This has always confused me.
How can FIDE rate games that are not played according to their rules?
What are the main differences between USCF & FIDE rules?
This event :- guildtechs.com/sauceda/
Has a time control of G/120 (No delay)
If digital clocks without delay are used, will ICL be in effect? (FIDE has no such thing as ILC)
Many USA tournaments are played by USCF rules and then are submitted to FIDE. Even norm qualifying events like World Open follow USCF rules. I don’t know why FIDE looks the other way, but that’s what they’ve done for decades.
By the way, I see nothing that says no time delay in this tournament. It is not necessary to specify time delay in advertisement if they use the standard 5 seconds. That is the default and, if a digital clock is used, either player may insist on it. Make sure to bring your digital clock and know how to set it quickly.
Michael Aigner
Why does the USCF have its own rules at all? Why not use the FIDE rules? The FIDE rules are in English, so the necessity of translating is not a factor.
Where the USCF and FIDE rules are “basically the same”, only with different wording, why are they not “exactly the same”? Is there a single example where a USCF rule which differs from a FIDE rule is clearly superior? The USCF would not tolerate a state affiliate adopting its own rules. Yet the USCF, which is the FIDE-recognized chess federation in the United States, is allowed to have its own rules. Why?
Where in that ad does it say there is no delay? Don’t forget that, under USCF rules, a 5-second delay is automatically in effect unless specified otherwise in pre-tournament publicity.
Bill Smythe
Just offhand I can think of three USCF rules which may differ from their FIDE counterparts.
One is 14E, Insufficient Material to Win on Time. If, for example, white has a lone Knight against black’s many pieces, and black’s time expires, under USCF rules white gets only a draw, not a win (unless white has a forced mate). Under FIDE rules, white would win, as long as there is a help-mate (possible mate with both players cooperating).
Another difference involves castling. If the player moves the rook first, under FIDE rules he has completed the move and can be barred from moving the king. Under USCF rules, the player would likely get away with it as long as the intention to castle is clear.
Still another is the cell phone rule. FIDE is (apparently) extremely strict here, requiring a forfeit if the phone rings in the tournament room. USCF is more lenient, frowning upon cell phones but allowing TDs to determine the penalty.
IMHO, at least in the third case the USCF version is clearly superior. The FIDE version backs the TD into a corner too much.
Bill Smythe
Several points here. First, the Laws of Chess are much shorter than the USCF Rulebook. The USCF rulebook covers several things that the Laws of Chess explicitly don’t cover. At one time the delegates thought that more rules were necessary.
I’ll offer three cases where I believe the USCF rule to be clearly superior. First, the 14H family of rules. FIDE assumes, I believe, that the organizer supplies the equipment. That eliminates the possibility of placing a delay clock on the game. Second, what happens when a flag falls. USCF says there must be sufficient mating material, while the Laws of Chess say that for there to be a win there must be a legal sequence of moves that allows checkmate. This can lead to some very strange rulings (see Friedel, Josh). Third, the FIDE standard time for being late is zero minutes. At one point a player was apparently forfeited because he was away from the board asking an arbiter a question when the chief arbiter directed the players to start their clocks.
FIDE allows member federations to adopt their own rules, as long as they are not in opposition to the Laws of Chess. YMMV.
Finally, many (most?) affiliates have adopted rules that are different from USCF rules. For example, many affiliates deduct five minutes for a five second delay against accepted practice, although not yet officially a major variation. This is done so frequently that players in some parts of the country seem to think it is the rule. Also, consider the Scholastic Regulations alluded to by Mr. Lux in another thread. Letting players vote on whether a position is checkmate or stalemate or if the game is still going on is absurd, and yet the USCF itself does so in some of its largest tournaments. The specific question of state chapter affiliates changing rules is what was asked, though. I have two examples. First, in one tournament that I directed, I was told that an U1800 prize was really considered a 1600-1799 prize in [state redacted]. I was also told that players still in school could only receive their entry fees back, no matter how big a prize they won. At another tournament in that same state, I was told that scholastic chess had an absolute touch move rule, that is if you accidentally brushed your hand against a piece, you were obligated to move it. I had many ridiculous touch move claims in that state. Also, in Oklahoma a five second delay is no longer standard. A 15 second increment is standard up to GAME/60 and above that it is a 30 second increment. I’m sure that there are many other local rules in states that I am unfamiliar with.
Alex Relyea
If there is no value placed on having the same rules, anybody is always going to be able to find, in the cases where there are differences, places where he prefers the USCF version of some rule to the FIDE version. The question is really whether there are any total show-stoppers when it comes simply to dropping USCF rules and adopting the FIDE rules. It is hard to imagine there would be.
For example, I would probably agree that the FIDE cell phone rule is too strict, or that a little leniency regarding touching the rook first in castling is OK. But are those sufficient reason to part company from FIDE regarding the rules and to have a completely different set of rules?
There could be major differences, too, especially with regard to time controls.
For example, doesn’t FIDE allow only a small number of acceptable time control combinations, depending on the level of the tournament? Surely USCF’s idea, of allowing a range of controls, is vastly superior. For example, why allow either G/90 or G/120 but not G/105?
As long as FIDE remains focused on higher-level, slower-control events, while USCF has a more open-door policy, there will always be important differences between the two.
