Flag fall comment by spectator with 17 seconds remaining

We have three possible cases when a spectator points out a flag fall:

  1. It seems very likely that the opponent would have noticed the flag fall anyway (for example, if he had a LOT of time left) – award him the win.
  2. It seems very likely that the opponent would NOT have noticed the flag fall (perhaps because he’s about to flag himself) – call the game a draw.
  3. It’s completely unclear whether the opponent would have noticed on his own – why not just award a win for player with time left and a draw for the player that flagged, as mentioned earlier? That’s the only outcome that wouldn’t treat either player unfairly. Other than finding out that the specator was in collusion with one of the participants, I see no reason not to make this ruling.

BTW, intentional interference from a spectator COULD work either way. A spectator COULD point out a flag fall to the opponent of the player he wanted to help. By pointing out the flag fall he might cloud the issue and get the director to award a draw. Assuming that the spectator was trying to help White (in this example) would be a bad assumption unless you have some EVIDENCE. Without evidence, I don’t see how you could fairly penalize White.

Or suppose that the spectator is a friend of Black, and was hoping to save the draw for him by giving White unsolicited advice.

Since it was stated specifically that there were 17 seconds left, I assume that this game was using digital clocks with time delay. 17 seconds would therefore represent potentially a lot of moves.

It would seem that there would be an even more significant probability that White WOULD HAVE noticed the flag fall, assumine this were the case.

Sure. However, note that those taking this position are saying that White can receive no penalty for the unsolicited advice. Hypothetical: Suppose instead the spectator had said “Play b4, it wins!” Would White have been allowed to play b4? Would the game have continued with White not allowed to play b4? Ever? Compare and contrast.

Another question is did the clock have “halt on end”? If so, the player who was out of time would never have been able to have run his opponent out to get the draw.

Alex Relyea

I suppose it depends on who the spectator is. Check section 20E2 of the rule book. It’s too lengthy to type up here. There is a suggestion under d. to maybe rule it a draw.

Didn’t we have this discussion a year or two ago? One side thought “halt at end” was a great idea, while the other (including myself) thought it should be illegal.

Awarding more than 1 point for tournament standings is a completely separate issue from the rating. If more than one point is awarded fro the tournament then the TD must decide if the game is going to be rated or not and how. I think that the USCF can only rate the game with a net of 1 point, but certainly WinTd provides for allowing more than 1 point from a game for tournament score purposes. This is fairly simple to do, but the TD has to make it clear to the players what is going on.

I’m pretty sure the ratings system can handle more than one point as well. You might have to justify the decision, but it can be done.

Caveman, I said just that in the line starting with “Well …”. But thanks for pointing it out again.

Here is how I view it.

It is important not only to use the rules, but to understand why they are there.

As a practical matter, USCF rules recognize that it is difficult or impossible to have a director/arbiter on each and every game. This is a practical concern - in a FIDE world an arbiter would be assigned to the game.

The point isn’t just whether an arbiter is there - but is also that the reason an arbiter is there is to observe reality and to make a ruling based on what actually happens.

In the game the facts are that Black ran out of time, and that white still had time left. A win had not been claimed, but the “physical reality” is that Black has lost. White must only stake his claim.

I think that significantly different from a situation where someone offers a move - which (potentially) changes the actual reality of the board and clock.

My ruling in this situation would be that Black loses. You argue that White should not benefit from the help of a spectator. I would argue that Black has overstepped the time limit - he could have moved faster and not have had the issue to begin with - and that he ALSO should not be helped by the outside influence.

The fact is that, depending how you rule, the outside influence helps either White or Black.

That said - I’d tend to ignore the EFFECT of my ruling in determining my ruling, and look at the physical reality of the game.

Fact is - white played fast enough to have time on his clock when Black’s time ran out. If I’m going to make a ruling that helps one player or the other, I’m going to help the one that based on the physical reality of the situation has a won game. I’m not going to change the result because someone spoke up, when I don’t know that any other result would have ever existed.

So - I rule in favor of the result that actually exists - rather than one of the results that might have existed 17 seconds or more in some alternative and non-existent future.

The only real problem I have with your reasoning is “A win had not been claimed, but the “physical reality” is that Black has lost.” I can’t agree with that interpretation. In a USCF tournament, the flag is not considered to have fallen until a proper claim has been made by the opponent. While it is true that the player has an obligation to use his time properly, he also has an obligation to observe and call the flag. Accepting your line or argument would imply that, if White had not noticed the flag fall until after his own time had run out, there would be something “wrong” with the game being drawn. I can’t accept that, and there is no support for it in the rules.

I’m inclined to give white the benefit of the doubt and give him his win. I don’t know about anyone else, but if I’m in a game where both my opponent and I are short on time, I’m going to be looking at the clock frequently.

