Limit of TD involvement

Running Chess Tournaments
1

I encountered a unique complaint about the way I handled a clock question during a tournament game this past weekend.

I was called to a board in which Black, after making his 40th move and pressing the clock (40/2, SD/1), noticed that an hour was not added for the second time control. Black had paused his clock before getting me. When I arrived at the board I noticed that the clock was a Saitek. Not having the settings memorized, I reached across the board to pick up the clock to look at the bottom to see if Black had his clock on the proper setting. At this point White objected to my distracting him while he was thinking about his 41st move. White suggested that the proper time to get the TD involved was when it was Black’s move or that I immediately take the clock far away from the board if I wanted to discuss the proper setting of the clock so as not to distract him while he’s contemplating his next move.

There was no disagreement about how many moves had been played. Although the clock was improperly set for 3 time controls, I suggested that I not adjust the clock as the second control on the setting being used was also an hour and to wait until 1 side reached no time remaining on the primary control and get me again only if no hour was added.

After the game White complained to the chief TD that I distracted him on his move even though I was invited to the board by his opponent who had already stopped the clock. The chief TD told White that my way handling the situation was acceptable.

In looking through several sections of the rule rook, I see no limitations that would restrict a TD from handling an inquiry immediately at the board regardless of whose move it is and which player called the TD as long as the clock has been stopped. My reason and habit of handling the proper clock setting at the board is that I want both players to know what, if any, adjustments I’m making to the clock. My fear would be that if I made an adjustment out of sight of one player that it would leave me open to criticism by the player that had no opportunity for input. The only mention about handling the issue away from the board I could find was for “[e]xtended discussions” (21F). This entire incident took under a minute.

I’m not aware of anything I did wrong or could have done to better avoid a complaint from White. How would the other TDs reading this have handled it?

2

I would have asked White if he wanted cheese with that whine.

C’mon, seriously – Black has asked a TD to handle a legitimate issue, the clocks are stopped, and White is complaining? You are handling a legitimate issue, not a frivolous triviality. Black has asked for TD assistance as soon as he realized the clock was set incorrectly or was otherwise not functioning as it should. Last I checked, TDs do not need permission from the opponent to settle issues.

Yes, I understand that White’s train of thought was disrupted. And yes, that is unfortunate, but “stuff happens.”

3

As long as White’s clock wasn’t ticking, he wasn’t on the move, and therefore he had no justification to claim a distraction. Unfortunately, there seems to be no way to avoid unreasonable player complaints.

Alex Relyea

4

Hi Alex:

I am not sure about this situation when the clocks are stopped. I sort of want to agree with you that neither player is “on move.” However, this interpretation causes problems when a player correctly makes a claim that requires him to be on move and then pauses the clock. Common sense leads me to the idea that while the clock is paused, the game is stopped and neither player can claim to be disturbed while the situation is judged. Who was on move when and why the clock was stopped is a different consideration and hopefully non-controversial. I would rule that even though the clock is stopped, for the purpose of a claim, the player who was on the move when the clock was stopped is still on move even though the game is paused.

At a somewhat recent tournament I was called to rule where the clock was stopped and one player claimed they were on move and the clock had been paused while the other player claimed his clock had been started so he was on move. This led me as a player to realize that if you have the time, it is better to leave your clock running after making a claim until the director gets to the board. If time does not permit, announce you are making a claim and pausing the clock. Hopefully one of the nearby boards will notice.

Regards, Ernie

5

I would be inclined to honor White’s unusual request, but to inform him that it is being done as a courtesy as Black was correct in stopping the clocks when he did. Before starting White’s clock, instruct Black to stop the clocks and call you when it is his move. The result is that Black gets the “free time” to think about his move while you fiddle with the problematic Saitek, and you get to see whether the additional half-move allowed the clock to see the next time control. You make a great point about doing any clock adjustments at the board. I hope that you don’t mind having a novice TD participate in the discussion.

6

I don’t think the blue Saiteks add the extra hour until the player’s first time control of two hours is all used up. Many players don’t appreciate this, and assume that the clock is not working correctly, or must have been set incorrectly.

7

I am somewhat reluctant to treat a player differently from the others unless there is an underlying reason such as a handicap. I believe it sets a bad precedent. The procedure I used last weekend is one I’ve used hundreds of times before and this is the first time I was invited by one player and accused of distracting by the other.

