Completing the Move, Touch-Move, and Stalemate

[wilecoyote]

The FIDE Laws of Chess are extremely careful to separate the “Basic Rules of Play” (articles 1 through 5) from the “Competition Rules” (articles 6 through 12). Articles 1-5 are basically the universal answer to “how do I play chess?”:

1. The nature and objectives of the game of chess
2. The initial position of the pieces on the chessboard
3. The moves of the pieces
4. The act of moving the pieces
5. The completion of the game

(Article 5 specifies five ways the game can end: checkmate, resignation, stalemate, dead position, draw by agreement. Other ways of drawing are mentioned in article 9, which typically don’t apply to casual play (triple occurrence of position, 50 move rule) by dint of requiring a scoresheet.)

Actually, looking at this list, I just noticed something odd. Article 4 is essentially the “touch-move” rule. Articles 1-3 and article 5 would apply to any chess game played under any conditions, whether tournament play or just a casual game. I really don’t see article 4 as a “basic rule” that would apply to casual games.

The chess clock is not even mentioned until the article 6, and none of articles 1-5 depend on that article. On the other hand, the chess clock is an integral part of the Official Rules of Chess because it is an inseparable part of rule 9 (determination and completion of the move).

The FIDE rules for all time controls do indeed function the way you describe they should. Article 6.2.2 reads:

A player must be allowed to stop his clock after making his move, even after the opponent has made his next move. The time between making the move on the chessboard and pressing the clock is regarded as part of the time allotted to the player.

The US Chess blitz rules also work this way. That’s because, according to the blitz rules, a legal move is completed at the same time it is determined, so the opponent does not have to wait for the player to press the clock to be on the move.

The US Chess rules specify that the player is still on the move during the interval between determining and completing a move for the purposes of draw claims. This is not relevant in FIDE; a player is not allowed to claim a draw on his move once he has touched a piece. (Article 9.1.2.1 does stipulate that a player wishing to offer a draw must do so after moving and before pressing the clock. If the opponent has moved before the player presses the clock, that seems to be a clear indication the opponent is not interested in a draw.)

[sloan]

@wilecoyote

The correct ruling is that the game ends in a draw by stalemate. By rule 9E, a legal move resulting in stalemate is completed at the very same time it is determined. Stalemate immediately ends the game (rule 14A); no claim is necessary. After the game has ended, it is too late for Black to make any claims.

And yes, a legal capture is determined once the player has touched both his piece and the opponent’s piece. It is not necessary to have actually executed the capture on the board. Interestingly, the rules committee had this very situation come up in the consideration of an appeal a couple of years ago.

But, Bob - this debate is really about what SHOULD be the rule, not what the rule actually IS.

Experience with these debates has convinced me that:

a) there should be a clear distinction between “determined” and “completed”
b) “completed” should mean at least "having been made on the board (although I would slightly
prefer it to include “pressing the clock”)
c) NO inferences about what must follow should be involved.

The last is the most radical, I think - but it seems to me that it is possible (which is to say, we have already seen it done) to construct examples where what “must follow” is not only NOT intuitively obvious, but may actually require deep analysis, or complete knowledge of the previous move history - and “deep analysis” should NOT be required to make a ruling at the board.

My position is: if the result is forced (“what MUST happen”) then it can be played out over the board. This is why we have the triple-occurrence and 50-move rules. If you don’t have time to play it out…you lose.

I make an exception for specific board configurations which can be stated simply and easily (and mechanically) checked, such as “lone K vs lone K”. Considerations such as “cannot win by normal means” may be used in selecting these positions, but should NOT be part of the process of making a ruling at the board.

To the extent that FIDE (and US Chess) Rules do not follow these principles, I suggest that they are flawed. I have no illusions about them ever being fixed.

[Smythe_Dakota]

@sloan

… Experience with these debates has convinced me that: …
a) there should be a clear distinction between “determined” and “completed” …

When the 4th edition came out, I was delighted that this distinction had finally been made. About time, I thought.

As time has gone on, though, I have become aware that “determined” actually has two meanings, one stated and one intuitive.

The “stated” meaning describes the moment when it becomes legal to “complete” the move by pressing the clock.

The “intuitive” meaning describes the moment when, due to touch-move (etc) considerations, only one legal move is possible.

Unfortunately, the two meanings have become confused, so that one meaning is spelled out in the rules where the other meaning should have been. The worst offender is rule 9B. In the 4th edition this was:

9B. Capture. In the case of a capture, the move is determined … when the captured piece has been removed from the chessboard and the player’s hand has released the capturing piece …

Very quickly (long before the 5th edition), in one of the rating supplements, the above was changed to:

9B. Capturing. In the case of a legal capture … the move is determined … when the player has deliberately touched both his or her own piece and the opponent’s piece …

The latter definition confuses the two meanings. It implies that, once you have touched both your piece and the opponent’s piece, it becomes legal to press your clock, without actually executing the capture.

