A sensible response. A blundered, B saw it. A should lose. And again, I wonder why there is a “no capture the king rule” in FIDE blitz, and if there is going to be one, what the proper consequence of it should be.
Not more serious, equally serious. Let me supply an analog: White castles (kingside) while f1 is under attack. Black chooses (for whatever reason) not to claim an illegal move, but two moves later moves his queen from d8 to d6 with a pawn on d7. Should White claim a win by illegal move, it does not mean Black’s violation is more severe.
A better question is why some people got the idea that capturing the king was proper in the first place.
That’s a really lame analogy. The king capture is part of a single action/reaction, not something that happens several moves later.
Because in a fast-paced game like blitz or bughouse, it’s a quick, sure method for demonstrating the error that the opponent made vs the alternative of pausing what may be an unfamiliar clock. It seems to come as a shock to you that the vast majority of chess isn’t played in tournament settings.
Not at all, but have you heard of anyone anywhere being checkmated, making a move, and having his king captured or, conversely, checkmating and then goading the opponent to make a move, then capturing the king?
It (capturing the king) may be a long-standing blitz tradition for some players, but not for all. If FIDE wishes to penalize this particular bit of childish behavior, let it do so by not allowing either player to claim a win, and reverting to the position before the illegal move. After all, the other player did hang his king.
The point about not knowing how to pause the clock is a good one. If it’s your clock, you should certainly know how to pause it. But if the clock belongs to your opponent, or the organizer, that may be another story. I know how to pause the Chronos, the DGT NA (presumably same as other DGT models), and I think the GameTime. Not so sure about the Saitek, especially in the heat of battle where I have only a few seconds left on my own clock.
The whole point of this thread is determining what is the appropriate penalty, if any, for capturing the King. It is not specified in the laws. Common thought is that the king capturer loses. But, this does not seem to hold up within the laws. If the player with the captured king loses (due to the original illegal move), then that suggests that capturing the king is allowed. Even if “allowed” is indirectly by reverting the illegal move and making the claim. All evidence I have found so far seems to go against that. It appears FIDE does not want to allow this behavior. Yet, FIDE makes no statement whatsoever of what should happen.
My best interpretation, and I could easily be wrong, is that the claim should be disallowed and the game continued with the position restored. The king should be put back. So no, you don’t continue to play kingless.
To me this seems the fairest way to handle both players making an illegal move. Neither side gets an advantage.
In the clarification document produced officially by FIDE at rules.fide.com/ you need to read point #4.
The capturing of the King is illegal move and is penalized accordingly.
One of the duties of a FIDE arbiter is to stay up to date with the Laws and any interpretations officially provided by FIDE. This one seems pretty clear cut to me. I would suggest bookmarking the link I provide above and visiting it often, especially after new Laws are introduced.
That’s something I’ve been in favor of for a long time, and I have said so many times on these forums.
G/3 inc/2 seems to have caught on well in Illinois. In fact, the Illinois tournament that is the subject of this thread was played at G/3 inc/2.
Having a 2-second increment eliminates about 50% of the baloney that occurs in blitz tournaments. (Not 100%, though, as this thread testifies!)
Anybody that has ever played both G/5 d/0 and G/3 inc/2 will tell you, I’m sure, that G/3 inc/2 has a more civilized feel, and definitely does not “feel” faster than G/5 d/0. Most of those who say they don’t like G/3 inc/2 have probably never tried it.
Certainly it’s the fairest, and I think it’s the best, but it may be necessary to bend or break the FIDE rules to do it. The post after yours seems to say that the “best” way is not the FIDE way:
A rule change saying that, if both players make an illegal move, one in response to the other, then neither player could claim a win and the position would revert, would help here.
But such a change might not be enough to cover the original situation envisioned (or experienced?!) by Walter Browne. In that scenario, player A moves his king next to player B’s king, B doesn’t notice and plays a move elsewhere on the board, then player A plays king takes king. In that case player A played two illegal moves, and B played a legal move in between.
To “NOT TOLERATE” (in GM Browne’s words) that trick, one would need to modify my suggested change, perhaps as follows:
A player who completes an illegal move shall lose the game, unless the opponent’s previous move was also illegal or the position before the player’s illegal move was an illegal position.
An “illegal position” could be defined as one that cannot be reached, through any sequence of legal moves, from the initial position of the pieces on the board. For example, any position in which the player not on move is in check would be an illegal position.
You certainly have a point. B failed to get out of check. But B also failed to get A out of check. So B’s move was of unclear legality.
In any case, the three positions after each of the last three moves were all illegal. How do you define whether a move is legal or not, when the position the move starts from is illegal to begin with? Hmm.
People who prefer randomness would prefer d0. For example, if I were to play a very long match against {insert your favorite GM here} I’d have a much better chance of winning a game without increment.
Indeed, the current law is clear on what happens with an illegal move: It must be completed by pressing the clock to be actionable. There’s no arguing with the ruling as made or the penalty as applied.
The don’t-take-the king rule itself is strange when applied in blitz. It’s not like other illegal moves in that taking an opponent’s king is both a game-ending move (by custom), and (now) an illegal move in response to the opponent’s illegal move. Since king-taking is a game-ender, there is no requirement to complete that move by hitting the clock, and a player won’t necessarily do that. And since we’re talking about blitz, the opponent’s preceding illegal move (king left en prise) was also a game-ender.
In effect, the new FIDE blitz rule is “you can take the king as long as you don’t press the clock,” unless I am missing something.
I don’t have a problem with king-taking in blitz. To me it’s good, functional shorthand in a game where “illegal move loses.” King-taking in a non-blitz game is just silly kid stuff. Did FIDE feel they needed to state “don’t take the king” for regular games?
The FIDE rules seem to indicate that the last illegal move causes the loss of the game. Therefore, taking the King, being an illegal move, will be penalized under their rules for Standard Chess and Blitz Chess. Under USCF rules, no one, except a newbie scholastic player, would think of taking the King in a regular rated game. OTOH, in blitz and Bughouse games in the US the taking of the King happens frequently, ending the game. It is difficult to determine illegal moves during games without scoresheets, so figuring out if when and how many illegal movers were made is a nightmare. But taking the King is easy to see and penalize. Weirdly, FIDE in its rules mentions scoresheets in both Blitz and Rapid play.
No one is disputing that capturing the King is illegal. The question is what is the appropriate penalty and when exactly is its illegality confirmed. As I outlined in this post, there are three possible ways you can rule on this:
[]Player A (original illegal move) loses[/]
[]Player B (one who captured the king) loses[/]
[]Neither player wins, B loses right to claim illegal move on this turn and position is reset.[/]
#1 can be achieved in two ways - either by accepting the king capture or by putting the king back since the clock wasn’t hit yet and then claiming the illegal move. This is reasonable in that illegal moves aren’t illegal until the clock press, except that since there was a need to make clarifying statements as indicated in the above quote, it doesn’t make sense to allow this.
#2 is reasonable and may be the expected choice since it is explicitly mentioned in that clarifying statement. However, it breaks law 7.5.1. Then again perhaps capturing the king is a special case illegal move with immediate penalty rather than being confirmed with the clock press. This does beg the question when other certain types of “illegal moves” are confirmed such as castling with two hands. Is that immediate or after the clock press?
#3 is perhaps the most equitable since both players made a violation. It also does NOT seem to violate any laws as far as I can tell. On the other hand, if special “illegal moves” are completed immediately, then #2 is necessary and this one doesn’t hold up.