I’ve heard privately from some others that I’m wrong on this issue. I’m even told (second hand) that Tim Just thinks I’m wrong. With such strong support on the other side I think I need to reexamine my previous statements.
I’d like to hear authoritatively from Tim Just directly or from members of the rules committee, because the rule looks clear to me but others seem to equally strongly disagree with me.
The case under discussion is this (I’m only going to mention the details of the case where my opinion and the others seem most at odds with one another):
A player (during his turn) picks up a piece and releases it on a vacant square. The move would be a legal move. Before hitting the clock, the player returns the piece to its original square. Then he moves another piece and completes the move by hitting the clock.
In my opinion, this is contrary to rule 9A. Rule 9A says that in this situation the move has been determined “with no possibility of change” once the first piece was released. I interpret this literally. It means that even if the opponent doesn’t object, the move has been determined and is fixed and immutable.
Further, I think that if the person that made the move (or at least determined it) tries to take it back that this is “cheating” – intentionally breaking the rules to take unfair advantage of your opponent. (I would not assert this last part in the case of a beginning player that doesn’t understand “no takebacks”).
I think rule 9A makes it very clear that this “determination” of the move happens before the clock is pressed and doesn’t require the clock to be pressed at all for the move to be determined “with no possibility of change”.
I also think the rules clearly describe “touch move” in rule 10B and that the situation I described above is clearly different than what 10B covers. Or perhaps I should say, that rule 10B ALSO covers this case but is irrelevant because 9A is even more strict. The player did a lot more than merely “touch” the piece – he moved it to a new square and released it there.
The other opinion is that this IS a touch-move issue. That what the player did is OK unless his opponent makes a claim, and that only a minor penalty should be assessed (if any).
Please let me know if I have not worded the other opinion fairly. It seems to me that the other opinion is clearly contrary to the rules but with the number of people that disagree (including, second-hand, Tim Just), I’m not so sure.
I think you mean to say “regardless of whether the opponent objects”.
You have to remember that there are rules applying to the various participants for the various roles. There are the rules of the game. Then there are rules for playing in USCF rated games. Then there are rules governing the actions of TDs.
If you look at the section listing cases where the TD may intervene as well as in other places, it is clear that there is some amount of knowledge of the rules for playing USCF games that the player’s must have in order to uphold their rights. The TD is neither an enforcer nor a prosecutor (mostly), more of a judge and executioner.
Looking at the thread that generated this one, I think the only case for the TD taking action against unethical behavior is if the perpetrator attempted to do this without the player present but got caught (by the player, another witness, a TD).
If the player is present, it is touch move, and the TD should stay out of it if touch move is not invoked.
Either 9A or 10B would apply if the aggrieved player claimed either. Neither of those rules covers unethical behavior. Neither of those rules is mentioned as cases where the TD may intervene.
So, in short, you are arguing for intervention based on some other rule covering ethical behavior.
That’s an unfair characterization. No one is saying that it is OK, merely that it is up to the aggrieved player to know his/her rights.
Also, where do you get what penalties should be assessed for either case? The penalties are mostly at the discretion of the TD, although a standard penalty is mentioned.
Yes, BUT the rules specifically give the TD the right to intervene in the case of an illegal move. Returning the first piece to its orginal square and then moving another are both illegal moves, the way I see this. Could the two players agree to take back more than one move? Go back to some previous position and play the game from there? No. Once the move is determined, that’s the end of it. Otherwise we’re not speaking the same language when we say “with no possibility of change”. The players can’t agree to ignore the rules of chess and the TD can’t let them (if he knows about it).
Again, we have to agree on our terms. By my reading, rule 10B is the “touch move” rule. Rule 9A is a different rule.
That was my argument in the other thread. Here I’m just insisting that players can’t (even by agreement) take back moves. Once a position has been reached in a game, the players can’t ignore the current position and decide to report the results of playing out some other position instead. If they can take back a move after it has been determined, why not after it has been completed? Why not allow several moves to be taken back? Where do you draw the line? It seems to me that the rules don’t allow ANY takebacks.
