A.4.2 If the arbiter observes an illegal move has been completed, he shall declare the game lost by the player, provided the opponent has not made his next move. If the arbiter does not intervene, the opponent is entitled to claim a win, provided the opponent has not made his next move. However, the game is drawn if the position is such that the opponent cannot checkmate the player’s king by any possible series of legal moves. If the opponent does not claim and the arbiter does not intervene, the illegal move shall stand and the game shall continue. Once the opponent has made his next move, an illegal move cannot be corrected unless this is agreed by the players without intervention of the arbiter
After you have captured the king, no, there is no longer a valid reason to stop the clock. If you stop the clock to claim the illegal move, prior to capturing the king, that is OK.
Of course I’m not the official answer to the question, I’m just telling you how I would rule and I believe I have the Laws to back up my ruling.
Now I’m confused; how would IA Chris Bird rule? Because neither 1 nor 2 was the scenario. This was what happened:
Mind you, this is strictly for arbiter education purposes. A no longer cares about the result of this game, where A played black. A had white the second game of the double round and miniaturized black, at which point she shook hands and said “well, we each made a blunder, so I guess we’re even.”
No one has answered what the rule in that first sentence means, despite both OP and I raising it.
I believe this fell under my scenario 3, Player B doesn’t press the clock and therefore has not completed an illegal move. He has the right to correct his potentially illegal move as it isn’t completed until he presses the clock. In this case the position prior to Player B’s illegal capture of the king should be restored, with touch move in effect, and he still has the right to make a claim of illegal move against Player A. If he does, Player A loses. If he makes any legal move, his right to make the claim has gone.
This certainly flies in the face of Ken Ballou’s comment about that FIDE doesn’t have the “move determined” concept. In his reasoning the move is complete even if the clock isn’t punched. That’s hard to reconcile with the rule cited in the original post.
That is incorrect.
For the most part, I disagree with the claim that FIDE has no concept of “determined” vs “completed”. FIDE just has different terminology. Instead of “determined”, FIDE says “made”. Instead of “completed”, FIDE says “completed”.
OTOH, USCF seems to go out of its way to point out that there is no concept of an illegal move being “determined”. So, one might reasonably argue that there could be a FIDE-USCF difference in any instance where a FIDE rule talks about an illegal move being “made”.
Also, unlike some other posters here, I have no difficulty at all understanding the OP’s first sentence. When he says “an illegal move is completed once the player has pressed his clock”, he means that an illegal move is completed once the player has pressed his clock. What’s not to understand?
Anyway, back to the main point of this thread –
It’s obvious that FIDE’s “taking the king loses the game” rule has generated some unintended, and absurd, consequences, such as the possibility of continuing the game without a king.
Yet, I have a lot of sympathy with discouraging the “childish practice” (as a couple of posters here have called it) of capturing the king. It’s like pushing a pawn to the eighth and asking the opponent to “queen me”.
So, how does one discourage the childish practice while still maintaining at least a modicum of sanity in the consequences?
The easiest way would be a FIDE rule establishing that, if an illegal move is made by one player, and the other responds with his own illegal move, then neither player can claim a win based on the other’s illegal move. Instead, the game reverts to the position before the first illegal move, and the game continues.
Such a rule would punish the king capturer by not rewarding him with an immediate win. That punishment should be sufficient, I would think.
Bill Smythe
I think that this is an excellent suggestion.
I teach kids to NEVER capture the King. If one’s opponent completes an illegal move, the player should pause the clock and summon a director to make a claim.
We also must consider the situation in which White is in check, makes a move that puts Black into check, and Black ignores the check and takes White’s King! White then summons a director to claim a win because Black has illegally left his own King in check!
The move to capture White’s King is certainly illegal, since one cannot leave one’s King in check! (12C. Responding to check. Check must be parried on the move immediately following.)
The suggestion would cover that case, too. In fact, it’s exactly the same thing. White has made an illegal move, and black has made another in response. Therefore, revert to the position before white’s illegal move, and continue the game. (In this case white would have to make a legal move, i.e. one that gets himself out of check.)
