Ah so I am a bigot. I was worried for a while that you had something intelligent to say.
Some time ago a guy showed up at our club for a multi-week tournament. Everything went fine week 1 except for his constant interruptions during my game (which I lost for other reasons). The following Monday he announced that he had two physical impairments (eyes and wrists) that prevented him from writing his moves down. (Meanwhile he’d left his score sheet behind the week before and it looked fine – I still have it). Without warning or asking he’d decided to use a computer to help him keep score. I was against it but his opponent, an extremely kind fellow, insisted he didn’t mind. The next week, though, we told him “no computer.” If he could move the pieces and interact with the computer he was perfectly capable of writing down the moves. He wound up dropping out. Good riddance.
Point: Had he belonged to the Church of Bernie, which forbade writing on the sabbath (Monday nights, of course), or moving “graven images” on grids of fewer than 666 squares, should I have caved in? Because once you let someone bully you there’s no stopping it. It’s human nature. “Someone to move the pieces for you because your Phluckonian Faith prohibits it? Fine.”
People can do any cockamamie thing they like as long as they don’t involve me or people I’m entrusted to serve. Nobody’s going to make me feel otherwise simply by calling me dirty names in a public forum. Calling that bigotry trivializes the real thing, which truly is awful.
What constitutes “reasonable compromises” is subject to a little debate, I suppose. But I’ll stick by my earlier characterization and insist that if a player is not willing to make “reasonable compromises” he is a bigot – or a whining crybaby that has to have things his own way.
And I’ll also stake a claim that there’s a big difference between an observant Jew and a follower of the “Church of Bernie”. I’m not a believer in the current politically correct notion that the FSM deserves the same deference as “the God of Abraham”. The two are NOT equivalent. (Gee, maybe I’m the bigot) There’s a real difference between sincere religious belief with thousands of years of history and an “I’m religious too, so you have to let me play my way” legalistic claim.
And for the rules lawyers out there: yes, it’s perfectly correct that a player pressing his own clock might forget to do so (of course a clock-pressing assistant might be forgetful also…). But you know what? I think most players would be inclined to remind their opponent if he (the opponent) forgot to press the clock.
Ron,
Let me begin by saying that I am not a religious man. True, I’m a member of a synagogue, but only since marriage. Earlier tonight, I had a ham and cheese sandwich for dinner, and during my tournaments, held on Saturday, I always look at my clock and promptly at 11:45 I pick up the phone and order pepperoni pizza. My point is that on a personal level, I have no dog in this hunt.
However, I am the sort of person who has his TV pretty much permanently set to the History Channel, or at least I did before they replaced all their history programs with truck drivers, aliens, and UFOs. Now, Nat Geo is more my cup of tea. I’m the sort of Chess player who says “j’adoube” because I think tradition is cool. In other words, I groove on obscure anthropology, history, and culture. Among those obscure cultures: Orthodox Judaism. In other words, the following is an academic discussion, of the sort that interests me. It’s not a defense of a religion.
With that prelude out of the way, I think the mistake you are making is a very common one. You seem to projecting what you know from one religious tradition onto a different one. I grew up Catholic, and was taught that the Sabbath was a day of rest, on which work was prohibited. As Catholics, we didn’t carry that too far, but I knew that Jews took it farther, and that their sabbath was on Saturday.
I was wrong. In Judaism, there’s no prohibition against labor on the sabbath. There is a prohibition against creation, and there is a requirement that one make that day different from the ordinary days of the week, but that’s not the same thing as a prohibition against labor. Therefore, anything you think you know about “working” on the sabbath is probably wrong.
Also, I frequently find that people make statements similar to your statements, “either the person is so observant of the Sabbath that they will not play Chess or they don’t observe it that strictly and do play, period.
.” and " they should simply not play and truly rest as their teachings dictate." With all due respect, those statements demonstrates that you do not understand what it is that their teachings dictate. They are following their religion, whether or not you understand what they are doing.
It is true that the situation will rarely arise, because the amount of work required to keep Shabbat and also play in a Chess tournament would be difficult. The only time it came up for me, we were dealing with children, who I suspect were a bit less clear on the minutae of Shabbat observance than an adult would be and, moreover, we were inside an Eruv, where some of the restrictions would be less. However, it is still possible that you will find an observant Jew who is strictly observant, and can follow the dictates of his religion to the letter, and still play Chess on the sabbath without the least bit of hypocrisy.