I had a situation where we were both short on time, and I went to look at the clock to see how much time I had left. The position wasn’t simple enough to just bang out a move or two, but I wanted to see if I had time to think. It was at the point I noticed my opponent had flagged. I only had 5 seconds left when I looked at the clock.

Then you’re not quite getting the point. I thought my prior argument of understanding the purpose of the rules would help to illustrate this point but it appears to have caused confusion. So try this:

  1. At the time of the interference, the player with the obligation to use his time properly HAD FAILED.

  2. It is unknown (because of the interference) whether the opponent would have fulfilled the obligation to call the flag or not.

  3. Ruling one way reaffirms #1 above. Ruling the other way overturns #1 above.

  4. It is a well-known principle of logic and of statistics that unknown information has no impact on the probability of a result. Nothing can be inferred from no information.

  5. Based on this, I ACCEPT #1 above, and accept that I can infer nothing from #2 above. Hence I must rule that the player loses.

In other words, I would accept the KNOWN information (flag down) and not rule based on SPECULATION.

Your comment:

is not implied at all. You’ve changed the information of the situation (in your example here there is no interference.)

Your counter-argument above is based on accepting speculation (i.e. the speculation that the person continues to have an obligation to call a flag when interference has prevented the opportunity to do so.)

Phrased that way, I have no objection to your argument (though I would probably not rule that way). My problem was with “the “physical reality” is that Black has lost.” A better wording would be “The objective fact is that Black’s flag is down.”

Thanks to all for the discussion. As was assumed at one point, yes it was a digital delay clock (3 seconds delay for this G/30 event).

In this instance, white stated that he hadn’t looked at the clock in a while and might not have in the remaining time. After some discussion, the two players agreed to a draw.

This forum exchange indicates the correct ruling is not obvious in the rules. Prior to the draw agreement, the Chief TD and I considered:

  1. awarding white the point (possibly penalizing black)
  2. calling it a draw (possibly penalizing white)
  3. adding time (30 seconds) to both sides of the clock and putting the outcome back in the hands of the players (although this gave advantage to black)

All of these have also been mentioned here in some form.

The suggestion of giving white the point, black a half point and not rating the game is interesting. But it could have consequences for the prizes.

The additional suggestion from this discussion that I like was something similar to consideration 3, but limiting black to a draw if they won in their added time (reducing the advantage gained by black).

In this situation where it seems quite possible that white may not have noticed blacks flag fall in the remaining time, my preference would probably be to put the decision back in the hands of the players, with the outcome within the range of possibilities that existed when the unsolicited advice was given. This would be done by adding 30 seconds to both sides of the clock (white with 47 and black with 30) and let them play it out with black only receiving a draw if able to win in the added time.

Tim Just, what are your thoughts on this one?

Cheers,

Mike Swatek
Senior TD

There is no good solution, just pick one that you can live with. I would have gone down the Bachler path; however, the other solutions here are just as good. The problem is that there is no exact fair way to unring the bell. I believe at FIDE tournaments it would be less of a problem. Why? Yuri Schulman was telling me how he was deputized by the arbiter at a FIDE tournament to make flag fall claims (etc.)?!

Tim

Thanks Tim

Perhaps this would merit a future rules clarification. Since we now allow the digital clocks to be set with a beep when time runs out, which is somewhat like someone coming up and saying the flag has fallen the rule could simply be changed to something where it is still the primary responsibility of the player to call the flag of his opponent but if it gets called by some other method the game is over.

It does open up some issues which probably created the rule in the first place.

Maybe a rule that doesn’t penalize the players but the person pointing it out. If it is another player a possible 1/2 point deduction from his or her score. If simply a spectator ???

Maybe the issue could be solved by the use of clocks that automatically call the time.

Yet you solve this issue and you are still left with similiar situations. Say a spectator comes up and says out loud “Look white is about to run out of time.”

Should white be punished for that?

Maybe this issue should fall under the rules governing assistance like if a player says " Look White moves the Bishop and it is mate in two."

Fortunately I’ve never had these things happen.

It would hardly be wise to “clarify” a rule when, in almost everybody’s opinion, “there is no good solution”. In a case lilke this, the TD needs to have a lot of latitude. There are so many gradations of the spectator-calls-flag possibility, that a one-size-fits-all approach just won’t work.

That would come within a millimeter of actually condoning bad spectator behavior. At the very least, it could encourage collusion between players and spectators.

Of course the spectator should be seriously penalized, but that doesn’t solve the problem of how to rule between the players.

That was tried in the 4th (1993) edition of the USCF rulebook, which declared an audible signal and a halt-at-end feature to be “both legal and highly desirable”. But that philosophy never caught on with players or TDs, and now such options are merely “legal”.

Bill Smythe