on insufficient mating material. That’s because, however unlikely it is to happen, it is possible to show a sequence of moves where Black promotes the h-pawn and checkmates White. The appropriate claim in this case is that White has insufficient losing chances.
In both cases, the logic is that the outcome of the game should not be determined solely by the clock. If the player would not lose if there were no clock, then the player should not lose simply because there is a clock. There’s no controversy around the “insufficient mating material” provision, but there is (was) some around “insufficient losing chances.”
I think the ‘clock rules’ flyer may be out of date because of changes in the current rulebook.
Is the phrase ‘actual losing chances’ used in the current rulebook?
By the way, I believe there is a slight inaccuracy in the page Al referenced. The section “The Three Levels of Clocks” seems to be not quite correct. Aren’t a mechanical (analog) clock and a digital clock without delay considered to be equally standard equipment?
It seems to me that the rules on pages 228 and 229 of the rulebook can be interpreted to support the following hierarchy of clocks:
- A clock with delay mode (digital or analog are equally preferable per page 228)
- A digital clock without time delay (Page 228)
- An analog clock (Page 229)
I’ve never seen an analog clock with time delay, do they exist?
Garde had a clock like that, the USCF did try to sell the clock.
There is no such thing (and never has been, I’m quite sure) as an “actual winning chances” claim.
I suppose a player with an overwhelming advantage, but short of time, might hope for a delay clock to be put on his game so that he won’t lose on time. But a player cannot “claim” a delay clock per se, in a game that started without one. So he might claim “insufficient losing chances” in the hope that the TD will then exercise his option to put a delay clock on the game. Trouble is, “insufficient losing chances” is a draw claim, which is therefore also a draw offer. Any intelligent opponent in the situation you describe, upon learning that the TD is about to substitute a delay clock, would of course immediately accept the player’s draw offer, even though the player himself doesn’t really want the draw.
The moral: Bring a delay clock to every tournament, and insist (before the game begins) on using the delay in every game.
Bill Smythe
Reverse 2 and 3. This is sometimes called the “anti-Kaissa” rule.
The Kaissa was a perfectly awful digital clock which came out a couple of decades ago. It featured no delay, membrane “buttons”, difficulty in telling whose move it was, and digits so close to the edge of the display that you couldn’t always tell a 5 from a 6 from a typical viewing position.
Garde has (or had) a hybrid model, featuring large analog hands and a tiny, dark, digital display. The minute hand would move in increments of 1 minute, rather than continuously. So a player might think he had a full minute remaining when he actually had only a few seconds.
I’d like to see somebody make a GOOD digital/analog hybrid, but the Garde wasn’t it.
Bill Smythe
This has been quite helpful. I thank all of you for your explanations.