If you don’t understand that, or if it makes no sense to you, that’s ok. However, I do think it’s reasonable that you make no effort to judge whether or not they are practicing their religion. They are. If you don’t understand it, that doesn’t make them wrong.
That’s all very well, but as a TD, should you allow it? Well, I would first turn to the rulebook. In the rulebook, it says very specifically that you do have the option to allow it, so anyone who says that somehow these players are breaking the rules is simply wrong. Look in the rulebook. The rules say that you, as TD, can allow this. Anyone who tries to fall back on “the rules” to say that they have to push their own clock is not following the rules.
So now it is left to your judgement. You can’t fall back on the rules or anything other than your own attitude. Why are you forbidding it? Why won’t you make the exception that the rules allow? Do you sincerely believe that they are gaining an advantage by having someone else push the clock? If so, rules 15A and 16B allow you to take time off of their clock to compensate. Do you still think they have an advantage? Really? I don’t buy it. Do you think it will disrupt the tournament somehow? Well…maybe, depending on how the room is set up, but,frankly, you’d have a tough time convincing me that it’s disruptive in all but the most cramped venues. (I,personally, might try to convince them that they couldn’t call flag fall at all, but that would be a religious discussion, and I’m interested in that sort of thing.) If, after careful consideration, you think it would be bad for the tournament, then by all means, refuse the exception. However, it’s your conscience, and it will be really hard to convince people who understand the situation that you are not actually making a judgement about their religion and/or their way of practicing that religion.
For me, there would be very few cases where I wouldn’t make the exception. I wouldn’t make it for blitz Chess. I might be hestitant in the case of a large cash prize or an “important” tournament. However, the case that started this thread was about a K-3 scholastic. You really wouldn’t let those kids play?
The rules say that a TD has the option to allow such religious exceptions to the normal play of the tournament game. The rules do not say the TD should or must allow these things. The TD also has the option to not allow these exceptions.
Your paragraph asking why a TD would not allow these things list some possible reasons and then you summarily prove those reasons faulty. Well, the TD may very well want his tournament to be uniform in the behavior of play in all the games and all the players.
Angelo stated his opinion and I agreed with my own opinion that these exceptions should not occur. Having the option to either allow or disallow these exceptions makes it the TDs decision without any need to prove his reasons to anyone.
I also have been a student of various religions. Yes, I have not learned that much about Judaism, however I have studied a number of religions that observe the Sabbath.
If an Orthodox Jew wants to play Chess on the Sabbath, then he should do so. It is indeed splitting hairs to say that he can move the pieces on the board and perform other tasks to play in a chess tournament, but cannot push a button, write moves or do some other activity, exclusively. Yes, there is precedence of some professional GMs throughout history that have not played tournament Chess on the Sabbath, period. With this as the orthodox standard, anything less than not playing is a compromise to the rules, strictly.
If an individual can get a TD to give him exceptions to one, some or even all the rules of tournament play, for religious reasons, and not specifically a Jew, that’s fine by me. All I am saying is that it is my opinion that if someone wants to play tournament chess on a specific day, and their religion prohibits them from performing certain tasks that are the normal for playing tournament chess, that person needs to decide if he wants to observe his religion or play chess as it should be played in a tournament, either/or, not both.
Are you refusing the exception for the benefit of a Chess tournament, or is it based on personal religious judgement? It certainly isn’t based on the USCF rules of Chess, because those rules say that it’s ok for people to not use clocks or to not write moves.
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The act of “hair splitting”, i.e. finding the exact boundaries of the law, and even finding loopholes within the law, is often seen as an act of piety among Jews. As for your examples, writing is melakha. (Hebrew…מְלָאכָה). Rabbinic tradition of recent decades says that pushing a button that operates an electric device is מְלָאכָה. Measuring is melakha, and many authorities say that would include the measurement of time. Moving chess pieces is not melakha.
“Melakha” is a word that appears several times in the Bible, and is usually translated into English as “work”. However, that’s not an exact translation, and that translation difference is the source of what you are calling “hair splitting”. (The literal act of splitting hairs would be considered melakha, and thus fobidden on Shabbat. The metaphorical act of splitting hairs is called “Torah study” and is encouraged.)