As for the setting on the Saitek, I didn’t know what the displayed number-letter code was until I looked at the bottom of the clock. I was checking to see if it was set for 2 time controls. When I saw that it was set for 3 but the second was the same 1 hour as the second of the tournament I made no adjustment. The owner didn’t know if it was set right and he was the one who set it. I just wish he had seen me before the game. When I know what the setting is I inform both players to see me if it doesn’t add an hour when it reaches zero. Someone might consider even that a distraction.

After the game was over in the directors’ room I asked White what he thought the proper procedure should be in such a situation hoping to have him explain his solution. Instead he turned it around that I was the TD that I should know the proper way.

8

Then White acknowledges that he doesn’t know what is correct, no? :wink: My reply to that might have been, “I did know what was right, and did it.”

The clock was stopped and you were asked to the board. Right, wrong, or indifferent, you had a duty to intervene. And, while the complaint was that time wasn’t added, I would think you had a responsibility to ensure that the clock was indeed mis-set (as opposed to malfunctioning.) Further, if move counters were in effect, just restarting White’s clock and waiting for Black to be on move might not have been the best option.

Was it Black’s clock, and did Black mis-set it and/or incorrectly set it? (Thinking should Black be penalized and/or warned?) But that would be in your discretion.

Personally, I hope that I would have done the same thing as you.

9

He made no such acknowledgement. If I had to guess, I would say that White didn’t know but figured I had to be wrong because he was distracted.

With many games in progress which might require assistance and me already at the board, waiting for a player to move, even if I’m handling other claims while I’m waiting to be called back to the board, it doesn’t seem like the best use of my time.

Black owned and, I assume, set the clock. I think we have enough rules without penalizing or warning players for incorrectly setting a clock. I could have penalized a dozen players last weekend if there were such a rule, and that was just the obviously incorrect ones.

In a somewhat related issue, I must have set a half dozen clocks at the start of every round. I wasn’t the only director doing this. It’s amazing how many players don’t know how to set their own clocks. That didn’t happen nearly as much in the olden days of hour hands and minute hands.

10

Hmmm…do I have this right? One of the players is complaining that when the clock is stopped and the TD is making a ruling/solving a problem that they are concerned about the fact that the TD is disrupting them from analyzing the game while it is not in progress?

11

I think you summed it up - the player has no grounds for a complaint.

12

You should have appeared unto the player who called you in a dream and spoken to him spiritually, divinely intuiting the clock situation and using burning bushes or something to reset the clock as required. But non-distracting burning bushes.

13

C’mon, now, please. The ideal game is one which suffers no interruptions at all. The sign of the best officials is that there are no controversies at all on their watch - not the ones who resolve high profile controversies successfully. (It’s less glamorous, but it’s more smooth.)

My first question regarding what happened in this game is whether Black’s concern rose to the level of justifying stopping the clock, as time control had been reached, and there was no crisis of any sort. Black might just as well have asked a TD’s opinion without interrupting the flow of the game from the perspective of White, who was on the move.

In the old mechanical clock days, it was clear if the second time control was one hour that no intervention would be needed; on the other hand, if it was 30 minutes, at some point the hands of the clock would need to be advance by 30 minutes, and the TD would need to be able to know this had occurred. As I recall from directing in the 80s, first TDs would fan out and watch for time scrambles, and when they were done, would move through and find calm moments at which to make sure every clock was reset as needed (and the TDs could tell by the elapsed/remaining time if this had been done already.) Under USCF rules, the interruption - if needed - could occur once both players’ scoresheets showed that they had passed the first time control, or once a flag was down and acknowledged and no claim was being made. Under FIDE rules, simply knowing that the time control was passed was enough, as arbiters would be responsible for enforcing the time controls without players requesting anything.

Was it necessary to intervene at all, had the clock not been stopped? With sufficient knowledge of the type of clock by either Black or by the TD, could the TD have figured this out without further ado when Black came to him?

I’m an IA as well as a long-ago veteran TD, but recently I have only supervised an IM round robin, so I have not brushed up on the USCF rules of late. My last USCF event was 12 years ago, as floor chief for a US Open (which provided the original Saitek clocks at all boards, and yes, they did have to be reset for the second time control; our staff did this with as little interruption as possible, generally resetting the clocks away from the board by preparing a substitution).

I don’t know the answers, but those are the questions I’d start with, and the ideal I would strive for.

14

Please let us know how a TD can guarantee that there will be no controversies. Some of them, like pairing disputes, may be somewhat avoidable, but once the players start their games, there’s not much the TD can do to keep them from a situation that requires summoning a TD to resolve it.

