Insufficient losing chances - reserved judgment option

Running Chess Tournaments
1

This question was inspired by MadChessFamily’s question. I apologize if this has been discussed before, but I couldn’t find it in reviewing the subject headings.

Suppose White has less than two minutes on his/her analog clock and makes an insufficient losing chances claim. The TD determines that the claim is neither clearly correct nor clearly incorrect, doesn’t have an extra delay clock handy, and selects the option of watching the game, reserving judgment on the claim. Black declines to accept the draw immediately and the game continues, with the TD watching, mulling over the question of whether a C player with adequate time could hold the position against a master.

Under what circumstances can this claim, on which the TD has reserved judgment, be withdrawn by White, or superseded by events on the board? For example:

Case A: White does better than expected and starts to actually win the game. (This is like MadChessFamily’s example.) The TD concludes that the original ILC claim WAS CORRECT. In that case,

(1) Is the TD OBLIGED to stop the game and declare it drawn?

(2) If not, does the TD (who is now convinced that the original claim was meritorious) have the DISCRETION to stop the game and declare it drawn, or to accept the result on the board? What would bear on this decision?

(3) If the answer to either of the above questions is “Yes”, then is there anything White can do to withdraw the pending ILC claim before the TD rules on it?

(4) Suppose White actually mates Black, or Black resigns, before the TD arrives at a decision. How does this affect the TD’s duties/options?

Case B: Under time pressure, White does his/her best to hold the position but then makes a blunder (putting a piece en prise, say) and gets in a dead lost position. However, the TD concludes that the original ILC claim WAS CORRECT (and that a Class C player would not have made such a blunder with adequate time). In that case,

(1) Is the TD OBLIGED to stop the game and declare it drawn?

(2) If not, does the TD (who is now convinced that the original claim was meritorious) have the DISCRETION to stop the game and declare it drawn, or to accept the result on the board? What would bear on this decision?

(3) Suppose Black actually mates White, or White resigns, before the TD arrives at a decision. How does this affect the TD’s duties/options?

MY OPINION:

The TD’s decision to reserve the judgment and watch the game should not be taken as a way of evading the claim or hoping that the players will forget about the claim and decide the game on the board. The TD is watching the game in order to better understand the position at the time the claim was made.

It seems to me that the TD cannot just forget about the claim, but ultimately has to make a ruling on the claim on its own merits - that is, to determine whether, at the time it was made, it was meritorious. If it was not, then it has no effect. But if it was - if, at the time the claim was made, the position was such that a C Player could have held White’s position against a Master with adequate time per move - then it seems to me that the TD, on becoming convinced of this, is obliged to grant the claim and declare the game a draw, regardless of subsequent developments on the board.

Taking case B first, as soon as the TD becomes convinced that the original claim was correct, he/she must rule on the claim and declare the game drawn. If White is dropping pieces in time pressure, still, that is the very evil that the ILC rule was designed to address. The rules say that the TD should make every effort to rule on the pending claim before one or more of the players’ flags falls, but the implication is that if those efforts fail the TD should still rule on the claim. This also implies that if White blunders in time pressure and gets mated, the TD must still rule on the claim and, if it was meritorious when made, declare the game to be drawn. (Although I would listen to the argument that, if White actually RESIGNS, he/she is abandoning his/her pending claim.)

If in case B we grant that the pending claim takes precedence over events on the board when this favors the claimant, then it is only fair that in case A it should work against the claimant. I would say that in this case as well there is nothing that relieves the TD of the responsibility to rule on the merits of the claim based on the position when the claim was made. In this case as well, the TD has the duty to declare the game drawn. Furthermore, there is nothing in the rules that permits white to withdraw this claim. An ILC claim should be taken as a very committing step.

So my answers would be: (A)(1) Yes; (2) not applicable; (3) No; (4) It doesn’t; (B)(1) Yes; (2) not applicable; (3) It doesn’t (except maybe if White resigns).

