This situation came up at a tournament on Sunday. I was not there, but the TD sent the following.
Player X’s flag fell, but his opponent, Player Y did not notice this. Player Y made an illegal move at some point after Player X’s flag had fallen. Player X noticed this and asked for two minutes to be added to his clock, which was done. Player Y subsequently ran out of time himself, which Player X called immediately. Player X was then awarded a win on time. Needless to say the USCF rulebook does not address this situation. One person did not believe the ruling was correct, but I thought it might well be.
I don’t have a rule book in front of me at the moment, but I don’t think the ruling was correct. I don’t know if the TD was called over when the illegal move was made, or whether Player X made the claim, and just added the time back himself. If the TD was called over, it seems he should have not upheld the claim.
First question: Did Y have a scoresheet complete enough to make a valid claim when X’s flag fell? If he didn’t, the answer is easy – he did not and could not make a valid claim, so the game continues. If he did have a complete scoresheet, the next question is whether he made a claim after X made the illegal move but before the TD gave X back the two minutes. If he didn’t, the answer is again easy: It’s up to the player to make a claim of a win on time, and if he fails to make a claim, for whatever reason, the game continues. The hard question is how the TD should have ruled if Y did make a potentially valid claim. I’d be inclined to say that the time-forfeit claim should take precedence of the illegal-move claim and be ruled on first, but I’d be interested to hear what other TDs think.
If the time control is sudden death, then there’s nothing to argue about. The player’s flag is down, so he loses. I didn’t think the scenario made any sense in that situation, so I ignored it. Now, if the illegal move were alleged to have taken place before the flag fall, there might be something to debate, but that’s irrelevant to the hypothetical as given.
First, you’d have to assume this was a sudden death control. Because that would be the only time clocks are adjusted on an illegal move claim (11A/D.) (time… clocks! Ha! I made a funny! Or not…)
And, en passant, a delay of 30 seconds or more makes the game not-sudden-death (regardless of being only/last control,) and as such no time is added for the illegal move.
But, rulebook conflict? 16R flatly says no time adjustment to reinstate from an illegal position / no recovery of time. I’m sure I’m wrong about that.
Second, at what point did player Y make a time forfeit claim? Only Player Y is allowed to do so - the director may not initiate the claim him/herself. <deleted part of initial post - rereading showed me where I was wrong>
But adding back in… if Player Y hadn’t noticed the flag fall, the game plays on, no?
I think there is still a conflict in there somewhere… but don’t have time right now to work it out - under time pressure.
The situation Mr. Hillery presents seems like a sticky wicket indeed. My first inclination, in absence of a mate or stalemate without an illegal move, is to take the claims in the order they are presented. (The illegal move claim takes precedence over the time claim if made after Player X calls the illegal move.) Unless both players are scrabbling for the TD’s attention… Even then, I’m inclined in this case to take the first claim presented. Player Y should have noticed the flag fall before Player X could present the illegal move claim.
Elementary, yet dumb question… Let’s say these are analog clocks and/or digital clocks that are counting a next time period (or counting “negative” time.) Does “adding two minutes” mean player gets two minutes to end-of-game as I think, or could it potentially mean “add two minutes and player’s flag is still fallen?”
Or is the operative assumption here the player’s flag has fallen, is at zero/empty gas tank, and therefore cannot have time added to it in any circumstance? In which case it is still Player Y’s responsibility to claim the win on time?
It is not when the flag falls that the player loses. The win on time is in effect when the flag is called down by the opponent (mating material required). As it wasn’t called, the game continues with the 2 minutes added.
I would like know what the basis is for saying the TD’s ruling is incorrect in Polly’s story. My inclination is that the only way the TD could rule that the flag takes priority is if someone other than the player called the flag, and that is not permitted.
As for the issue of 2 competing claims, it would seem that to claim that the flag is down after the illegal move claim is made, but before the time is added to the clock that the time claim should take priority. I would consider the claims to be simultaneous relative to the game, as the clock is stopped. Once the clock is adjusted, the evidence of a fallen flag is erased and there is no flag to make a claim on.
I could find no exact situation in the rule book, but, 19G3 comes close to answering the question. In that rule, the issue of an illegal sealed move against a player not appearing for an adjournment is addressed and the rule book says the win on time takes priority even though the illegal move was sealed (but unknown) before the player failed to appear.
If I’ve got this wrong, I’d like to know what the basis is.
To answer one of LV’s questions, it seems that adding time can “raise the flag from the dead.” That makes sense to me because the flag must be called down. If two extra minutes are added, you give the player say 62 minutes instead of 60 for his moves, and he hasn’t hit that new time limit yet, because he’s only taken 60.05 minutes. Then it works consistently even if his flag has not dropped yet. But if you don’t raise the flag from the dead, then you’re giving some special status because the flag has dropped but not been called down.
Is it different for SD – does the game end when the flag drops and the opponent doesn’t have to call it?
I guess Harold’s citation of 19G3 would roughly apply if the flag had been called while it was still down, before the two minutes were added.
It is true that 13B3 requires the player to make a claim. The intention of this rule is obviously to allow the game to continue until one player makes a claim or both flags are down. However, there is a good argument that what the TD did in the case described violates violates 13C13, Player out of time cannot claim. A player whose own flag has fallen may not win on time during that control. In other words, if Y for some incomprehensible reason refuses to claim and the TD adds two minutes to X’s clock, X still shouldn’t be able to win on time. If X’s flag falls, the game is drawn. It’s really the same situation as 16T, though with a rather stupid interlude.
