The rule in question was designed for clocks that have a move-counter being used for the round. Even if white is not having or wanting to use a move-counter, there is still is a reason for this rule. White starting the clock for white, without then moving and only then pressing the clock is not a move.
What if white has a time-delay clock, the ‘tournament director’ orders that any time-delay clock too take five minutes off from the clock. When black does come to the board, white has made the first move only seeing zero time taken off from the clock. Black cann’t prove that white did make a move if white does not use a move-counter. In any case, with the time lost for black, then having five minutes taken away from the time-delay clock, does help white too win the game with a late black.
I had an instance where the next round started in a G/30 tournament and the player literally took over a half hour to come back. I asked the TD to let me start the clock, but he said to wait.
The other player was in the area, but not at the tournament site.
Had this player (who was 600 points higher than me) been forfeitted, or the TD let me start the clock that round, i would have tied for first place.
The ‘tournament director’ can do that. Something in my tournaments would never do, as it gives a bias to one player over the other. It does not matter if the player is a master or a class player, the starting time of the tournaments are posted. If going to be late because of two different appointments at the same time, then should have asked for a ‘bye’ during the round. If it was me thunderchicken, would have let you started the clock on time.
Thanks Mr. Just and Nolan for your help. In the future this problem will be easier to deal with.
You’re welcome.
John Hillery’s point about non-intervention is a good one, even though in this specific example I disagree with him on it.
Rule 21D sets out the general exceptions to the non-intervention. I consider this situation part of 21D3.
Not to beat a dead horse, but I also don’t see where asking White to make his first move in accordance with the rules–a move that that he has already written down!–is an intervention that affects the result of the game.
It doesn’t change what move he was already willing (and possibly committed) to make, it doesn’t affect whose clock is running, and it might have prevented a blowup.
When a rule changes, as this one did (whether I agree with the new rule or not), I think sometimes the TD has to do a bit of re-education of the players.
Hmm, so if my clock had a “take-a-half-move-off-my-move-counter-button” for each side the point of the rule would cease to exist?
Again, hmmmm.
It hasn’t been mentioned, but I always thought that the point of the old rule (or at least one of the points) was to prevent a player from cheating. In a National tournament where I am playing Black and unknown to my opponent I can decide to wait on the sidelines for the round to start, watch my opponent’s reply, go back to the ChessBase in my hotelroom and narrow down my preparation for the next 15 minutes. This would especiallybe important if I had seen my opponent play a move other than 1.d4 or 1.e4 or if a known opponent had played a move that is out of his normal repertoire. Had Fischer’s “1.c4 Black resigns” game taken place with the Black player in the background of a huge open, the player could have gone back to his coach for some much needed advice.
I’m not saying it’s a huge reason for the old rule; my thoughts are a bit bombastic. I just always assumed it was the only reason for the old rule.
I have to agree with whomever it was that said the chess intelligentsia should be able to fix their clock’s move counter. Especially in a sudden death game (95% of all games in USCF tournies today?), who cares about the move counter being off by half a move? The reason given for the new rule is pretty limited in its scope.
Ben Bentrup
If a player is good enough to benefit from a few minutes of booking up knowing just your first move, isn’t he also good enough to have favorite openings regardless of what your first move is? And if you’re good enough for him to worry about your first move enough to want a few minutes to book up on something, the chances are that he already knows your opening preferences anyway.
There was a famous (and prophetic) CHESS LIFE & REVIEW cover in June of 1972 just before the Fischer-Spassky match in, with Boris surrounded by stacks of books on every E4 opening system and the caption, "But Boris, what if he doesn’t play 1 P-K4?:
Do you suppose knowing Fischer’s 1st move a few minutes early in game 6 would have helped Boris prepare for that game, which he lost?
Clocks with move counters have been around for a long time, but until digital clocks started to take over nobody really liked them and I think at least one edition of the USCF rulebook actually called them non-standard equipment.
I don’t think they’re the reason for the original FIDE rule requiring White to move before starting Black’s clock anyway.
Yep, as far as I remember the point of the old rule was to prevent cheating (white did not have to move first). That was a FIDE concept. FIDE has a mebership that is experienced and “may” benefit from such a rule; however, I have yet to hear of such an incident in either FIDE or USCF. The current USCF rule book (5th edition) was not designed to address such rare and never reported situations.
Tim Just
5th Edition Chief Editor
Well, on my Chronos it is a fairly simple matter to make a mid-game adjustment to the move count, without changing the elapsed time, or vice versa. But some people don’t want to learn useful things about their clocks, I guess.
Bill Smythe
I’d say that at least 95% of tournament games END with a sudden death control, but perhaps only 50% (roughly) have sudden death as the ONLY control. So the accuracy of the move counter is not a completely trivial issue.
I like having the move counter on, even in sudden death. It can help out in the event of a 50-move situation. True, a player cannot claim a 50-move draw based on the move counter alone, but it can help a TD (or deputized spectator) keep count more reliably.
I have even been known to use the move counter in games with a single, sudden death control such as game/60. To do so on the Chronos, however, I have to fool the clock into thinking there are two time controls (the manufacturer never dreamed anybody would want to count moves in a single control, I guess). This is easy to do. Just tell the clock the first control is 0 moves in xx:xx hours/minutes, the second is 0 moves in 00:00 hours/minutes, and of course tell it about the 5-second delay too.
Bill Smythe
The disturbance was out-loud talking in the tournament room. This was after I had told the players in question to take it outside. One of the players has a history of this kind of thing. They argued the matter after I had already made my decision.
Ultimately, I think what caused the whole situation was black being late. But because of the disturbance which made them take up more than 30 minutes of their playing time and disturb the other players concentration I decided to forget the penalty for white not moving and just penalize for the disturbance.
I think that if I was more sure on what to do in the situation this could have been prevented. So I blame myself for the confusion that was caused which resulted in the disruptive talking in the tournament room.
The rule was changed in the new rulebook and the white player (who is much older) didn’t know about it. Although I knew about it, I wasn’t sure what to penalize at the time because in my limited tournament experience (which is mostly scholastic) I never had to penalize.
This tournament I just did was a good learning experience for me. I only wish it didn’t take so many problems to learn from it.
If the players are making the same claim over after making the decision: this is a major problem. Just tell ‘black of the right of a players committee’, even that it is not that common, only makes the other players feel unhappy during the tournament. If making a judgement call, the players need to understand that the judgement is final and then move on. With two minutes dealing with the clock, then take 30 minutes to take care of this one issue: because they are in the mood to fight is not great.