Is rule 8F7 out of date?

Running Chess Tournaments
1

I’ll paste the rule here but first the setup.

White had a pawn on g7, a knight on e7 and other material including pawns and a bishop. Black had a rook covering g8, a king on h7 and other material, only pawns.

On the move White pushed g7-g8 and hit his clock. At that moment the base times (G90d5 time control) were 2s for White, 20s for Black, no fractional seconds displayed. Black stopped the clocks, probably during the delay but it doesn’t matter. Black argued that White needs to promote a piece and should do it on his own time.

I found rule 8F7 in the rule book, the online rule book and in forum posts.

8F7. Promoted piece not available.
If the desired piece is not available to replace a promoted pawn, the player may stop both clocks in order to locate
that piece and place it on the board. A player who cannot quickly find such a piece may request the assistance of the
director. It is common practice, however, to play using an upside-down rook for a second queen. In the absence of
the player’s announcement to the contrary, an upside-down rook shall be considered a queen. It is improper to press the clock to start the opponent’s time with the pawn still on the last rank. If this is done, the opponent may
immediately restart the player’s clock without moving.
As soon as the new piece is placed on the board, either player should restart the clock.
TD TIP: Clocks that have a move counter may need to be readjusted if a player improperly presses the clock with a
pawn still on the last rank and the opponent immediately restarts the player’s clock.

The problems:

  1. I took “improper” to mean illegal and added 2 minutes to Black’s clock. The thing is it makes no difference.
  2. Even if White relied on the point about searching for material (all the pieces, including a checking queen or bishop were next to the board), White didn’t search or claim to search. He assumed like online chess that the pawn was a queen.
  3. Black’s argument that White needs to promote on his time is right and supported by bold text.

Unfortunately, I didn’t incorporate that part in my ruling. So, Black got 2 minutes but White got an extra delay when his clock started again, and eventually won by playing on the delay. White might have promoted correctly in those final 2 seconds while his clock was originally running, or maybe not. But he’d have less than 2 seconds for certain.

So I’m arguing that the remedy to just restart White’s clock and force them to promote on their own time makes sense but it doesn’t account for the digital clock delay, meaning it probably comes from analog clock days and so it’s outdated. As a result, even with the correct remedy, Black got no remedy (aside from 2 extra but meaningless minutes). If Black had hit the clock and caused White confusion, White might have flagged. That would be in accordance with the rule but Black tried to clarify and teach, and got hosed for his trouble.

So, how can Black get a real remedy? and how can the rule make sense for digital clocks with delay (or increment)?

2

How would you change the rule? Stopping the clock for the TD to rule probably gave more time than the delay did. With a queen readily available two seconds would be plenty of time to finish the promotion (assuming you make the offender sit throughout the extra delay and only move once it is over). Loss of game is too severe for most such errors and almost anything less (like treating it as an illegal move) you’ve already rejected as not enough. You didn’t mention deducting half of the offender’s time but you would probably consider the delay to make that one second irrelevant.

In such a situation the opponent may be better served by simply capturing the promoted piece and continue keeping the offender in time pressure.

PS increment is easy to handle. The increment is added either after moving (just deduct the increment that was added so it won’t be re-added until finishing the promotion) or after the opponent moves (if the clock was paused then restart the clock with the offender on move with two seconds left). In both cases there is only two seconds to finish the promotion before flagging. Granted, the clock stoppage during the TD ruling still remains.

PPS I won a quick-rated game with one second on my clock, a three second delay, and 20 moves still to play to win the position (finishing with one second still on my clock). So you are correct that in some positions just the delay is enough. Still, both players have the same delay so the playing conditions were fair.

3

Try to make sure next time encourage everyone to bring their own standard roll up set so white & black know they can immediately locate an extra piece if necessary. Where the boards are present due to the organizer, the organizer should be held responsible. Yes, people do lose their tchi when they lose a piece and that can happen easily however a piece needs to be located. But to usually not lose the set, always order a set w/ extra queens. This would just become a part of chess etiquite.

I understand you are also asking about the clock. Begin to argue for straight time (no increment, no delay). This reduces risk of Picking Up Clock. Apparently the Tap 'n Set issue seems to be resolved. For a TD you should be more concerned if Players are playing w/ a pack mentality than to mess w/ a clock.

Also, TD need not be bothered by clocks. Their math skills are needed to quickly resolve situation of draw or no draw when it comes to ‘Triple Occurrence of Position’.

4

So, 8F7 could be for chess clubs when being asked to be part of a study and make tournaments more neutral by not playing w/ inc or d.