For those interested in the religious explanations, this wikipedia article is pretty good:
As for TDs, I would simply encourage TDs to leave their own religious judgement out of it. You probably aren’t very knowledgable about it. If a person says this is against his religion, but that is not, you should accept his judgement about his own religion. You have to decide whether that affects your tournament. In my own judgement, those kids who played in my tournament didn’t seem to cause any trouble by not pushing their clocks. I’d do it again.
I agree. I don’t think it’s up to me to judge someone else’s religion. If this situation comes up in a tournament where I’m the chief TD (I think it might have once or twice) I try to make reasonable accommodation for the player’s beliefs.
Nobody is judging anyone’s religion. We’re judging a privilege, within the context of a chess tournament, based on the assertion that one’s religion forbids a specific act, and that the world must therefore accommodate that proscription.
When a World Series game was scheduled for Yom Kippur Sandy Koufax simply refused to pitch. He didn’t whine about baseball’s insensitivity (and stupidity, if you ask me, for this was New York) in scheduling a game on a Jewish high holy day. He didn’t hire a lawyer to fight to have the game postponed until sundown, or seek a double-header for the next day. That’s class. I’ve told this story to my kids as an example of a person with faith and the backbone to live according to his principles.
Americans observe 1001 different religions, each coming in several different flavors. God bless them (no irony intended). Orthodox Judaism may be older and more respected than most of these faiths, but that does not de-legitimize the Church of Bernie’s requests for equivalent accommodations.
Has anyone in this thread asserted that the world has to accommodate a religion? I don’t see where someone has claimed that. What I HAVE seen in this thread, is the repeated - and eminently reasonable - stance that an observant player should be accommodated whenever possible, based on the idea that players should be allowed to play unless the rules say otherwise. The only reason I wouldn’t grant the accommodation is if I couldn’t find an assistant for the player. It’s come up three times in my tournament experience, and each time, all involved parties were happy with being able to play.
I don’t believe anyone in this discussion has brought up a valid reason in the rules for denying relief to a Jewish player. I also don’t believe such a reason exists, based on the justifications for such a hard-line stance given throughout this thread.
Koufax’s situation was not the same as that of an observant chess player. The Dodgers would not automatically forfeit the game if Koufax didn’t pitch. (In fact, Don Drysdale actually started the game you mention, so it’s not like they had to recruit an emergency fill-in from St. Mary’s Sisters of the Poor.)
If I could find any supporting documentation anywhere about the request from the Church of Bernie player, I would approve the accommodation. As I said earlier in the thread, I wouldn’t automatically reject a request for religious accommodation outside the Jewish faith - but I would research the request first. If I can’t find any independent reference to proscriptions in the Church’s orthodoxy that would affect a player in the tournament, then that WOULD de-legitimize the request, and it would be denied.
I note here that, in 25 years of playing and 23 years of directing, I don’t know of any director who’s ever handled a request for religious accommodation from a non-Jewish player. If anyone has handled such a request, I imagine I am not alone in wanting to hear the specifics of it.
I have no prejudice regarding any religion or religious person.
I am simply saying, as is Angelo, that the tournament is the tournament and if someone wants to change the manner which they perform the tasks of that competition for anything other than a physical handicap, my opinion is that it doesn’t necessarily need to occur.
Now, the rules say it is the TD’s option to do this. Well logically then, it is the TD’s not to do this.
If the TD should grant this exception to the rules, then the rules would say he should do it and not mention it as an optional thing.
Angelo and I are taking this from a stance that is not referring to or concerned with any specific religion or religious practice. We are taking this from a viewpoint of the Chess Tournament and how it should operate. A few analogies would be tennis, baseball and other sports or activities.
What we are saying is that if the person’s religion prohibits them from performing certain tasks or duties of the normal play that the rules dictate, then they should abstain from participating. It really is that simple.
I respect and have had a number of very devout people of all religions as good friends, including Orthodox Judaism. This is not the point.
About 25 years ago, I was in a religion where we observed the Sabbath as laid down in the Old Testament of the Bible. There were some activities that I could have done, but didn’t because of my religious observations. I certainly never would have thought to have any rule or number of rules changed to allow me to be the single exception to those rules in a group, to participate. My religious beliefs and observations were of a higher priority than the activity, so the activity was not done by me on those days.
