Mating Material Required To Win On Time

Running Chess Tournaments
1

“Mating material requires that a position be possible where mate in one is forced. Opponent to move cannot avoid mate next move”

This position which occured in actual play (I have seen simlar positions before):

White: Pawns on a4, b3, c4, f4, g3, h4 Kd3
Black: Pawns on a5, b4, c5, f5, g4, h5 Kd6

Here, the position is blocked and with worse play from both sides, neither player can make progress.

This game is played by two novice youngsters who aren’t familar with the 14H claims, and therfore they continue jockeying their kings around, making no progress. Yet no claims have been made from either side. That is, until white’s flag falls, when white calls the TD and asks for a draw based on no progress.

I denied the claim, and awarded the win by time forfeit to black, based on an erroneous claim (No progress) because white’s flag was down, and this particular claim isn’t available in such cases.

However, had white claimed a draw based on black having “no mating material”, how would you rule?

Remember: “Mating material requires that a position be possible where mate in one is forced. Opponent to move cannot avoid mate next move”

2

I think you’re in the right spot in the rulebook with 14D - Insufficient material to continue. I would point to 14D4 - No legal moves leading to checkmate by opponent. No pawn moves are possible since it is blocked and neither king can penetrate due to the pawns on the c and f files controlling d4,d5,e4,e5. Neither king can capture any pawns, so no legal moves will lead to checkmate. I find it unfortunate that the player may be required to understand how to phrase his claim of draw in order to obtain the draw, especially if he is a novice youngster. My own NEWBIE TD bias would have been to grant a draw even though White didn’t claim it with the right language. Would anyone have granted a draw in the situation as (improperly) claimed? An interesting question that I’d like to hear more experienced TD’s answer.

3

What 14D4 says is that the game is drawn when there are no legal moves which can lead to checkmate. This is the same formulation used for checkmate and stalemate (“immediately ends the game”). While this is obviously not the sort of situation envisioned by that rule, strictly speaking the TD should have stopped the game and declared it a draw.

The problem here – as opposed to the more usual case where one player does not have mating material – is that it allows the TD’s playing strength to affect the outcome. This is undesirable, but perhaps unavoidable.

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5

To dispose quickly of the immediately preceding post: Mr. Forsythe’s argument is silly. It is based on a deliberate misreading of the phrase “Mating material requires that a position be possible where mate in one is forced. Opponent to move cannot avoid mate next move.” (Which, by the way, doesn’t seem to appear in the 5th edition). The meaning of this is obvious – it must be possible to reach a position from which one an give checkmate. Yes, it is possible to reach such a position through further play after move 2.

However, I feel I must qualify my earlier comment, as there is an ambiguity in the phrasing of 14D. The rule begins by stating that “The game is drawn when one of the following endings arises, in which the possibility of a win is excluded for either side.” Several examples are then given, ending with the catchall “14D4. There are no legal moves that could lead to the player being checkmated by the opponent.” However, between these is a “TD tip,” which says, “Remember, a 14D draw claim is first a draw offer” (emphasis mine). It appears to me that the author (reasonably enough) did not consider the possibility of a player not making a claim in a position in which no checkmate is possible.

Despite the “TD tip,” I would still interpret 14D to mean that the game is immediately drawn when such a position occurs, and anything subsequent (including flag fall or resignation) is irrelevant.

6

This seems to reinforce the concept that while mate can be had with K+N+N vs K, one can’t force it. While the checkmating position can be set up, there is no way to force the mate i.e, opponent (defender) to move would be able to avoid the mate.

14D doesn’t exactly address this problem, as it apparently isn’t speaking to the fact that a flag may have fallen. I interpret 14D4 as applying to a situation where a flag hasn’t yet fallen. (Maybe I’m seeing a negative due to the lack of a positive).

On the other hand, 14E does speak to the situation of a flag fall, but notice that absent is the language as written in 14D4. In other words, 14E doesn’t give “No legal moves leading to a checkmate by opponent” as a case where the draw would be granted.

John: How would you justify stopping the game, and declaring a draw without a claim having been made by one of the players? If you’re considering an analogy with the language that states “… this imediately ends the game” as in 14A, that brings up another TD question, which I will address later. At one time, there was a rule (in previous rulebooks) allowing a TD to adjudicate “ridiculous positions” (apparently without a claim from a player). This, I believe, was allowed in situations where the tournament schedule was at risk of being delayed by players playing out hopeless positions. I don’t find this option in the 5th edition. Would this be the rule you are thinking of? I really don’t see any rules which allow TDs to intervene in games without player prompting.

7

I don’t understand, Mr. Forsythe. Your lack of basic English really has a knack for confusing me.

8

Yes, that was the origin of the “opponent to move cannot avoid mate next move” language. It was an early (and, in my opinion, fairly futile) attempt to solve the “insufficient losing chances” problem extensionally, by listng every possible case. The wording seems to have been dropped from the 5th ed.

The difference between 14E and 14D is that 14E says that one player cannot win the game, because he doesn’t have mating material. 14D says that the game is drawn, because neither player can give checkmate with legal moves.

