Practically speaking, I don’t think there’s any way to resolve this. If two players who wanted at the beginning of a game to agree to a draw and who were told that they must play a certain number of moves in order for the draw to be valid would simply play the required number of moves and then agree to a draw.
Bob
Ah yes, the dichotomy of theory and practice!?
As a player in the 1994 US Open I witnessed 2 players at the board next to me agree to a draw without playing any moves. They even submitted scoresheets as evidence. When I complained to the chief floor TD and then the chief TD I was basically told it was none of my business. I submitted a complaint to the rules committee and got the same answer.
The following year I took the “if you can’t beat them, join them” attitude and tried to make their ruling a zero move game permissible to be consistent with the rule book through a series of delegate motions and some of the same people fought me on that too!
Harold -
I do not have a copy of the current rulebook, and the USCF does not post its rules online, so I don’t know if the current rules that would apply to this situation if it occurred today are different than the rules that existed in 1994. I note that you were not told by the TDs that a zero-move game was illegal, only that your complaint about it was “none of your business.” If it was legal according to the existing rules in 1994, the TD should have explained that to you. If it was not legal, the TDs were irresponsible for not taking action against the players instead of brushing you off with a “none of your business” big boss attitude.
The best thing to do in these situations is bend the rules a little.
If two players play a perfunctory 5 moves and then agree to a draw, just report it as a draw by forfeit. There is no good reason why such a game should be rated.
The rating system is designed to measure playing strength (indirectly, by measuring results). A game that says nothing about a player’s strength provides no useful information to the rating system.
Bill Smythe
In general, I am not in favor of bending rules. Some things need to be clearly legal or illegal and not left up to the whim of the TD. It is interesting that you bumped the discussion up to 5 moves. Earlier, the discussion was about zero-move or one-move draws. Now, you’ve gone up to 5 moves.
And, it may not be just draw results that could be illegal or subject to a TD’s option to bend the rules. Sometimes, a decisive result could affect a title, other competitors, or lots of money, and some TD somewhere may decide to bend the rules because of the perception that the win was not legitimate. For example, here is a 5-move game:
Another such game would be
This is a slight variation of an 1800s GM-equivalent game when move 3 was Bc3 (grabbed instead of the knight) and the rules at that time said an illegal move required correction to a king move.
I really, really dislike bending rules that are clear. If there are stated competition rules like saying no draw can be agreed to prior to move 30 then I still feel that such draws should be rated (potentially in an extra games section while the original section has a non-rated double forfeit when that rule is being strictly enforced).
I think that was only if the illegally moved piece had no legal move.
Bill Smythe
Which may actually provide additional incentive for one of the players to agree to such a draw (most likely the one who would lose points as a result of a rated draw.)
If you REALLY want to discourage this kind of non-sporting draw, the game should be treated as a double forfeit and both players removed from the tournament so they are ineligible for prizes. (And any honoraria should be contingent upon the player finishing the tournament.)
Here’s the major problem with the “none of your business” response. If neither player or the director wants to do anything about a zero move draw and it’s no one’s business, then any 3 people can concoct a series of unplayed games to manipulate ratings. Since no moves are being played, I would question that they even need to be at the same location to do this.
In my opinion, what happened at the 1994 US Open made a farce of the game. That the rules committee refused to change anything enforced the farce. One of the arguments made against my attempt to put the rule book in sync with their ruling was that they wanted to keep the option open to do something in the future but no one could give a circumstance when they would stop a zero move draw. Can you say “selective enforcement”?
I do believe Mr. Nolan has it right. And you don’t even need a USCF rule to do it. Any organizer can do this, as long as it’s announced in advance.
Here’s another incident that cropped up in a regional tournament. One player played 1. e4 and jokingly offered a draw to his opponent. The opponent, fortunately, indeed understood the joking nature the offer and played on (to a draw in the end, incidentally). Now, if that opponent had accepted the draw on move 1, would it have been the valid result of the game and would the game have been ratable, as only one player had made a move?
Each side has to make a move to make it ratable.
Now the challenge would be, if no scoresheets are turned in, if someone challenges the results put on the pairing sheet.
But if the result was posted on the pairing sheet and no scoresheet was submitted (they were not required to be submitted at this tournament), the director would go ahead and rate the game along with the rest of the event. This action would, then, require a correction to be made because both sides needed to make a move in order for the game to have been rated. But what would have been the correction?
The correction would probably be to change it from a played game to an unplayed game, for example from a win/loss to a forfeit win/forfeit loss.
There is the letter of the law and the spirit of the law. Some allowances should be made for health matters, IMO. If my opponent falls ill during play (or at the beginning of play), I would generally have no problem with a quick draw.
A young master with several GM scalps tells me that he respects elderly GM X (a frequent player in top US Swiss System events, even though he’s 40+ years past his prime) and that he’s willing to give GM X a draw “on demand.” (Neither player would normally be a prize winner in the open section of such events.)
A guy at my club likes to offer draws on move 1. I don’t know if anyone has ever accepted.
Reminds me somewhat of one of the shortest draws I ever played: it was against a visibly sick IM Igor Ivanov in Reno in October 2005 (23rd Western States Open, Round 3). He withdrew from the tournament after that game and passed away in a few weeks.
Michael Langer
And then a Big Blue Dog came in and bites your opponent And then a Big Rock came through the roof and hits you on the head And then President Obama calls your oppenent and he needs advice Right Now! And then…
Silly example; We all know about sham draws. A few years ago the American Open experimented with a minimum required number of moves and a minimum time at the board. I think the required minimum moves was about 25 and the required time at the board was combined two hours for both players. It’s an idea worth considering.
As as been pointed out to me, master and above level players could silently agree to play into known short perpeptual check opening lines by silent agreement. Of course, they would have to trust each other and it would stop the silliness at the class level.
The point was that things can and do happen. I once had a player receive notification that his mother had passed away immediately after the game started. It CAN and will happen, and rules that don’t allow for flexibility, assuming everything that looks odd is a sham, will cause an issue.