I had always interpreted the reference to “no time adjustment” in rule 16R as simply meaning that “The players do not recover the time they used after the illegal move.” But it is definitely confusing that rule 11D1 uses the words “time adjustment” to refer to the adding of 2 minutes to the remaining time for the opponent of the player who made the illegal move!
I don’t think 19G3 is a good precedent. One of the points of rule 19 seems to be that, while the sealing player is committed to the sealed move (in the sense that he does not have the right to choose a different move, instead), the sealed move is not considered to have been made until it is opened. Consequently, anything that happens before the sealed move is opened (agreeing to a draw, resigning the game, losing on time) takes precedent over an illegal sealed move.
If player Y had claimed (which apparently he did not) that player X had lost on time at the same time that player X was claiming that player Y had made an illegal move, the one thing that would be clear to me as TD is that player Y’s illegal move had been made before he noticed that player X’s flag had fallen (or else why would Y have made a move and hit his button?). So I’d be inclined to rule that the illegal move claim took precedence.
This would have to be the ruling unless the 2 minute time adjustment made for the illegal move were considered to have reversed the falling of the flag.
An interesting situation could arise if a different TD responded to X’s claim that Y’s flag had fallen than had responded to X’s claim that Y had made an illegal move. The time adjustment made by the first TD would make it impossible for the second TD to know that X’s flag had ever fallen.
A flag is not to be considered down until it has been called by either player in the game. Claims must be considered in the order in which they occurred. There may have been several moves made while the flag was down but not recogized. If the illegal move was claimed before the flag fall was claimed, regardless of when it actually occurred, the TD should rule on that claim first. If the 2-minute penalty is sufficient to raise the flag again then the game continues with any result possible.
Carol, I think that’s a bad interpretation, as it will lead to absurd results (as it did in the case originally given). Continuing a sudden-death game after a flag has fallen is, ah, strongly disfavored, and allowing a player to make a claim, not only after the flag fall, but about something that happened after the flag fall, is even worse. I agree that this specific situation is not covered in the rules, and that it is possible to find a legalistic justification for your view. But you can find one for the other side as well (e.g., a player may not make a claim after the game is over, so he can’t make the claim until his flag has “unfallen,” so he can’t make the claim until after the TD’s ruling), and the TD just has to use common sense. I don’t think your reading does.
I’ll ask again, is it your understanding that a TD can step in and call the flag on a SD game?
I agree that a game continuing with moves, rulings, etc. all after both flags have fallen is somewhat unintuitive (but so is the necessary prerequisite that the flags have not been called down by the opponent.) In the thread about a player having a heart attack, I thought that common sense required that the guy not be penalized more than necessary for something that does not violate the spirit of the rules, that is not his fault. You and one or two other NTDs all agreed that a rigid interpretation is best, apparently because then one does not have ambiguity about where to “draw the line.”
May I say welcome to the forums? (Your first post, that is… ) And, of course, your reputation precedes you.
I’m curious about your last sentence. Is it your contention, then, that the 2-minute penalty (or time addition, depending…) could be applied but still leave the player in “negative time,” with the flag still fallen, then? (I asked that question above.) John’s position seems to be that the flag fall creates an irreversible situation only waiting to be noticed - though I may have read into that or misread it completely.
I’m pretty sure that she means that if you’re 2 minutes and 1 second past flag-fall, getting 2 minutes added is not enough to re-raise the flag. But if you’re 1 minute and 59 seconds past flag-fall, getting 2 minutes added will re-raise the flag.
And that once a flag has fallen, it is a situation just waiting to be noticed, but if it isn’t noticed until the flag is re-raised in this weird situation, then the situation disappears and it’s too late to notice it.
You seem to be using 13C13 in a way that I doubt was intended.
13C13 Player out of time cannot claim A player whose on flag has fallen (5G) may not win on time during that control.
I do not read this (despite what I consider an unfortunate wording in the bold title of the rule) as meaning a player with a fallen flag can make no claim of any kind, only that he cannot claim a win on time. Perhaps Tim Just or someone on the rules committee would be so kind as to clarify whether the rule is intended to apply to any type of claim, or only time forfeit claims.
Let’s say you and I are playing a game and you are in sudden death time pressure but you have an overwhelming advantage. On your last move, when you punched the clock, you had very little time remaining. I make an illegal move, punch the clock, and before you can notice that the move is illegal, stop the clock and make a claim, your flag falls. Are you saying that you are SOL, even if I don’t claim a time forfeit, or if I point out the flag fall after you make the illegal claim?
Let’s say you are TD and are summoned to a board, clearly by both players. When you arrive, both are simultaneously trying to make a claim. One player is claiming a time forfeit. The opponent’s flag is clearly down, but the flagged player points out that the position on the board is illegal and he has complete notation that clearly shows that the claiming player’s last move created the illegal position. Will you allow the time forfeit claim?
A partially analogous situation is in the blitz rules (used in the scholastic national side events, and USCF quick-rated) when an illegal move loses the game. In that case, an illegal move claimed prior to a flag claim would seem to result in the illegal mover simply losing before a flag claim could be resolved.
Or not…)
) And, of course, your reputation precedes you. 