I have a question about the article on the recently concluded national high school championships, specifically the game Harper-Weser. I refer to the rule 13B which states, in part, “The player whose opponent resigns wins the game. This immediately ends the game.” Since Harper appealed after he had resigned, isn’t that too late? How is it at all fair for the winner of the game to receive a half point and the loser to receive a full point? I feel bad for Harper, having resigned due to a TD’s mistake, but there really isn’t anything that can be done about it. If you don’t understand the rules, then that is your problem.
In the U.S. Junior Open a few years ago I was directing and I had to deal with all sorts of strange local rules (I believe I’ve mentioned this before), and one of these rules was that if you touched a piece you had to move it. It was a lot of fun going around from time to time explaining the touch move rule, but that’s another story. In any event, one player, when his opponent was away from the board no less, brushed his hand against his queen and, not having any good moves with his queen, resigned. Although there was no good reason for him to resign, the resignation stood. Why is this case different?
The problem seems to be that the resignation was a direct consequence of a TD ruling that was based on a non-existent rule. It was not a judgement call but merely a misapplication of the Laws of Chess.
The TD is expected to quote the rulebook correctly. While players are encouraged to be familiar with many rules, only the TD is required to be an expert on technical details such as the 10 move rule for correcting illegal moves. I dare say many club or local TDs aren’t even aware that such a rule exists!
Once a TD misquotes the rules, everything after that is subject to review. That seems to be the ruling made on Sunday.
How do you reconcile that with rule 21H1 which says, in part, “A player may appeal any ruling made by the chief director or an assistant director, provided that the appeal is made within one-half hour and before the player resumes play”. Clearly a resignation would come under “resumes play” wouldn’t it? I agree that it was a tremendously bad ruling, but there is a time and place for any appeal, and after Harper resigned, that time had expired, so there is no recourse.
Under the scenario that Mr. Aigner proposes, and the TDs seem to subscribe to, could Mr. Harper have appealed now, five days later? If so, what would happen? If not, why not?
I agree that the chief TD could have dismissed the appeal on that basis, and told the player that his only recourse was to file a complaint about the assistant TD with the TDCC. Since the problem was more or less caused by the assistant TD, however, that seems somewhat harsh and inequitable.
The answer to the question in your second paragraph is that the chief TD certainly would have dismissed such an appeal as untimely. At that point, any blame attaching to the TD is outweighed by the player’s bad conduct in failing to pursue his claim in good faith and in a timely manner.
I had a similar incident once, and it seems to me that in similar instance it comes down to unlawful interference in the game, when a TD has the effect of causing a game to end. I had a game with an opponent. I was losing the game, and the only move that i had to avoid mate would cost me a second piece. However if the opponent took the wrong way i would regain a piece and be up 2 connected passers. The crux was that the wrong way optically looked like mate(as strange as that sounds). My opponent makes the bad move and he thinks he has mated me. The TD is watching the game, grabs the scoresheet and hands it to me to sign! There is an onlooker gesticulating wildly, i suddenly start thinking" I had thought I stopped mate, … My mind grows numb the TD has handed me a scoresheet because he also thinks i’m mated. The opponent starts reaching forward to shake my hand. So i signed the score sheet that i lost!!. No mate was on the board and in fact i was probably winning with 2 passed pawns!
I had to live with the loss. That is the one true tear i cried for chess . I think you have to take it on a case by case bases. Considering the egregiousness of the interference or td error, and the expected knowledge of the rules of the players to be able to defend/question a faulty decision
That’s a good question. Should a player automatically appeal any TD ruling they don’t like or don’t understand? I doubt either player in this game ever heard of the 10 move rule for correcting illegal moves. In fact, the TD didn’t even understand it properly. Should Harper have immediately appealed the ruling just because he didn’t know of the rule? Did Harper have the right to read the relevant sections of the rulebook himself, with his clock stopped, before deciding whether to appeal?
The underlying assumption is that when a TD quotes a rule, that he or she is actually correct–especially on board 2 at a national championship. If players are trained otherwise, then chaos would ensue at tournaments because players would have to appeal every ruling. The very reputation of the TD staff at the tournament is at stake here.
Michael Aigner
P.S. A related incident: A few years ago, I rejected a claim of “insufficient winning chances” in a game between junior high players. I specifically asked the player to repeat her claim and think about the words, hoping that she would realize the mistake. I knew that she was trying to make a 14H claim. The position on the board was trivially won for the claimant, but she had 2 seconds on the clock. The appeals committee of an ANTD and two experienced Senior TDs reversed my ruling, stating that players were expected to know the basic idea of the rules but were not required to be chess lawyers. Likewise, Harper wasn’t expected to know every single sentence in the rulebook.
That’s why it is vital for the reputation of the TD staff to correct any mistake that they inadvertently caused, especially while it was still correctable without greatly affecting the rest of the tournament.
It is vital, however, for such mistakes to be discovered quickly. There was a scholastic tournament last century where a player mis-read his pairing and sat down at the wrong board (playing an opponent with two fewer points) and started playing. When the correct person for the board got there I looked at the pairings and escorted the erroneously seated player to his correct board after letting the other two players know that they should play each other.
It wasn’t until after most people had left following the awards ceremony that the coach of the winner of that game let me know that I probably should have told those two junior high players to reset the pieces before playing each other (they continued with a position that was about a half-dozen moves into the game). It never crossed my mind then that I would need to mention that, but since then I always include that in the instructions in such situations.
Jeff I always learn something when I read your posts. It never would have occured to me to remind the players to reset the board either. But it sure will now. Thanks
It looks to me like the original mistake (g6xf5 e.p.) which everyone thinks is so funny was a fairly normal case where White still saw the “ghost” of his pawn on g5. If he had realized that g6 made the en passant capture impossible with that pawn, thereby allowing f5, he would have reconsidered the move g6.
Black may have taken the “law” a bit too much into his own hands in the ensuing rules debate, but the outcome was OK. White had to play Qf4, his choice of move based on the position on the board, and the game continued completely normally. No different than if all rules had been followed.
Then some time later, Black blunders a piece in an unrelated way and resigns. Again, it’s the right result from the moves played on the board.
After this there were no good reasons for appeals. Someone looking at the score of the game might say “oh, f5! is a good countershot to g6” and “oh, Black dropped a piece at the end, big blunder”, that’s all. A game decided by the moves made on the board, with a little kerfuffle in the middle because of human errors not playable on the board (one by White, one by a TD, both corrected), nothing more.
I may be missing something here, but I disagree. If Black had claimed a touch-move right then (which is following the rules), then white would have had to play gxh7, losing his queen.
Black missed the win by not claiming it there, so if all rules had been followed, then black would have won.
. I think you have to take it on a case by case bases. Considering the egregiousness of the interference or td error, and the expected knowledge of the rules of the players to be able to defend/question a faulty decision