I agree, it’s at the TD’s discretion. I think that a non-standard penalty is called for in the case in the other thread, but that’s just my opinion. In the other thread, it seemed clear to me that the player was behaving unethically and deserved a harsh penalty. I’m not saying that’s necessarily the case with all violations of rule 9A. I will point out, though, that this is not a case of “accidentally” breaking a rule (moving into check by mistake, for example) – an experienced player would be going way beyond “standard” rule violations by trying to take a move back.
The reference to golf in the earlier thread was amusing.
I bet you’d find a lot more references on the Internet to someone cheating at golf than at chess.
There have been numerous complaints about non-standard gold clubs and golf balls over the years, but precious few about people using non-standard equipment to help them cheat at chess.
I play golf (even worse than chess ). I can tell you that every decent golfer I know is very careful to award the correct penalties even when they are playing by themselves! I would certainly expect this of any tournament golfer.
I don’t think any serious chess player would try to take back a move in a tournament game. If he did, then I think he should get as harsh a penalty as a golfer that accidently reported an incorrect score (expulsion from the event in golf).
Since I did not read all the posts I can only state that the arguement seemed to be about what rule was broken and what the punishment should be. I got the impression you want to throw the bum out of the tournament. That seems a bit harsh. It would be an interesting case on appeal.
How do you know it is cheating? It might be. Or, it might be an experienced player that is used to casual speed chess. In most areas of this country casual speed chess allows “clock” move instead of “touch move.” It is in the best interest of everyone that the the TD find out what the fellow has to say for himself first.
Six of this half a dozen of the other. If you want to say 9A applies here–OK! If you want to say 10B applies (my choice)–OK! How does the rule choice effect the penality?
Yep, 11H and 21D2 do allow a TD to intervene in a game to correct illegal moves. It is also clear from 21D3 that warnings are more in order than expulsions. 11J. “Deliberate illegal moves.” does allow the TD to impose penalties. I just disagree with your penality in this case, I think it is too harsh in an unclear situation. I would suggest you also check out 11H1 Director as witness only. Unless the TD can police every game then intervention becomes problimatical.
Be aware this is not FIDE chess where arbiters are given more power to intervene. USCF chess has a far lower ratio of TDs to players so we encouraged TDs to not intervene. The players are encouraged to make claims instead, if they choose to do so. In our tournaments we want the game decided by the two players as often as possible. I would suggest that is why 14H (insufficient losing chances) has caused so much grief over the years; i.e., it goes against the grain of not having the TD intervene.
There is a huge difference between getting assistance from a computer/person to make a move (now, that is cheating!) and the situation described here. How do you “know” the player is cheating?
Would you throw out a player that moved his light squared Bishop onto a dark square on the other side of the board? How about the player that moves his Knight in a long “L” shape? What about a Rook that starts out on one/rank and ends up on the other side of the board on another one? Which kind of illegal moves are cheating and which kind are mistakes?
Your comparison here is invalid because chess and golf are two different activities governed by two completely different sets of rules. Just because you get thrown out of a golf tournament for a stupid mistake doesn’t mean that the same should apply to chess.
With touch move, as its points out under rule 10B, a player on move who deliberately touches. And, in a manner that may reasonably be interpreted as the beginning of a move. The director does has a great deal of room to interpret what is a deliberately touched piece. Even the director has the right to use rule 10F, even if the player fails to say ‘I adjust’.
What does a deliberately touched piece and a golf ball smashing into a car windshield have in common The deliberately touched piece does not raise your auto insurance, your bad golf shot does
I hate to say it Tim, but while you may be right on a couple of points, I think you’re wrong on a couple of others. I will admit that you may be right and I may be wrong about the appropriate penalty. In the original thread, it certainly sounded to me like the player acted in such an unsportsmanlike manner that he shouldn’t be allowed to continue. Maybe I’m wrong and maybe what I suggested is too harsh. I’m not familiar with a speed chess “clock move”, so I didn’t take this into account. You certainly have much more experience than I do with the rules and applying them to players in tournaments. So, while I think a very harsh penalty is called for, I’ll admit that you’re in a much better position to make this call. I yield to your judgement on that issue.