The analogy I had in mind was the situation in which player A gives mate, player B makes another move and they keep playing, and player A’s flag falls. (For simplicity, let’s assume it is sudden death.) Ruling: player A wins, since the checkmate ended the game.

TD intervention in an anomalous case like the one we started with can be justified under 14J (“On rare occasions the director may encounter a situation …”). See also the very similar reasoning under 14G2 (Both flags down, players unaware). I suppose an acceptable alternative would be to allow the players to futz around until it was time to start the next round, then tell them it’s a draw. But given a position in which no legal moves can lead to checkmate, this seems pretty pointless.

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11

Join the club.

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13

Going back to the question of forfeit in the case of the fallen flag, I ran this case by my Senior TD friend who has directed large scholastic and adult events. He said he would have forfeited White after the flag fell. He also said he would not impose a draw if he saw the dead drawn position before any flags fell, but he might go over and ask, “Would either of you like a draw?” I’d imagine that scholastic novices might then say, “What’s a draw?” :smiley:

14

Bingo, we have a winner! Scholastic players do have a problem with asking or understand draws. As scholastic players would be asking question(s) like: 1) what is en passant, 2) what is castling, 3) ect. Some scholastic players only think a draw is having only the kings left; the one term never used much during a scholastic tournament is the word “draw”. This is the reason for taking my personal time: with the age group of 14 to 18 – to sit down and play the scholastic player. Teach and break them out of bad hibits, teach and break them out of bad habits, before they are formed.

15

You might as well put an astrix by scholastic players since some of them play in tournaments and don’t know how to play chess, so they play checkers instead.

You make mistakes when you play, and that’s how you learn. No 3rd grader is going to read USCF’s rulebook and it’s unlikely their chess coaches do as well.

Hell, how many adult players have read it, I’m guessing less than 10%

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17

In the position you cite (assuming there are no en passant captures available), there is NO sequence of legal moves which can lead to either side checkmating the other – even if the two players cooperate to try to find such a sequence.

So, at first glance, it looks like a 14D situation. That rule, Insufficient Material to Continue, declares a draw when “the possibility of a win is excluded for either side”. The rulebook lists four cases:

14D1. K vs K.

14D2. K+B vs K, or K+N vs K.

14D3. K+B vs K+B, with same-color bishops.

14D4. No legal moves leading to checkmate by opponent.

Of course, 14D1 through 14D3 are just special cases of 14D4, so it seems silly even to list the first three at all.

The intent of 14D appears to be that a “dead position” (as FIDE calls it) is an automatic and immediate draw, regardless of the state of either player’s clock.

If that’s the case, your ruling (time forfeit) seems incorrect. The game was over (and was drawn) as soon as the cited position was reached.

But wait – rule 14D doesn’t quite say that, even though it probably was intended to. So your ruling may have been technically correct, after all.

On the third hand, maybe it DOES say that, in the phrase “The game is drawn when one of the following endings arises”.

I would have ruled the game a draw, even though one player’s flag was down. In making that ruling, however, I would admittedly derive scant feeling of support from the vague wording in 14D.

14D needs reworking. At the very least, the addition of the phrases “this immediately ends the game” (as in the rules for checkmate and stalemate) and/or “such a position is a draw even if one player has exceeded the time limit” would help.

Bill Smythe

18

Bill,

My feeling is that 14D was intended to exclude situations where a flag is down. Do you agree?

19

– as usual. Sometimes the best thing for the rest of us is just to ignore him.

Did it appear in the 4th edition, either? (I don’t feel like doing an extensive search.)

I think it’s an old FIDE rule. The wording was something like “In order to win on time, there must be a sequence of legal moves leading to a position in which the opponent, despite having the move, cannot avoid mate in one.”

I believe FIDE abandoned that a few years ago. (Perhaps clocks with delay / increment make it less necessary.) They went back to the stricter “dead position” rule, where a player can avoid a time forfeit only if there is no sequence of moves leading to his being checkmated.

I think that TD Tip is out of place. Tim Just added such language to ALL sections of the draw rules, feeling that “any draw claim is also a draw offer” was a new rule, rather than just a clarification of what might have been considered obvious.

Bill Smythe

20

No. I believe 14D was intended to prevent a player from winning on time with K vs K, or K+B vs K, or K+N vs K, or (for that matter) in any position in which no sequence of moves could lead to the opponent being checkmated. If the clause “the game is drawn when one of the following endings arises” means the same thing as “this immediately ends the game”, this strengthens my argument.

Let’s look at a related situation. Suppose that, in a non-dead position, white’s flag falls, but black doesn’t call it. Instead, several more moves are played, and eventually black gets checkmated. In this case, white wins, because the flag is considered down only when it is called, so the checkmate occurred before the flag.

Likewise, in the current situation, the dead position occurred before either player called the flag. (Had to – if the flag had been called before the position became dead, the position would not have become dead, as no more moves would have been played before the TD was summoned.) Analogously with checkmate or stalemate, an immediate game-ending situation arose before the flag was called, so the flag doesn’t matter.

Bill Smythe