In order to avoid as much as possible the undesirable situations associated with late decisions on ILC claims, it might be good to put the following language in the rules, maybe as a TD tip: “If a TD has reserved judgment on the claim and is watching the game, then, if the position on the board changes materially, it is likely that the TD has acquired all the information on the original position (at the time of the claim) that can be acquired. In that case, it is appropriate for the TD to stop both players’ clocks and deliver a ruling on the original claim, and then, if the claim is denied, restart the clock of the player on move.”

petrel

2

I guess that I don’t understand some of your statements. If white makes the insufficient losing chance claim, he is offering a draw. If the TD is reserving judgement while watching the game, then there is no way that the player who made the claim can undo the claim offer.

If the player’s position morphs into a clear winning position, then he should be awarded the draw. I don’t think the original position has any bearing at that point.

On your case B, if white makes a blunder and has a lost position, then how can the TD award a draw? You were watching to see if progress was being made, and obviously black is making progress. The claim should be denied. You can’t go back and say, “Oh, now I think that the position from 8 moves ago had no chance for black to win.” Black is now winning!!

3

In case A.4, if White checkmates Black, the game ends immediately and White has won. Checkmate is absolute. The pending claim of a draw by ILC is irrelevant. The game is over, the outcome is determined, and there is nothing left for the TD to decide.

Similarly, if Black resigns, the game also ends immediately, and White has won.

4

Rob, with regard to case B: You argue that

The problem is that the initial claim is that the position from 8 moves ago had no chance for Black to win if white had adequate time. Black is now winning because White was blitzing out his/her moves because the TD didn’t rule on the claim when it was made! By your logic, “reserving judgment” would be just a way of declining to rule on the claim at all, and it would do White no good to have made the claim. Also, the rules clearly suggest that the claim survives even if White’s flag falls; they urge the TD to avoid this, but they don’t say when/if the claim ever disappears.

Ken: Your emphatic and confident assertion that a mate or resignation moots the pending ILC claim is noted, but is there anything in the rulebook to back it up? Wisely, the rules don’t encourage TDs to delay decisions, and I don’t think there are that many explicit provisions for it, but isn’t this analogous to a case in which the TD is collecting evidence about a claim of another type? For example, if there was a claim of misconduct by the opponent, about which the TD was still collecting evidence, you wouldn’t say that a checkmate or resignation mooted the claim, would you? (Of course a misconduct claim is different, but what is similar?)

By the way, I note that you refer only to case A-4 - are you distinguishing it from case B-3?

p>

5

The rules specifically state that checkmate ends the game immediately. I’d compare this to a case where white offered a draw, completed his move and then noticed that the move was a checkmate (!). The checkmating move ended the game immediately – black would not then have the right to accept a draw, the game would be over. The interpretation that the TD could subsequently declare the game drawn, after the game had concluded with a different result, may make a certain kind of sense – but I don’t see anything in the rules that would support it and there IS a clear indication in the rules that once there has been a checkmate or resignation that the result is final.

6

I guess that I need someone “older and wiser” to explain to me about the option to watch the game. I thought that the purpose of that was for the TD to watch to see if the position looked like it could be held. If I put a delay clock on the game, then white would have to hold the position with only 5 seconds a move (which would equate to blitzing the position).

I thought that reserving judgement was for a TD whose OTB rating (like mine) might not immediately let the TD decide in a “grey area” if a C class could hold against a master.

I agree that it is not the best option to watch for a few moves, but I would find it hard to award a draw to someone who drops a queen while trying to demonstrate to me that they have an easy draw, or they would have an easy win if they have enough time.

Rob

7

I will start off by saying that I will find a digital capable clock and put it on the game (in 98% of the cases), even if I have to provide one myself.
Therefore, your scenarios won’t happen.
BUT

This is an extremely rare case.
(Please don’t “what if” this to death.) You usually have to take circumstances of what is actually happening, the attitude of the players, round times and several other factors into consideration. Use your best judgement.

To answer some of your questions:

yes

No
(except, see below on the checkmate question)

Stop right there, obviously adequate losing chances existed (the blunder was there to be made). The claim is denied.

First, the decision should not take more than a couple of moves, as it becomes swiftly evident that the opponent is only trying to win on time (if true), or is attempting to make real progress (if false).
The director must be aware of the time remaining on the clock before he makes the decision to wait. If the flag is “hanging” he should have adequate judgement not to wait for progress, but make a decision immediately.
If the director was unsure to begin with, what makes him so sure now?

The best answer, still, is to avoid this situation altogether, and get a delay capable clock!