Bill Smythe
Allowed time controls are not part of the FIDE Laws of Chess. One difference between FIDE and USCF is that the USCF rules cover the “Rules of Play” (Section 1 of the book) , tournament organization (“USCF Tournament Section”, Section 2 of the book), and other matters such as equipment standards. The FIDE Laws of Chess relate mainly to the “rules of play”. There are other FIDE enactments related to tournament organization, pairing rules, etc, but these are not part of the “Laws of Chess”, and may not relate to non-FIDE events. By the way, the FIDE Laws of Chess do not relate only to “higher-level” events, nor are they for “slower-control” events only.
How about the USCF - FIDE difference on appearing late for your game? In FIDE your are dead meat if you are not at your board?!
I have heard stories, perhaps apocryphal, of players being forfeited because they got up from the board and were asking the arbiter a question at the instant the round started. Those aside, I don’t see anything basically wrong with the FIDE approach. The USCF approach of allowing a player to drag himself into the round up to one hour late seems extreme in the other direction. That is absurd. The FIDE no- grace-at-all policy seems more reasonable than the USCF hour-late policy. These are rules for formal competitions: be on time. If I were king of the chess world, I would allow some grace, but it would be much closer to the FIDE rule than the USCF rule.
That said, whatever one might prefer on this point, it does not seem sufficient to justify a completely different rulebook – considering that the USCF is supposed to the FIDE member federation for the U.S.
When was the last time anyone commenting here bothered to read the actual FIDE rules surrounding zero tolerance?
Personally, I find it is bizarre to lose with rook and king against your opponent’s knight and king if your flag falls. I also don’t know how practical it is to have arbiters start 600 clocks at World Open, and then call the flag. And what’s the status of FIDE’s drug testing these days?
One of the biggest difference is that FIDE assumes most tournaments have one game per day. Most USA events have two or more rounds, meaning players with a long morning game may be late for the second round just to drive to someplace for lunch. That’s why zero tolerance makes somewhat more sense for FIDE, while USCF has a grace period.
Michael Aigner
No, there are no restrictions of time controls for non-title norm events. There are guidelines for minimum time controls based upon rating such as a minimum of 120 minutes of think time if a player is rated over 2200.
I saw this done with ease at two events last year in other countries because the events were properly staffed with arbiters. 1 arbiter was made available per 50 players at a minimum, not including the Chief Arbiter and Deputy Chief. It’s called staffing and event properly, not with bare bone minimums to pocket as much profit as possible. And on top of it the arbiters were taking down times on each of the games in case of a clock malfunction or dispute regarding the time.
These tournaments in other countries that you saw, did they have more than one round per day? Even with one arbiter for every 50 players, it will take many minutes to start all the clocks. With two or more rounds per day on a tight schedule, there would likely be a problem.
As for the profit motive, I think most weekend swisses in the USA are NOT run for profit. In most cases, even of fairly large events, the organizer is satisfied just to break even. The finances are usually very tight, with no money available to pay more than the minimum number of TDs.
The USCF rules are optimized for multi-round per day, weekend swisses using mostly volunteer TDs who are not professionally trained. These rules have been honed and perfected over 40 years of experience and experimentation. For the kind of tournaments we have in the USA, they work better than the FIDE rules.
– Hal Terrie
The FIDE Laws of Chess don’t say that the arbiter has to start the clocks. The FIDE rule relating to starting the clock is:
This, in passive voice, simply states that White’s clock is started by someone. The FIDE Laws of Chess don’t care who starts the clock. This is consistent with the entire general style of the FIDE rules. For the most part, they are direct and succinct. The whole FIDE Laws of Chess covers a few printed pages. This is in striking contrast to the incredibly wordy, chatty, and redundant USCF rules, which take about 100 pages just to cover the Rules of Play, and another hundred or so pages to cover pairing and tournament organization.
One can have reservations on some points, but just as a matter of style, I greatly prefer the FIDE rules to the USCF rules. The FIDE rules are elegant, direct, and simple, leaving room for local variation on all but the points regarded as fundamental, as opposed to the prolix micro-management of the USCF rules.
Perhaps there is another FIDE regulation related to particular competitions which states that the arbiters start the clocks, or perhaps it is merely conventional. But if the USCF adopted the FIDE Laws of Chess, it doesn’t seem that it would be required to have hundreds of arbiters running around starting clocks at the Supernationals.
This may be true of adult events, but scholastic events generally collect much more in entry fees than is required to rent the venue, buy the trophies, and pay minor other expenses. Whether this surplus is a “profit” that goes into the organizer’s pocket, or (as is the case with MACA, for example) is used to subsidize adult tournaments and produce a chess magazine, is another matter.
Let’s pretend for a moment that the rules definitively state that the arbiter must start the clock. (Brian is correct that there is no Law of Chess that states this, however it is practiced to remove allegations that an opponent started a clock earlier than it should have.)
Are you seriously telling me, that it would take an arbiter ‘several minutes’ to start 25 clocks by pushing a button on them? 25 clocks = 50 people.
Toss the schedule off kilter because it takes ‘several minutes’ to start 25 clocks? Because the organizer is tossing 4 rounds in a day to catch up on a 2-day schedule perhaps? Then the point is moot because you can’t have more than 3 rounds in a single day under FIDE rules, and most likely the time controls being utilized to do the catchup wouldn’t count for rating for FIDE purposes.
And we’re not talking about your general weekend swisses. My example here was about $10k+ prize fund events. Don’t tell me those are little events that someone is not attempting to run for a profit or as a feeder into a larger series of events that is profit motivated.
As a delegate Brian has the ability to make motions. He might consider making a motion to substitute the FIDE laws of chess for our USCF laws of chess.