But you’re WRONG on it being a choice between 9A and 10B. BOTH rules always apply. Of the two, 9A is more restrictive in this case. Not only must the piece be moved, it must be moved to the square it was originally released on. Further, the language in 9A seems more definate (to me anyway) when it spells out “no possibility”.
I think I made a point about which “illegal” moves are “cheating” and which are not. A simple mistake on the player’s part is just that, a mistake that can be corrected. Deliberately doing something (that I thought all tournament chess players would KNOW to be against the rules) like taking a move back and then moving another piece is a different category.
GIVE ME A BREAK! I never said that BECAUSE the rules in golf work a certain way that the rules should work the same way in chess. I said that I thought the penalties should be similar in these two very different cases. Actually I was pointing out how DIFFERENT chess and golf are – In chess you have to deliberately break the rules to get a penalty that’s routinely applied for simple mistakes in golf. And apparently, most people don’t think deliberately breaking the rules is even enough.
Many golf writers make a big deal about good sportsmanship and playing within an “honor system”. Maybe we should have a little more emphasis on this in chess?
Make that ‘experienced adult players’ and you have a point. (I was going to say ‘mature’ but that would count out more than a few adult chessplayers I’ve had to deal with, including some with ratings over 2000.)
No comment on ‘mature’. Yes, Mike I definately agree with you that you have to be much more understanding and tolerant of young or beginning chess players.
An “illegal” move is a move that violates the rules of the game such as moving a piece to a square it may not move onto (such as trying to jump another piece w/ a non-knight piece or if a dark squared bishop ends up on a light color, etc), moving into check, moving a pinned piece, castling through check, castling while in check, attempting to capture en passent when not allowed (can only be done on the subsequent move of a 2 space pawn push), promoting to a king or a pawn, etc.
When a move is said to be “illegal” this usually does not refer to a move that is not allowed due to touch piece, takeback, etc.
P.S. And about the golf thing, I was just saying that maybe the rules of chess don’t need to be so harsh as they are in golf.
The definition I gave (a move which violates the rules of chess) is the only one that I saw in the rule book. It’s a direct quote – I think it’s good enough.
Exactly. “The Rules of Chess”. That is all it is. Not rules concerning TD intervention, running chess tournaments, cheating policy, etc. No. Just the rules of chess. Like the rules that you would teach a beginner how to play. “Bishop’s move diagonally, knights move in L-shapes, when your king is attacked it is check, this is castling, the king is never actually captured… blah blah blah.” In other words, the rules that apply to any chess game, including casual games. No matter how informal or casual the game is, these universal rules cannot be broken.
Apparently you misinterpreted the phrase “rules of chess.”
Well, I suppose it might have been useful if the rulebook had set forth (in more places than it does) the difference between type A illegalities (e.g. moving a knight in an un-knight-like manner) and type B illegalities (e.g. a touch-move violation). It seems pointless to conduct a debate based on a definition, if the debaters don’t agree on the definition.
It also seems pointless to debate whether a given type B illegality is a touch-move violation (10B) or a determined-move violation (9A). It could be either, or both. For example:
A player picks up a piece (intending to move it), but, without allowing the piece to touch any other square, puts it back on its original square and moves a different piece. This would be a touch-move violation but NOT a determined-move violation.
A player picks up a piece, puts it down on a (legal) square, releases his hand from the piece, then picks it up again and puts it down on a different (legal) square. This would be a determined-move violation but NOT a touch-move violation.
A player picks up a piece, puts it down on a (legal) square, releases his hand from the piece, then picks it up again, returns it to its original square, and moves a different piece. This would be a touch-move violation AND a determined-move violation.
But who cares, anyway? Which violation(s) are involved have no effect on the TD’s discretionary powers to impose penalties.
). I can tell you that every decent golfer I know is very careful to award the correct penalties even when they are playing by themselves! I would certainly expect this of any 
The deliberately touched piece does not raise your auto insurance, your bad golf shot does 