8

I don’t understand this reasoning. If the possibility of a blunder means that there are sufficient losing changes, then how can there ever be insufficient losing chances? Taking it to an extreme, the player making the claim might plop their Queen next to the opposing King thinking they have checkmate only to realize their covering Bishop was on the “other” diagonal. Blunder? If the point is that a C player would hold against a Master given adequate time, how can the possibility of a blunder invalidate an insufficient losing chances claim?

9

Read what I said. If the flag is “hanging” DON’T WAIT, make your decision now.
With 5 seconds left on the clock and you decide to wait, you’ve already made the wrong decision.
Say you want to wait 4 moves, make sure there is at least 20 seconds left on the clock. 5 seconds per move IS “adequate time” (according to sudden death time delay rules) because that’s what you get with a delay capable clock.

Again, you have to use some good judgement.

Only once since the ILC rule was introduced have I felt the need to reserve judgement, then the issue was decided in 3 moves. Even that time (the first time I encountered the situation) it could have been avoided by the time delay clock (this was before this edition of the rulebook, and the time delay option was not clearly defined).

OK,

  1. ILC is claimed; opponent has not accepted the draw offer;
  2. position unclear;
  3. Delay clock not available;
  4. flag hanging;
  5. blunder made by claimant within 3 or 4 moves

probability: very near zero (can be made to equal zero)

I might as well buy a lottery ticket!

Make the probability equal zero, have a delay clock available.
enough said.

10

There’s a lengthy thread on exactly the topic of the immediacy of checkmate ending the game in this forum:

http://www.uschess.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=755

I thought Tim Just’s reply early in the thread was especially clear.

(Actually, I just went back and noticed that you contributed to that thread. So it should look familar. :slight_smile: )

Yes, but only because I wrote my reply quickly and did not have chance to think about case B-3. In its totality, the entire question made my head hurt :slight_smile:, so I just decided to comment on case A-4.

11

This is not explicitly stated in 14H, but the implication is clear enough. The last sentence of 14H2b2 (TD watches for progress) says, “The claimant may win, lose, or draw the game.” If a player has mate on the move, he obviously “insufficient losing chances,” but if the TD could intervene retroactively and declare the game a draw after checkmate, how exactly could the claimant win? (There is also the quite unambiguous 13A: “The player who checkmates his opponent’s King, providing the mating move is legal, wins the game. This immediately ends the game.”)

A more interesting question is whether the TD can declare the game a draw after a flag has fallen. The answer seems to be yes (“The TD should make every effort (emphasis mine) to resolve the claim before the flag of either player falls”), though I’m not sure it should be.

All this underlines what David Kuhns pointed out above: 14H2b2 is a very poor makeshift, and should be used if there is absolutely no alternative.

12

To tanstaafl, Ken, e4e5, and John H. on the “checkmate ends the game” issue:

e4e5 provides the following apparent quote: “Checkmate and resignation immediately ends the game, all pending claims or decisions are null and void.” Is that actually a quote, though, and if so, from where?

In fact, the rules DO give an example of a “pending claim” which is NOT rendered “null and void” even by a legal checkmate. It’s the case of an unresolved flag fall claim discussed in 13A2 and 13A3. Player A claims that B’s flag has fallen, and then, before the TD addresses the claim, player B administers a mate. The TD does not say “sorry, all pending claims are null and void, checkmate ends the game and I can’t make any decision after the game that would negate the checkmate.” The TD determines whether the flag fall claim was made before the checkmate, and, if it was, the rules say “the time-forfeit claim is appropriate” and the TD must rule on that claim.

It seems to me that mate after the ILC claim on which judgment has been reserved, posed in my cases A4 and B3, are most closely analogous to the 13A2 situation, except that there is no dispute about whether it was made before the hypothetical mate. It was. Therefore, analogously, the TD should rule on the ILC claim before accepting the mate as valid.

The rules do indeed say that in the case of the 14H2b2 reserved-judgment ILC claim “The claimant may win, lose, or draw the game.” But I would argue that this is what happens if the TD does not ultimately uphold the ILC claim. If the TD DOES uphold the claim - before mate, let’s hope - then the game is drawn, period.