15

And yet, I’ve seen TDs who were successful at doing so. I would suggest that no one dismiss the possibility out of hand. Of course, no one can guarantee such a thing, but some TDs certainly do improve the odds. I’ve had the privilege of playing under and/or working with such people on occasion. Two who are perhaps obscure, but who come to mind, are Roland Benoit, the leading TD in southern NJ in the 1970s when I grew up, and Charles Rostedt, founder of southern California’s Chess Palace club, with whom I ran 30/30 tournaments in the '80s when they first became ratable. Both created very calm playing environments, and both had incredibly low rates of disputes.

Maybe players are encouraged to stop the clock for too little reason sometimes. What if I was worried about disturbing my opponent because I felt like I might be having an attack of hiccups? Would that justify stopping the clock? Well, maybe this situation didn’t either. I’m interested in the discussion of the merits which is taking place here.

16

And maybe tournament players in 2011 are just different than they were in the 1970’s and 1980’s. Some of this may be due to changing tournament styles, high prize funds, sudden death time controls, etc.

Life in general seems to have gotten more combative over the years, I don’t recall reading much about ‘road rage’ in the 1970’s. Back then if you tripped on the sidewalk, you got up, looked around sheepishly, and moved on. These days you call your lawyer on your cell phone.

17

Well, maybe some of us simply become more cynical with each passing year.

I supervised a round-robin IM tournament of ten highly combative masters in November, and had no difficulty in prepping the players to behave well, and they all did. Did I control that? Of course not. But I certainly influenced it.

Calling on people to be their best selves, rather than expressing expectations that they will be as nasty as possible, really helps. And it’s not very hard to do. Again, those two TDs I mentioned were as good as any at doing so - though, of course, there are many more well-known directors who have also excelled at doing so. I’ll bet George Koltanowski was pretty good at it, and I’m lucky to have been taken under his wing towards the end of his life. I hope I can pass along some of what I’ve been given by such people.

18

A TD can’t control when a player stops their clock and why, though. And if it is a clock issue, if I am the TD I’d like to assure myself that the clock itself isn’t actually malfunctioning.

I would rather operate under the instruction that if players have any problem they pause clock and summon TD, as investigating a problem usually only becomes more complex with passage of time. Best is usually, “Pause clock when you are on the move…”, but claims like touch move negate giving that as a general instruction.

While allowing players undisturbed concentration is a desirable goal, the fact that the clock was stopped to me means that while White was on move the player should not absolutely expect it… White’s time is not running.

Let’s say TD takes clock away to inspect it. White can beef, upon making the move, that White does not have the clock to press.

I’m not saying Black was right to stop the clock, but nor should the TD be held at fault. Possibly the TD could have said, “Wait until White makes a move, then immediately pause your clock and I will check it out.” But that’s a matter of the TD’s judgment.

19

I also prefer not to get involved but unlike 1998 where all the clocks at the US Open were the same, in the post in which I started this topic I am dealing with dozens of clock models. The particular clock I was invited to look at was familiar to me but the setting displayed was not. The easiest way to figure out what it’s set to is to pick it up and examine the listings on the bottom. With the exception of this complaining player, players seem to expect that when a TD is asked to see if it is set properly that the TD will pick it up and examine it. As the clock was paused before I got there, I expected it to be a non-issue but it wasn’t.

It is interesting that the player complained about my picking the clock up but had no complaint about his opponent who both didn’t know how to set his own clock and invited me to examine it after he made his move.

20

Perhaps the rules or some prevalent mindset nowadays, which is reflected in this discussion, are not optimal.

Time has value, and while the clocks may be stoppable at the board, the wall clock does not stop, and each TD has no more than 60 minutes to spend on running the tournament every hour. TD’s have responsibility for the smooth running of the event, and if a TD loses control of his or her ability to keep the event on track because of too many interruptions, that’s not a good result.

Once upon a time, the only issue that rose to the level of needing to stop the clock and preserve it was that of a claim that a flag had fallen prematurely. Almost all situations can be restored as needed by a TD, if justified.

Is the change of mindset here related to the use of faster time controls, as though each player is always on the verge of overstepping the time limit?

Players should concentrate on playing. If a player has a concern, take it to the TD on while leaving the clock running and without disturbing the TD. The TD can and should determine whether the issue needs to impact the opponent, and is responsible for making sure the opponent is not disturbed unnecessarily.