Consider the following situation. Tournament is 40/90 SD1 30"inc. being run using USCF rules. While both players are in the second control, player A’s flag falls. The clock is a black DGT 2000 set to the Fischer [increment] mode. It freezes showing 7:15 minutes for B and 0:00 minutes for A. They continue to play but the clock does not change.
You are called to the board where player A states that at least 5-6 moves have been made since the flag fell and his opponent has not noticed the flag fall. His opponent states that it couldn’t have been more than 4 moves. Player A wants the increment that should have been added to the clock and asks for the clock to be reset to give A 2:00 and B 7:15. How do you rule?
What if B responds that as the # of moves since the fall can’t be established, the most to add is 30"
What if B also asks for the same amount of added time that A gets?
Can B claim the win on time?
WARNING - I am going to ask a tricky question later.
Essentially player A called his own flag and loses. Since B was apparently willing to keep on playing with his opponent’s fallen flag, A should have kept on playing and hoped that a mate/stalemate/or insufficient material to mate position appeared on the board…
Seems pretty obvious that one cannot add time to a clock that has fallen, even though “B” hasn’t seen or noticed the fallen flag. Once A called it to everyone’s attention, game over. The remaining questions are moot.
One problem with setting the clock to freeze is that it eliminates the double-flag draw possibility. If B was down to 32 seconds when A flagged then A might have claimed that B used more than 32 seconds during the following moves, and if A can’t get time added for the increment then B shouldn’t get an infinite amount of time.
This can also be “fun” in situations with a freezing clock, a five-second delay, the flagging player’s opponent down to one second when the flag happened, and another five or more moves being played (especially in a complicated position where a double-flag draw would have been a very realistic possibility if the clock hadn’t been set to freeze).
You have one camp saying that a freeze at least shows who really lost on time while another camp can say that a freeze interferes in the game by taking away the need to watch the clock often. Decide in advance how you want to rule if something like that happens.
P.S. Just to keep things interesting, if you have increment without a freezing clock then it becomes difficult to see if somebody just flagged. You’d need a clock that can track the amount of time a player overstepped by (maybe flagging 8 seconds before hitting the clock) and then notice that the player has less than 30 seconds (22 in this example) during the opponent’s move, which meant that he had flagged at the time the clock was hit.
Many players are not used to looking for a flag when the opponent shows time on the clock.
It would be nice if a clock could be set so that just the flagging player’s side freezes while the other can still run.
Can a Game Time II be set to freeze? When using increment on these clocks, we always get the flashing light but few players actually see the clock go to zero. Current interpretation is that if there is time on the clock (ie, clock was pushed and increment added) then the game continues. I haven’t taken the time to dig through all of the forum discussion regarding how to deal with flag indicator flashing but time on the clock.
I’m not sure of the exact settings, but with Claim=on, GameEnd=off, Accum=on(2 sec), Accum=on(all), Word=off, it worked as a freeze once one side reached zero (neither adding or removing time regardless of the number of moves made or the time spent on each move.
With Word=on it started counting up when a side flagged, and eventually did so for both sides once the other side flagged.
This section refers to the technical requirements from the FIDE Handbook, C.02 Chapter 5. However, the text in that section is in fact the same as that of USCF rule 43E1c:
The DGT North American halts when one player runs out of time in an increment mode, as (apparently) does the DGT 2000.
But now, here comes the obligatory rant.
The USCF rules have an, um, quirky approach to increment time controls. The TD tip following rule 14G states:
This seems to contradict the notion of a “last” time control; a “last” time control in which all the moves of the game must be completed would by definition be a sudden death time control. From that, I would infer that an increment clock should not stop adding time to a player’s clock when the player runs out of time if the increment is 30 seconds or greater, contradicting 43E1c. (I actually don’t think that’s a correct argument, but I do believe the text supports that interpretation.)
I think the rule should be re-worded to note that a 30-second increment is not Sudden Death in the sense that players are not exempt from keeping score—i.e. they are required to keep score every move in a 30-second increment control, since the increment time should be enough to record the moves—but that other than score-keeping, a final time control is just that—final.