As for Tim Just’s post in the other thread, that thread was dealing with questions like what happens if the players don’t notice a checkmate and go on and play other moves unaware that the game is over. As the TD Tip under rule 13A states, “anything that happens after the checkmating move has been legally determined … is irrelevant to the outcome of the game.” But this “anything that happens” shouldn’t be read as preventing the TD from ruling on claims previously made. (Reading it otherwise would contradict the plain language of 13A2, the unresolved flag fall claim rule.) The relevant “thing that happened” was that a player made an ILC claim in a certain situation, and this happened before the checkmate. Otherwise, the outcome of the game is going to be a hostage to the quick-wittedness of the TD: if the TD decides on the claim quickly, the claim takes precedence; if the TD dilly-dallies, it gets taken out of his/her hands by events on the board. I would say that such an outcome was “contrary to public policy”.

On the issue of whether the ILC claim can/should be granted after White has made a blunder and gotten into a losing position or even walked into a cheapo mate:

I want to remind people of the standard for granting the claim in the first place, from Rule 14H2c: “The draw shall be awarded if the director believes that a Class C player would have little chance to lose the position to a Master with both players having ample time.” Furthermore, we are cautioned in 14H2 that the ruling is to depend only on the position, not on the actual rating of the players. No new or different standard is given in 14H2b2, the reserved-judgment section, so this is still the standard that the TD must ultimately apply to the claim. The fact that White, who may be a Class F player for all we know, and may be playing a GM for all we know, and who certainly does NOT have “ample time”, may have made a time-pressure blunder, does not resolve this question. I think vjg’s comment is precisely correct.

I think anyway that we have general agreement that if this section of the rules is never actually applied, the world will be a better place :slight_smile:

p>

13

You have a point. I would argue, however, that a move made after one’s flag has fallen and a valid claim has been made is an illegal move per se, and so this is covered by the second sentence of 13A (“… providing the mating move is legal”).

14

John Hillery writes:

OK, fine :slight_smile: Similarly, all moves made after a valid ILC claim has been made are illegal moves. White makes an ILC claim at move 45, say. The TD reserves judgment on the claim and watches the game. At some later point, the TD decides that the claim was correct and grants it. The effect is that the game ended at move 45.

p>

15

No, there’s a difference here. In the case of a player claim of time-forfeit, play is supposed to STOP. IF the opponent disputes the claim, then he should NOT make a move (doing so would be illegal), but the clock should be stopped and the TD summoned. In the case of “reserved judgement” the players are SUPPOSED to keep playing, so I don’t see how you can say these moves are “illegal”.

I understand the logic of wanting the ruling to apply retroactively to the time the claim was made. I just don’t see this spelled out in the rules and I do see the “checkmate ends the game” spelled out. It would be hard for me to go against the explicit rule on this issue. By not accepting the draw offer (which was implied in the draw claim) the opponent was taking his chances.

16

Don’t be absurd. The cases are not remotely comparable.The difference between a time-forfeit and a 14H2b2 claim is that in the first, the TD is ruling on an objective fact. He is verifying that the player either has or has not won on time. Under 14H2b2, the TD is evaluating the position and play and awarding a draw at his own discretion. Even on your own terms, the game did not “end” on move 45; it was declared a draw after additional moves demonstrated lack of progress. If those moves are said not to have occurred, there is no basis for awarding the draw and the game must resume. Infinite loop, anyone?

17

The reserved judgment is fine if the claim is made with 1:30 to 2:00 minutes on the clock. It starts to become a problem, when the claim is made closer to the flag fall. There is a point when the option of a reserved judgment is pointless.

Most players that are going to make a claim of insufficient losing chances, are going to make the claim just before the flag fall. Players have a right to make a claim of insufficient losing chances with 2:00 minutes or less. The majority of players are going to demand insufficient losing chances with 0:01 to 0:10 seconds left on the clock. The director having the option for reserving judgment is going to be very uncommon.

18

John, I can be pretty absurd when I want to be :slight_smile: but I am sort of trying not to be absurd in the course of this legal argument. You are making out that a flag fall claim is about “objective fact” and that an ILC claim is about “discretion”, but I don’t think this kind of distinction holds up. I think that the ILC claim is supposed to be about “objective fact” - how much chance would a class C player have of holding this position against a master? - even though this fact can be hard to assess.