I think there should be two terms. A move is executed (the “stated” meaning) when it becomes legal to press your clock, and determined (the “intuitive” meaning) when, due to touch-move etc, only one legal move is possible.

And 9B should revert to the earlier (4th edition) version, but with “executed” replacing “determined” in rules 9A through 9D.

The intuitive version (“determined”) would still be useful in other areas, such as to describe the moment at which a checkmating move, a stalemating move, or the creation of a dead position allows a player to escape from a time forfeit.

Bill Smythe

[brennanprice]

Reviving an admittedly zombie thread to share with Bill Smythe (and others) an ICCF game that ended yesterday on my successful dead position claim (in the final position, the opponent was forced to play 52.Rxg1 stalemate).

iccf.com/game?id=1108842

I thought about playing 51…Rc7, which forces 52.Rxe5 Rxc5 53.Rxc5 stalemate in order to avoid losing. I also thought about not making the dead position claim and letting my opponent play the stalemating move. But timing of the draw was of the essence for rating calculation purposes, so I decided to expedite matters with my choice of 51st move and concurrent claim.

[nolan]

Ken, how can you hold a coherent debate about what a rule SHOULD BE if it isn’t clear what it currently IS?

[sloan]

@nolan

Ken, how can you hold a coherent debate about what a rule SHOULD BE if it isn’t clear what it currently IS?

Why is the current rule relevant to what the rule SHOULD be?

[Smythe_Dakota]

@brennanprice

… timing of the draw was of the essence for rating calculation purposes …

I assume this is because ICCF calculates its ratings one game at a time, instead of one tournament at a time. In this case the timing of the reporting of the draw becomes crucial. If you have a forced draw in one game and a forced win in another, you are likely to do better rating-wise if the draw is reported before the win rather than after.

Bill Smythe

[nolan]

US Chess also rates correspondence games as they are reported as being completed.

[nolan]

Why is the current rule relevant to what the rule SHOULD be?

Well, for starters, if the current rule is correctly understood, it is always possible that no changes are needed.

And if the current rule is deemed flawed, identifying the flaws helps in determining what to change.

As a professor of mine once said, if you don’t know where you currently are, it doesn’t make much difference what direction you head, even if you know where you’re trying to go.

[BIRDSNAN]

@Smythe Dakota

Bullfeathers. Black’s jumping the gun (by starting his move before white pressed his clock) does not excuse black from touch-move and determined-move obligations. The stalemate stands.

Had black’s move not been stalemate, white’s failure to press the clock promptly would have simply meant that white could still press his clock even after black moved. Then black would have to notice, and press his own clock again, so that the correct clock would be running. In this case, though, the clock was irrelevant since the game had already ended in stalemate.

It might have been advisable, though, for white to have postponed the jumping up and shouting “draw” until the situation had settled down a bit. If black then tried to take back the stalemating move, white could summon the arbiter, point out the touch-move violation, and get the ruling he needed.

Bill Smythe

Yes, I see your point. BUT USCF rules REQUIRE that the illegal move BE CLAIMED. FIDE is an instance draw. Which brings up an interesting question: Why do FIDE and USCF rules vary in such obvious situations?

That said, I’d be tempted to rule draw

[jwiewel]

@BIRDSMAN

…
Yes, I see your point. BUT USCF rules REQUIRE that the illegal move BE CLAIMED. FIDE is an instance draw. Which brings up an interesting question: Why do FIDE and USCF rules vary in such obvious situations?

This is a common erroneous statement.
US Chess rule 11H requires the TD to correct illegal moves outside of time pressure situations.
It is variation 11H1 that requires the illegal move to be claimed. People are so used to 11H1 being used when the players greatly outnumber the TDs that most people think that 11H1 is the standard rule instead of the variation it actually is. FIDE has a similar variation for similar reasons.

That erroneous perception is why I have explicitly announced the use of the main rule when the tournament was small enough that the number of TDs made the variation unnecessary.

[brennanprice]

@Smythe Dakota

@brennanprice

… timing of the draw was of the essence for rating calculation purposes …

I assume this is because ICCF calculates its ratings one game at a time, instead of one tournament at a time. In this case the timing of the reporting of the draw becomes crucial. If you have a forced draw in one game and a forced win in another, you are likely to do better rating-wise if the draw is reported before the win rather than after.

Bill Smythe

ICCF rates in batches once per quarter, at the start of each quarter, rating at one time all games completed in the three-month period that ends one month before the previous quarter ends. In other words:

Sep-Nov finishes are rated for the January list.
Dec-Feb finishes are rated for the April list.
Mar-May finishes are rated for the July list.
Jun-Aug finishes are rated for the October list.

The rating (but not the K factor) for each game is calculated using the official ratings for each player at the time of the game’s conclusion. My July rating is higher than my April rating, and my opponent’s July rating is lower than my April rating. I maximize W-We by finishing the game now.

One’s K factor is based on the the rating that becomes official one month into the rating period, so that’s a constant from June to July.

All of this is tangential to my really cool dead position claim!