My preference is to turn off all flashing lights, beeps and sounds at time control. I lean toward the view that it’s up to the player (or observing TD if the event uses that variation) to call flag-fall. Allowing players and TDs to choose whether or not to do this on whim might not be ideal. Perhaps the rules committee could chew on that one over the coming months, since all other rules along these lines are now standardized and widely accepted.
(or observing TD if the event uses that variation) to call flag-fall.
TDs are not allowed to call a flag fall, this would be interferring with the game a TD can only rule on questions by the players themselves, if the players do not call the flag then the game continues.
Player A called his own flag. This scenario by Ernie was real, the clock was changed and the situation changed but it was FIDE-Rated. The TD could have called the flag, but not having done that before it would have been strange to suddenly do it for one game.
As Mike Atkins noted, it was a real tournament. I was told it was a Gametime II. I checked my clock here at home - was not at the tournament but was called - and the Gametime continued to add 30 seconds even after a flag.
That said, my understanding was that a pre-tournament announcement was made that USCF rules were in effect. Some of the interesting points are
Player A was on move and made a claim that the clock was not working - did not add the 30 seconds. We have arrived at a similar situation that was discussed earlier where a player makes a claim when his flag had fallen. I think most judged to just ignore the fallen flag. I disagreed in that case. Increment can be interesting. Consider the case where a clock continues to add 30 seconds. A player’s flag falls and the clock so indicates & continues to indicate. The opponent does not notice and the first player then accumulates about a minute in 2-3 moves. Can the opponent then notice that the flag indicates it fell and claim a win?
The 2008 rule changes document states 16T Both players exceed time control
TD Tip: An increment time control of 30 seconds or more is not considered sudden death, therefore if
both players should exceed time control, the clocks should be reset the “next” time control of the
time increment (e.g. 30 seconds) per move.
If we believe this, an idea for which I have great personal reservations, once the time is added back, you can’t claim a flag fall. Keeping this in mind, I advised the Chief TD to give the requested time based on the idea that the actual rule to apply was the incorrectly operating clock. This is where I chickened out - as I was not the official TD - from my previously posted statement that once called to the board, would enforce all rules. See http://main.uschess.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=14253&start=0&st=0&sk=t&sd=a
This sounds like a time bomb ticking down (or even up). This and similar, possible scenarios seem to point to the apparent necessity of having the rules state that an increment clock which does not freeze at “0” to be non-standard (although it probably would not have to beep and/or flash as well, just freeze for that player).
It is a recognized option for TDs to call flag-fall when they observe it. It is controversial and unusual, but it’s in the Rulebook. One of our ace TD wonks can cite the chapter and page number. I believe this is a variation that should (must?) be announced and posted at the site, since it is contrary to standard practice for a USCF-rated Swiss.
The controversy concerns the fairness or lack of same when one game with a flag-fall in a time scramble is observed and called by a TD, while another such game is not. This is mainly an issue in large Swisses. As noted, I lean toward the view that it should be all or nothing: That players should be responsible for calling their opponents’ flags—or their own, for that matter. In small round-robins it’s a different story.
FIDE rules call for arbiters to call flag-fall every time they observe it, I believe. That makes sense for most FIDE events, but not for large Swisses—but that’s a whole 'nother quagmire, that’s been hashed out many times…
Have you ever played with the DGT 960 in non-delay mode. As a result of a claim in the 2009 AFO, I discovered that this clock will count down to zero and then start counting up again in the non-delay mode. This is just one reason I somewhat disagree with you here. I like the Gametime II’s indicating a flag fall. I can live with the led lighting. I agree with you about sound. Despite what is now a relatively long usage of digital clocks, there are still some players not aware of what indicates a fallen flag. For example, consider the “beloved” Chronos. If set for a 2 control game with the counter off, it will automatically add the 2nd control when reaching zero. This can confuse a player almost as much as the DGT 960.
