A friend played in a tournament over the weekend and a situation came up that, as a TD, I would like to know how to handle properly, as I can find nothing in the rules that covers it.
The player and his opponent had each made two moves at the start of the game, then noticed that the digital clock was paused and no time had come off of either player. The other player indicated that they needed to start over, my friend concurred; they reset the pieces and restarted the game, this time with the clock running properly.
In the restarted game, the opponent made a different move on move 2. My friend thought that they should have played the same moves and told the other player this. The other player asked to be allowed to make a different move, my friend chose to continue playing and let it go with the different move.
So my question is: Is there a rule that covers this situation that I’m not finding? I told him that if something like this comes up in the future it might be worth consulting the TD. As a TD, I’m wondering how this should be handled if it comes up.
Since each player had made the same number of moves, should the clock just have been started at move 3 with the board as is?
Obviously, this paused clock could have been missed until several more moves had been made, making it a bigger issue in terms of differential time usage.
My gut reaction as a TD would be to simply unpause the clock and resume the game with the clock running at move 3.
Start with rule 16P, Erroneously set clocks. “An erroneously set clock should be handled in the same fashion as a defective clock. As in 16O, the director should use judgment in deciding whether to make time adjustments.” Now look at rule 16O, Defective clocks. “A clock with an obvious defect should be replaced, and the time used by each player up to that time should be indicated on the new clock as accurately as possible.”
This was wrong. Rule 16O doesn’t say the game should be restarted if the clock is defective (or, as in this game, set incorrectly.) The game should have continued with the position after two moves after setting the clock correctly and, possibly, after adjusting for the time used by each player.
This is tricky. The game shouldn’t have been restarted. Given that it was restarted, with your friend’s agreement, it could be argued that it was already too late for your friend to complain about his opponent playing a different move on move 2. On the other hand, there doesn’t appear to have been a meeting of the minds about this. Apparently your friend thought that they weren’t starting a new game, they were replaying the first two moves of the original game and that therefore his opponent was obligated to play the same move on move 2. That’s how I’d have ruled if I’d been called to the game at this point. In any case, your friend acquiesced to the rules violation by letting his opponent play a different move and continuing the game, so it would be too late for him to complain about it later in the game (rule 21F1, Timing of requests).
Yes - see above.
Yes, definitely!
Yes, with the move counter showing that two moves had been played, assuming they were using a move counter. If it was possible to determine how much time each player had used that time should have been taken off the clock.
True.
That’s fine as long as the players had used a negligible amount of time on the first two moves.
This is a reason that players should never “play TD”. We’re there for a reason, you know. As a TD, barring an excellent reason to do otherwise, you should deduct half of the elapsed time since the round started from each player’s clock and continue the game from that point. Mr. Messenger’s response above is excellent.
Thanks for the excellent responses. This was a G/60 game with 5-second delay, so I was unsure if any time would have come off the clocks at all, but I like the concept of deducting half the elapsed time since the round started from each player (maybe less 10 seconds each, to be picky, since two moves had been made by each player). It seems perfectly reasonable.
More likely (monkey wrench), if a 30-second increment had been in effect, time should have been added to the clocks. Most players use less than 30 seconds per move during the first few moves of the game.