I guess nothing.
How many members of the committee read this forum?
Looking at the list of rules committee members, just offhand I’d say:
3 (frequently, including rules discussions)
5 (occasionally, and usually not about rules)
6 (seldom or never)
Bill Smythe
Bill, as you probably recall, when I tried contacting some of the rules committee members directly, that didn’t go so well.
From time to time the rules committee has internal discussions about which rules need to be changed. Just offhand, I don’t remember (nor would I necessarily find it appropriate to reveal, even if I did remember) whether or not blitz rules have been among these discussions. There will likely be a flurry of such internal discussions just before the Delegates meeting in August. As you and others have said, patience, grasshopper.
Bill Smythe
There is an advantage to stand alone rules for blitz.
As usual you’ve missed the point completely. The problem with the blitz rules chapter is that it restates a number of things that are already stated in the regular rules and don’t need to be restated in the blitz rules, such as a player wins by checkmating the opponents king. Much better would be for the blitz rules chapter to be structured so it simply says “blitz follows the same rules as regular chess except for the following differences” and then list what the differences are. This is what the FIDE blitz rules do.
No Micah, Allen didn’t miss your point. He simply expressed an opposite opinion from yours. He thinks there is a benefit to stand-alone blitz rules, you don’t.
No I don’t miss your point at all. I disagree with your premise.
I think there is a benefit to a set of blitz rules that can stand on its own. Instead of a 400 ish page rule book one can print out only the blitz section. It’s compact and very usable by a director in a large fast paced blitz tournament.
This is based on my experience as floor chief and pairing chief at a number of national scholastic blitz events.
The title of this thread is “No clock available for the game”, and we’ve morphed into debating whether or not there should be stand-alone blitz rules. Moderators - how about spinning some of this off into a separate thread?
The funny thing is that there already is a separate thread (started by Micah) about blitz rules. How that discussion migrated into this thread is beyond me.
The two are closely linked. The OP alternatively wants to add details to the rulebook of questionable value, and then wants to make cuts if questionable value and can’t understand why there is disagreement.
Again, you’ve missed my point. My proposal wouldn’t cease having a set of blitz rules that would stand on its own. It would simply make it more compact and more useable. Just as the blitz rules don’t re-state how the pieces move, there is no need for the blitz rules to re-state, for example, that a game is won by a player “who has legally mated his opponent’s king” or “Whose opponent resigns”.
Several members of the rules committee, including former chair Ken Ballou, stated that the blitz rules chapter should be re-written the way I’ve suggested. Now you can continue to argue or accept the fact that rules committee members might have put a little more thought into this.
To a large extent, the way I’ve suggested the blitz chapter be re-written is the way the online rules chapter was re-written.
You’ve missed my point as well. I agree having stand-alone blitz rules is better.
If you edit things out by referring to classical rules, by definition it is NOT stand-alone.
Then should the blitz rules state how the pieces move?
I can sympathize with both sides of this argument. In the end, I’m not sure that a “stand alone” set of blitz rules is all that important. By analogy, if you buy a calculus textbook, it’s not going to spend half the book teaching you arithmetic and algebra and trigonometry. It assumes that you already know those things. I think it’s OK for a set of blitz rules to assume that you already know the basic rules of chess (including how the pieces move, what constitutes a win, a draw, etc.) and then detail how blitz differs from those basic rules. Now, if you want to write “Blitz for Absolute Beginners” or “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Blitz” – then it would need to include all that other stuff.
Yes, and this is exactly what I’ve proposed.
I can see how having a compact set of blitz rules for a big scholastic blitz event would be helpful to the TD. For it to be compact, though, it cannot truly be a stand-alone set of rules. To be a truly stand-alone set of rules it would need to include how each piece moves, what is meant by “check”, etc., and that would bulk up the document too much. At some point it would need to refer back to the main chess rules. When you used a compact set of blitz rules at a large scholastic blitz, what did it include, and what did it deem unnecessary to include?
If you get Ken Ballou to cosponsor your proposal you’ll really have done something.
See appendix A-1 of the National scholastic regulations
Indeed you don’t include how the horsey moves.