I was directing a nonrated scholastic event earlier this week. Of course, a TD is not bound by USCF regulation at such an event, but I would highly reccommend doing so.
There were no clocks used, and scorekeeping was not required. Yet what happened could very well happen under USCF conditions…
Two sixth graders are playing. They are in a crowded middlegame. Black plays Qe8xRh5. White plays QxQ. Black claims the white Q was on b1, not d1=wrong diagonal. White says, it was on b1 previously, but he moved it to d1 later. There aren’t any witnesses.
I ruled that the game continues with the white Q on d1, the white R on h5, the black Q on e8, black on move, and black may make any legal move.
Such a situation could happen under USCF conditions with a sudden death time control. NTD Glenn Petersen suggested going back to the last written position on both scoresheets, if such things existed during the game.
Any ideas, agruments, etc.?
All the best, Joe Lux, NTD
PS:
A local master had cleaned out a lot of stuff from his home. He gave me a box of about 70 old CLs for the kids. I invited the kids at this nonrated event to pick one issue to take home. The kids thought that was great. They never saw a chess magazine before. During the event, kids and parents asked me what USCF was.
Did you think that 1 of the 2 was lying or that they both believed what they were saying?
In either case asking questions about the position may get get a correction or confession. The questions I find will sometimes help should deal with, in this case, the location of the white queen. Ask each of them how it got there or why they’re so sure of it’s location. Ask White when and why he played Qb1d1. Try going backwards a half move at a time. Sometimes (when both are being honest) the one who was mistaken will realize his mistake because there will be an inconsistency between what he remembered and what was possible. When a player is trying to cheat they sometimes change their story because they’re trying to recall a lie they told rather than an event.
This doesn’t always work but does enough to make it worth asking as many questions as you can. I would rather take an extra couple of minutes asking questions and get it right than make a decision that avoids the actual situation. I’m not saying you did it incorrectly with your compromise, but one player should have lost his rook or the other a queen for a rook and neither happened.
I had no reason to suspect any lying. My second post just mentions a hypothetical.
Why should one player lose a rook or another lose a queen, Harold?
Why must this ruling be punitive? There is no solid evidence to support who should lose material. A TD must be prepared for punitive rulings, but a TD doesn’t have work to find a punitive ruling without a clear situation. Definitely, any TD, who takes pleasure in making punitive rulings, should be decertified.
Certainly, the TD should think up as many questions as he can to find out what happened. I think I did, and presented my final result.
If at all possible, the correct position should be the point of continuation of the game. If either of the 2 players is correct, then one of those things happened. How could it possibly be wrong for the game to reflect what the players played?
I’m not sure what you consider punitive here. It is not punitive to continue from the correct position. Only one of the two queen locations you were given could be correct. The one who should have lost material is not being punished. He is playing the position he gave himself.
I hope you’re not implying something here, because if you are, you’re way off base. I would take no pleasure in punishing the innocent or rewarding the guilty. I do take satisfaction in having my rulings agree with what happened on the board. The argument could be made that a player who won material over the board but was forced to go back to a position a move before it occurred was punished.
You made no mention of asking many questions in your original post and asked for ideas.
But the ruling would be somewhat punitive either way, no?
Your solution means that, was the Queen on d1 originally and Black opponent simply put Black’s Queen en prise, Black gets a do-over and potentially salvages the Queen. (If I understand the post correctly.) Which penalizes White.
If the Queen was on b1 originally, then Black is penalized because all of a sudden the Rook on h5 has become at least singly defended, where it (presumably) would have been en prise before. Which penalizes Black.
Either way, regardless of the truth of the moves, somebody’s position just got penalized because of the claim. If I’m understanding it correctly.
The one time something similar has happened to me so far, and I couldn’t figure out who was telling the truth from the stories, position, and attempting to retrograde with the players (and getting the Chief TD,) the ruling was, “It’s he said/he said, and the board position stands, and this is why one ought to take notation even if it is not required to do so by the rules of the tournament.”
(Along with us noting down who the player was, so that we can keep an eye on the player in the future for other ‘your piece was there’ claims.)
If players choose not to keep accurate scoresheets, nearly any ruling which would be assisted by having scoresheets is likely to seem a bit punitive to one or both players, isn’t it?
Not necessarily. If the ruling matches what actually happened over the board, then both players are playing the position they deserve. If one is cheating and there is no downside for the attempt, then that player got away with something.
