at a local high school tournament this weekend, black picks up a piece. if (s)he moves the piece, it loses on the spot. (s)he puts the piece back and white says “touch move”. black replies that (s)he said “i adjust” and was just adjusting the piece. nobody else on nearby boards heard black say “i adjust” - they were too “concentrated on their own game”. any comments? how would you rule?
thanks, …scot…
Scot L Henderson
My first question would be: Why did you pick up the piece simply to adjust it? Typically adjusting a piece does not involve picking it up.
Very carefully. Is this an exam question? In any event, witness testimony is not as likely to be useful as you might think. Suppose you’re playing a game. You hear a player on the board next to you say “I adjust”. You glance over and White is holding the knight on g3. How are you to know that White has just begun to pick up the knight rather than picked it up, brought it to f5, released it, went to press the clock, realized that Nf5 loses, returned the knight to g3, and, just before releasing the knight said “I adjust”? Furthermore, anyone watching the game closely enough to actually see White touch the g3 knight and hear the exact moment that touch move was invoked is likely to be a family member, teammate, coach’s representative of one of the two players and you begin to understand the problem with witness testimony.
Note that I’m not suggesting what I would do, let alone how I would rule if a junior TD brought me this exact information, though I think the ruling, based only on this information, is incredibly obvious, always assuming I have no access to the players or spectators but only the testimony above.
More and more t is obvious why Ethics refuses to offer opinions on hypotheticals.
Alex Relyea
In the 1980s and 90s when Tim Just, Wayne Clark, myself and others were at various times running a chess club in conjunction with and at a local community college, whenever anyone would say “I a-just” - they would point to Tim.
alex, no, not an exam question, happened in a non-US Chess event for a high school team league this past weekend. but could happen in a sanctioned event, too. seems to be a case of “he said, she said”…
thanks, …scot…
It would seem reasonable for the TD to ask the player why they picked up the piece and see if they have a coherent answer.
The TD Tip on The Touched Piece (Rule 10, p. 22) is likely most relevant, “Without a neutral witness, Rule 10 depends on the reliability of both the claimant and the opponent. If they disagree then the TD should strongly consider denying the claim. In most cases, by denying the claim the TD shuts the door to all false claims. Upholding a false claim usuallty does more harm to more players than denying an accurate claim.” There’s another TD Tip cautioning to be very thorough with one’s investigation a few paragraphs later.
And it is also helpful to remember that just because a position is losing does not automatically imply that the game is lost - not this side of enhanced chess, anyway.
I had a board, I think it might have been Upper Primary in a State K-8 a few cycles ago, where a touch move claim was made by White and the opponent playing Black openly acknowledged that he did touch the piece. As is the almost always the case the touched piece put the player into a worse position than the preferred move.
(Does anyone ever claim touch move if the first touch makes the position better for the moving player? 
) Less than five moves later the player with Black called touch move on White, but the White player denied it saying he was adjusting. After several minutes of speaking with each player separately I wasn’t able to develop anything further that would shed light on the truth. The second claimant was very unhappy when I had to rule against the claim (although was consoled a bit that he could stand firmly that he was acting with utmost integrity) - I was pleased when Black ultimately won the game, though.
And then there was at least one time when a TD witnessed the touch move asked both players what happened, and when the offender was so convincing that the claimant started doubting himself the TD ruled the game a loss for the offender for violating ethics by blatantly lying about what happened.
Interestingly enough, for the rest of the tournament all of the players were honest about what happened in future touch move claims.
On the facts as stated, Black must move the piece, and it isn’t a close call.
I don’t think so. I think you are reading something into the “facts as stated”.
Suppose black says, “I adjust”, and then picked up the piece.
If that’s the case, then black does not have to move the rook.
If she did not say “I adjust”, then she must move the rook.
So, did she say, “I adjust”? The “facts as stated” do not give us any information that would allow us to determine if she said that. Her claim is that she said it. Her opponent says she did not. No other witnesses can provide any useful information.
Like others, I think the TD Tip previously cited is the relevant bit from the rule book, which would lead me to say that the touch move claim should be denied, unless there are other facts, not stated, that provide additional information.
(Full disclosure: I have indeed just taken a TD test. My answers have been submitted, but my results not yet returned. The above response would not be directly relevant to any question that was on the TD test.)
I think the idea is that action of “picking up” a piece is not associated with adjusting.
was sorta my thinking too. but, didn’t hear that part of it until after we decided to just “let it slide” as “meadmaker” would have done… of course the player can say was trying to remove a hair or something from the base of the picked up piece.
thanks for the input, all!
and, Happy Thanksgiving!
cheers, …scot…
Scot L Henderson
Not enough details, but I might lean in the direction of a warning.
The rules certainly leave some room for TD judgement. Based on the text of the OP we each form a mental image of what happened, and depending on that mental image we might find the claim of “I said ‘I adjust’” to be more credible or less credible. If we had been the actual TD in the room, we would have additional information. It might be that we would look at the people involved, and their mannerisms, and conclude that black was clearly just lying.
The question is would we be sufficiently confident to make that declaration? Make no mistake, if we uphold white’s claim in this situation, that is exactly what we are doing. We are telling black that we do not believe that she said “I adjust” before picking up the piece.
The rule book gives no definitive answer to how to handle this situation, but it does give a TD tip that suggests an answer. A TD tip in the rulebook isn’t the same as a rule, but it is a suggestion, and it spells out the reasoning for the suggestion quite well. In the absence of other evidence, I would follow the advice described in the TD tip. Unless I found black’s statements to be sufficiently implausible that I would feel confident in accusing her of lying, I would rule in favor of black.
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