I also agree that any TD has the option to allow such exceptions. That is the individual TD’s right and if he/she wants to have those exceptions in his tournament, that’s fine. All I am saying is that if a TD chooses to not have those exceptions, by the rules he is allowed and certainly not wrong to prohibit them. Let’s not be prejudiced against the TD that chooses not to allow those exceptions to the rules.
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I’m curious. Do you happen to remember if any of those tournaments offered a cash prize.
Did any of the players qualify for a cash prize?
Did any of them accept it?
My guess is that a player who wouldn’t punch a clock would not accept the cash prize. (Although, people of all religions have been known to show great creativity in interpretation of their beliefs, when it is convenient to do so.)
And did any of them claim a win based on time forfeit? That one is a bit trickier to decide on, but I would guess that some players who do not punch a clock would also not claim a win due to flag fall.
I wonder how that would stand up on appeal. I know I’d be pretty upset if I went to a tournament expecting my reasonable religious accommodations and didn’t get them like I did at other tournaments.
Then I guess you will need to get the wording of the rule changed from being an option to being something that should be done.
If I was running a tournament and someone came to me asking/demanding special exceptions and making me, the TD, look for the alternate help or whatever, I assure you I would summarily deny it.
The rules state that it is the TD’s option to allow those exceptions to the rules. Well, as a TD I might very well choose the alternate option of not allowing it. How would that lose on an appeal?
The TD is sitting at a table in front of his computer on this nice Saturday morning doing the final registration for his 4 round tournament. There is a line of 7 people waiting to give him their info sheet and money to register that day.
Up comes a parent, cutting the line, telling the TD that they are of a specific religion (no, not Jewish) that requires the TD to get someone to keep the game score for his precious child the chess player and also hit the clock button and face East every 18 minutes and silently bow their head 23 degrees.
The TD’s initial response is, “Huh? What?” The parent repeats his demands. The TD then looks at the clock seeing that he has 13 1/2 minutes to finish registering the players and get the pairings done and posted and start the first round. His response to this extremely religious parent is, “Ummm, no I can’t do that. If you want your son to play in the tournament then he will need to follow the rules like everyone else. The playing space is not that roomy even if YOU find a person that is not of your religion to do all the things you say need to be done for your son.”
Yeah, the father storms off in a rant, breaking at least 8 major rules of his religion in the rant alone. The moral of the story is you can’t make everyone happy.
Two of the events offered a cash prize. The third was a one-day scholastic in the dead of winter that ran very late, due to an extended fire-alarm delay. (Amazingly, every single player/parent in attendance voted to have the full tournament, instead of truncating one round. So the last round actually started about the time that the awards ceremony would have - which was 5:30pm, after sunset.)
Of the two players in cash events, one did eventually qualify for a prize when the event finished the next day. That player accepted his prize.
Actually, the moral of this story is that the TD gave an answer too rashly. Also, I note that the father in your story is highly unlikely to storm away from the registration queue with his rant, thus delaying your hurried registration process even more, and possibly causing some entrants in line to get upset - or even decide not to play.
The TD may choose to accept or deny the parent’s request, but the most important thing is to finish registration and start the event as close to on time as possible. I would have answered with the following, more or less.
“I’m willing to consider your request, but I can’t do that until after the first round starts. It is too late for me to look into this now. If you don’t want your child to play without the conditions you request, you can wait to enter him until I’m done helping these folks in line and starting the first round. Then, I’ll be happy to look into your situation a little more.”
Sure, you may be thinking that there’s no way you will approve the request - but why unnecessarily antagonize someone without even bothering to find out if what they’re claiming is true?
Only problem is you’re not “anywhere” and it’s not any old time. You’re in a tiny makeshift office on the mezzanine level of the Sheraton Philadelphia, 10 minutes before entries close. The queue is 15 deep, every other person wants a tournament membership, and you are charged with finding someone to follow some kid around until 8:30 pm so as not to hurt anyone’s feelings.
I note that in the basketball rules, if a fouled player cannot shoot his free throws due to a claimed injury, he can have a teammate take the shots for him. However, the opposing coach gets to choose just which teammate will do so. This is, of course, to eliminate the possibility of a team taking advantage of the switch.
Suppose the rules were to state that you can have a clock-pushing assistant for a good reason, but that if you do, your opponent gets to select someone to fill the role. We’d still expect good sportsmanship and still punish blatant unfairness, but such a detail might temper the “fairness” argument.