This sounds like a good story to remember if you’re ever confronted by a player who wants to know why USCF rules require keeping score.
It’s interesting that even though the USCF rulebook has a rule (11D1) specifically addressing illegal moves under sudden death time pressure, the rule never mentions the possibility of a dispute over whether an illegal move was actually made, even though the possibility of such a dispute is automatically raised by the provision in rule 15C excusing players from keeping score in such a situation.
Since the tournament was not being conducted under USCF rules, the question for that tournament is whether the ruling was as fair as possible - not whether it conformed to USCF rules.
The ruling Joe made was about as fair as I think it could have been under the circumstances. One of two things clearly happened: Either white moved his rook into danger without protection for no good reason, or else black exchanged his queen for a rook for no good reason. Either error would give a major advantage to the other player, but since there was no way to determine which error was made, the fairest thing was to negate both errors by undoing the exchange while leaving white’s rook protected.
I believe that a pretext could be found for this ruling even under USCF rules. The TD tip for rule 16D1 states that “No player should gain an unfair advantage for deliberate illegal moves,” and there is no way to rule out the possibility that white deliberately moved his queen from b1 to h5, or that black deliberately lied about the fact that white’s queen had really been on d1. So Joe’s resolution might be the only way to rule out the possibility of one side or the other gaining an unfair advantage through a deliberate illegal move.
Nor should the rulebook mention this possibility, nor all possibilities. The book is too big, inhibiting new TDs, and new tournaments.
Skills in judgement must be encouraged and nurtured. For much of the convenience of computers, people have lost those skills, considering everything as if all that is needed is an on/off button.
Harold is right, that the TD must be prepared to ask as many questions as he can to try to determine what happened. These questions could never be found in a rulebook.
^
I also think, Joe, that there are certainly situations where two equally prepared and competent TDs can come up with two different solutions to a grey-area problem. (Actually, maybe two TDs can come up with four solutions… )
Although the solution that I would employ is different and based on a different standard of what is equitable, I didn’t mean to imply that your solution was “wrong.” I’m afraid it may read that way.
In the ideal world, every judgment call would have one, and only one answer. And then Chess would be solved, and we would be bored.
Perhaps I was misunderstood. I didn’t say Joe’s ruling was wrong but I did say his ruling did not match either player’s recollection of the moves.
In the situation described either black lost a queen for rook or white lost a rook. Only one of those two can be correct. We know that going back to the move prior to QxR that neither of those two above situations will occur. It follows that one of the two players benefited from the ruling. It also logically follows that by going back to the move prior to the first capture that the player with the accurate recall is having a legitimate win of material taken away from him.
The big problem is knowing which one is accurately describing what occurred on the board. Joe made no mention of how long he took to make his ruling. This is one of those cases where what ever decision is made will very likely decide who will win. It is a situation in which I would take a long time trying to find out what happened even though there is no guarantee that I will be able to determine what really happened.
Joe made a decision which he felt would be fair to both players but he also knew that decision would not be consistent with either player’s description of the last position on the board before he was called.
What is the goal of every TD? Would it be to have the rulings match the events on the board? This may not always be possible but it is still worth an attempt.
In your example we know that White claimed to have won a queen for rook. We know that Black claimed to have won a rook. Unless both player’s claims are wrong (unlikely), we know that someone won significant material but didn’t keep it. While I accept that you were unable to determine which player’s version was correct, we also know that one of them was. It is not a criticism of you, but my idealistic goal that the ruling would have matched the actual moves played. This is all that I meant when I wrote:
Yes. I can accept this explanation, and agree. I felt you meant, that the decision required that one player or another must lose material. Please excuse me.
The way I see it, is extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. If neither player had a scoresheet, and one of them made the claim you mentioned I’d say “let’s go over the moves from the beginning, hand me your scoresheet”, to which they’d answer “I didn’t keep score”, to which you’d reply “That’s a shame. In that case, the position on the board is the current position, have a nice day”. If 2 people make contradictory claims with no evidence to back up either, how can you make a qualified decision? The only thing I could see, is to just look where the pieces are physically and say ‘there it is’, if that makes any sense.
If you’re going to let the current position stand without so much as an explanation from the two players as to how they arrived at it you will find yourself to be a very ineffective tournament director.
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