Bill Smythe
I suspect the typical player, arbiter or organizer will find it more difficult to change a FIDE Law than a US Chess Rule.
Yes, but many on these forums are FIDE arbiters, too, and who knows? Eventually they may have some influence within FIDE.
Bill Smythe
Actually, I did participate in the online discussion of the new FIDE rules, and “clarifications” of the new rules did come out to reflect the issues raised in that discussion.
Before this thread dies a natural death, let me shed a little history on this “capturing the king” business in blitz.
Once upon a time, international blitz was the province of World Blitz Chess Association (WBCA), which consisted of GM Walter Browne. WBCA had its own set of blitz rules, which were recognized (more or less) worldwide.
I have heard it said that every WBCA rule came about because of something that once happened to Walter Browne.
Apparently, in those days, if player A played an illegal move by leaving his king in check, it was legal for player B to capture the king, and win the game, as a means of showing that A had just made an illegal move. And, just as now, any illegal move would stand, and the game would continue, if the illegality was not immediately called by the opponent.
Thus was born a clever stunt, often committed by a player in a dead-lost position. He would deliberately move his king next to his opponent’s king, and then when his opponent didn’t notice and moved a piece somewhere else on the board, the player would play KxK and win.
GM Browne decided this was a bit much, and declared, in the WBCA rules, that “THIS CHEAP SHOT WILL NOT BE TOLERATED!” Aside from not tolerating, though, it was not entirely obvious just what was to happen next.
When WBCA folded, FIDE took over (more or less), and adopted some of the WBCA attitudes as its own, including the non-tolerance of KxK. But they got overzealous with the intolerance, de-tolerating the capture of the king by any piece, and also imposing loss of game for any such capture.
This “lets-punish-the-king-capturer” attitude carried over to later revisions, and that’s where we are today.
Bill Smythe
Let’s just get rid of this Capture the King nonsense.
I like that suggestion a lot. Not that it would have helped player A, because B never completed his move…
I still scratch my head about FIDE’s new rule that taking the king is an illegal move. Since taking the king is a (theoretical) mating move, and there’s no reason to hit the clock afterwards, the take-the-king move won’t usually be penalized in any real way. What was FIDE’s intent, exactly?
Further, let’s say there is some dual US-Chess-FIDE-rated blitz game where some poor player takes the king and hits the clock. Taking the king IS a legal move in US Chess blitz. Yeah, I know: FIDE rules supersede US Chess rules, so it would be ruled a loss and rated as a loss in both systems. But it is a mis-alignment. Someone will write an ADM, I guess.
That “cheap shot” line remained in the official US Chess blitz rules until a couple of years ago, and it made me smile every time I read it. It reminded me that all rules are written by humans.
For simplicity, assume that B is attempting to claim that A has made an illegal move by capturing the king. He then presses his clock in order to preserve his time so that he can prove to the arbiter that he made his claim while he still had time on his clock.
Alex Relyea
In the latter case, it would seem that a literal interpretation of the present FIDE rule would require that B be declared the loser, even if he pressed his clock only after making the claim and only to preserve his time. (Stupid FIDE rule.) On the other hand, B would have been better advised to pause the clock (both sides) rather than pressing it. That way he still preserves his time. Surely no arbiter would fault B for pausing the clock to make a claim.
The former case (set forth by the OP above) presents problems as well. Here, some might argue that, since B had already “made” his move (an act which does not include pressing the clock), a literal interpretation of FIDE may require the arbiter to disallow B’s claim and allow the game to continue, kingless. (Stupid FIDE rule – again.)
Seems to me the arbiter in this case made the best ruling possible, bending (if not breaking) the FIDE rules as little as possible without creating an absurd situation.
Bill Smythe
The nonsense here seems to be that the FIDE rule (if it is as described above by experienced arbiters) seems to be treating the improper calling of an illegal move by capturing the king as a more serious affront than leaving the king in check in the first place. If the player who captures the King loses the game on a rule violation, then, in effect, the other player has won because he himself has made an illegal move. (If he didn’t make the illegal move, none of this would have arisen). That…makes…no…sense. The sensible penalty for improperly calling the illegal move should be that you don’t get the win for calling it; not that you yourself lose.