Furthermore, when you write about additional moves displaying “lack of progress”, and state that the TD is awarding the draw on the “basis” of this lack of progress, you are putting a little gloss on what the TD is doing while watching the players. I would say that the TD is collecting information about the position which will help in deciding the claim. I would say that the point is what the TD learns about the players’ chances on move 45 (say) - not on move 46, 47, 50, or some later move. The “basis” on which the TD decides the claim is the chances of the players at the time the claim was made, not the “progress” they have made on later moves.

For example, it might be that both players are pretty bad, and Black does NOT make progress, but the TD sees how Black COULD have made progress and determines that a Master could have won the game from move 45, and denies the claim. It might also be that Black DOES make progress, but the TD sees that this is only because White did not have “ample time”, and grants the claim anyway.

Actually, the rulebook says nothing about “making progress”, in fact nothing AT ALL about what the TD is supposed to be watching FOR - only that the TD is “watching the game while reserving judgment on the claim.” (Rule 14H2b2) My dictionary defines “reserve”, appropriately for this usage, as “to delay or hold over to a future time, syn. DEFER”. But whatever this means, it is not the same thing as “denying the claim while inviting a later re-claim”, which is treated separately in 14H2b1.

Now I think some people who have written here are treating “reserving judgment” and “denying the claim/inviting re-claim” as if they were the same thing and had the same outcomes. If the claim is denied, then of course White might mate Black, Black might mate White, in both cases leaving the TD with nothing further to do; or White might get a lost position (and no longer be eligible for ILC treatment), or a minute might come off White’s clock with no progress having been made, and he/she might re-claim ILC and the TD might grant it. No controversy here at all. But “reserving the claim” is given a separate heading and thus presumably does not just have the same results. I think that the only sensible way to treat it is to take it that the claim, made on move 45, is still in existence on the same terms that it had on move 45, and that the TD has just delayed his/her answer to it, and is trying to determine if it should have been granted on move 45, and should NOW be granted AS OF move 45.

I grant that this is a very peculiar way to handle a claim. There is no other sort of claim in the rulebook that I have found where the TD is explicitly given the right to “reserve judgment” while the game progresses. In general, the claimant stops the clock, the TD resolves the claim immediately, and then if the game is not over the clocks are restarted and the game goes on. In this one case the claim is deferred and the players continue to move. But I don’t think this means that the question posed by the claim changes from move to move or second to second, as the position becomes more defensible or less defensible due to the actions of the players, at least one of whom is in severe time trouble.

Furthermore, there is nothing in the rulebook ANYWHERE that suggests that unresolved claims of ANY KIND, already in the hands of the TD, are extinguished by checkmate. Claims of rule violations are not extinguished by checkmate. The unresolved flag fall claim is not extinguished by checkmate. If the authors of this rule had wanted to warn that a deferred ILC claim was extinguished by checkmate, they could have done so at the same time that they took the trouble to encourage the TD to resolve the claim before a flag fall. One of the purposes of the rules is to avoid disputes; it seems to me that little would occasion more dispute than for a TD to say, “well, I now think you had a valid ILC claim back on move 45, and if I’d given it the thought then that I now have, I would have granted it, but hey - too bad for you, you should have played better blitz!”

However, I recognize that because of the unusual nature of this seldom-used rule, intelligent people of good faith are likely to disagree about its interpretation :slight_smile:

p>

19

I can’t believe we’ve spent so much time on this incorrect interpretation of the rules. Let me see if I can spell it out:
14h2b 2 (reserving judgement) “Watch the game while reserving … The claimant may win, lose, or draw the game.” (note it DOESN’T say “The claimant may win, lose, or draw the game if the claim is DENIED” – that would have been easy enough to say if that was the intent).

Further in the TD TIP: " if the claimant makes a checkmating (13A) or stalemating (14A) move, the game is over." This seems pretty clear to me – even though it’s only directly talking about the very next move, this is clearly a case where the rulebook is saying that checkmate wins the game even if the claim had been valid.

20

Bingo! You got it!

Comments on the other posts I have read:

I believe 14H is “insufficient losing chances” and not “lack of progress.”

A better rule might be: 14H. The clock that starts the game ends the game as long is there are no mechanical defects.

Tim