How would you rule?
White has only a pawn remaining. Black has several pieces remaining but only a few seconds left on his clock. Sudden death time control. Black’s turn.
Black makes contact with the remaing pawn with one of his pieces to capture it. Before Black removes the pawn from the board, his time runs out.
Who called the flag, and was a TD or some other witness present?
Witnesses were present and White called the flag.
Since the pawn is not off of the board, White wins.
This situation also can be addressed using rule 9G. “Determined moves and completed moves.” In this case 9G2 would probably be appropriate; i.e., “The player’s flag must remain up (5G) after the final legal move has been completed, not just determined.” Black’s flag did not remain up.
Tim
Of course if the remaining pawn had come off on a previous move the flag would not have to remain up during the completion of the final move. The key was that the move removing the pawn was not completed prior to the flag fall.
Consider the following example, White has a queen at f7 and king at g5. Black has a pawn at g6 and king at h8. White to move. If White picks up the pawn and places it on the side of the board without touching the king or queen his move is neither determined nor completed under 9B. Capturing “The move is determined with no possibility of change when the player has deliberately touched both his or her own piece and the opponent’s piece, and completed when that player presses the clock”.
If the flag falls after the pawn is removed but before the queen or king is touched the move is not yet determined and black has not been checkmated nor stalemated. So White would lose since the capture has not been determined. This seems harsh, but well within the meaning of the rule.
There are some inconsistencies in the rules that have long bothered me a bit.
Normally, a move is “determined … when the player’s hand has released the piece, and completed when that player presses the clock”. (9A, along with similar language for capturing (9B), castling (9C), and pawn promotion (9D).)
But specific exceptions are made for checkmating moves and stalemating moves, in which case the move is defined as completed at the same time it is determined. (9E)
This same exception should also apply to any move which creates a “dead position”. A dead position (FIDE uses this term) is any position in which no sequence of legal moves can lead to either player being checkmated.
A simple example of a dead position is K+N vs K.
But there can be complicated dead positions, also. For example, imagine a position where both players have several pieces, then white plays Qg5xg7+, leaving black with only one legal reply, Kg8xg7, which in turn creates an immediate stalemate. This position became dead at the moment white determined his Qxg7+ move.
14D (Insufficient material to continue) takes care of this case, because a position has arisen “in which the possibility of a win is excluded for either side. … 14D4 … There are no legal moves that could lead to the player being checkmated by the opponent.”
But now suppose white’s time runs out after he plays Qxg7+ and before he presses the clock. Does he still get the draw? Apparently not, because a “dead position” is not one of the explicit exceptions (checkmate or stalemate) provided for in 9E. And 14D no longer clears the air, because it is debatable whether a position “arises” when the previous move has been determined, or only when it has been completed.
Justice would seem to indicate that a move which creates a dead position should be treated the same as a checkmating or stalemating move, i.e. the move should be defined as completed at the same time it is determined.
There’s another problem, too. What about a “half-dead” position, i.e. one in which one player cannot possibly achieve checkmate, but the other could? Justice here would seem to indicate that a move which creates a half-dead position should be defined as completed at the same time it is determined, provided that the player who made the move is the one who still has mating material.
Food for thought.
Bill Smythe
I doubt it will be possible to formulate rules to cover every POSSIBLE time control situation, though the USCF rulebook sure gives it a try.
Whats not already covered?
“Inconsistencies” indeed. They bother me too.
Bill is right to pick apart the rules. I think his success at this indicates the rules should be simplified.
I am not a TD, so my perspective may be overlooking important issues (please do explain if so), but to me it seems…
There is no reason to make these kinds of “exceptions” to the general rule (sometimes it matters that the rule was ‘determined’, other times that it was ‘completed’).
These kinds of exceptions generate complexities nobody needs.
There is no reason to have any moves be considered ‘complete’ until after the player has pressed his clock.
Yes this means a player could checkmate his opponent and still lose on time. So what – this would be very rare, even in Blitz.
There would be nothing unfair about this. Speaking with full accuracy, the player would not have truly achieved checkmate, as his last move never occurred.
With the current distinctions and complexities, the TD has to get into the unpleasant business of asking the players “Did is hand pick up the pawn before his flag fell, or after?”. Then the TD has to guess which player is telling the truth. What a messy scene.
The TD should be able to simply look at the clock and see whether the flag has fallen – and be done with it.
The rules should strive to minimize the need for having a TD.
Oh boy 
Dead positions.
Bill Smythe
Agreed. If an exception is made for stalemating moves, I don’t know why an exception would not also be allowed for insufficiant mating material moves.
I agree that we should consider a rule change to make “dead positions” draws. But in my opinion, they are addressed in the current rules. As you point out, if a flag falls as someone is creating a dead drawn position, he loses if he doesn’t press the clock. Thus, dead positions are covered, just not handled as you or I would prefer.
That’s an appealing idea, but like many appealing ideas, it oversimplifies real life just a bit.
Checkmate “immediately ends the game” (13A). So does stalemate (14A). Those who decided (decades ago) that the flag need not remain up after checkmate probably wrestled with this, and came up with the right answer, IMO.
Some players don’t even bother to press the clock after checkmate. They just announce “checkmate”, or use body language in some way to indicate it.
Imagine the following scene. White plays a checkmating move with a full minute remaining, but does not press his clock. Black pretends to be in shock, but he is actually pulling a trick. He sits staring at the board, shrugging his shoulders, etc, for a full minute, then points out that white’s flag is down. I don’t think we need to provide this sort of opportunity for trickery for the chess lawyers.
No need to guess. If a director is not present and the players (and/or witnesses) don’t agree, he can invoke 13A3, which specifies that if it is unclear whether checkmate or flag came first, the decision is in favor of checkmate.
Bill Smythe
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In this reply I am not arguing, just chatting. Both viewpoints have their merits.
If the rule had always been “Press your clock after checkmating your opponent”, the knowledge and habit would be ingrained.
I agree there would be the occasional anguished loss-on-time. But fear of a transitional period may not be a good reason to stick endlessly with a more burdensome system.
The first problem with this current system is that the TD needs to know about 13A3, a special rule to override the standard general rule.
A second problem is that it can lead to a sense of injustice, when one player feels certain the flag fell first or did not or whatever: it still suffers from involving unprovable evidence.
The rule of thumb principle in rule design ought to be to minimize the need for a TD, and to minimize the need for the TD to make judgment calls, and to minimize the need to confront players. I believe the current rules sometimes deviate from this principle in ways that provide too little in return.