Near-rules dispute and interesting endgame

Running Chess Tournaments
1

This came up at a recent Marshall Chess Club tournament, in a G/40 d5.

I’m playing black, in mild time trouble (I’m about 1800, opp is about 1900) The position is:

White to move, 2 mins left on my clock, about 8 left on white’s. I had offered a draw about 10 moves ago; white said nothing then and moved. Neither player is recording at the moment.

At this point, white stops the clock and puts out his hand. I shake it, wondering why he’s resigning, and we start discussing the game. About 10 minutes later, when we’re analyzing the endgame, I mention that I wondered why he resigned there, because the position looks unclear after I block the checks. He then tells me that he intended to accept my draw!

Now, in this case, because the game wasn’t that important, and his resignation wouldn’t have made sense, I agreed to call it a draw. Suppose instead that we hadn’t discussed the game afterwards, though, and only realized at the start of the next round that there was a confused result, and I wanted to press the win (say, if I hadn’t expected my opponent to be a competent endgame player)? I would think the ruling here would be an 0-1, since the position can’t be recreated based on a scoresheet and white’s attempt to accept a draw was not legal?

And aside from that, I’m curious as to how the endgame should turn out. Fritz seems to think it’s about even but with winning chances for both sides. Thoughts?

2

If one player thought the handshake was a resignation, and the other thought it was a draw offer, then there was no meeting of the minds, so the handshake counted for nothing, and the game was still in progress. The TD should send you guys back to the tournament room to finish the game – even if you’ve been analyzing for several minutes.

Whenever one player offers a handshake in a position where the intent is unclear, the other should ask for a clarification.

Also, both players should report the result, in most tournaments by marking it on the pairing sheet, before retiring to the skittles room to analyze. If one player says he’ll post it (or has already posted it), the other should still check the pairing sheet to make sure it was posted correctly.

One other point: a draw offer ten moves ago is not a standing offer. The offer is off the table as soon as the opponent rejects it, either verbally or by making a move.

Bill Smythe

3

Yes, I know that if the game is still standing or can be reconstructed, it should continue. The problem is in the hypothetical where it can’t, say because the set was packed up fifteen minutes ago and neither player has been recording late in SD time trouble. Yes, both players are responsible for reporting results, but we all know that lots of players don’t bother or just trust their opponent to mark results. So what is the rule where there is no meeting of the minds and the game can’t be fairly continued?

I’d add that I think my preferred resolution, if I (local TD) was TDing and the hypothetical arose where the position could not be reconstructed would be to ask the black player, without giving further information, “Had you understood white to be offering a draw in that position, would you have taken it?” If yes, call it a draw. If not, and if neither player had failed to do their duty to check the results sheet, I’d give the win to black, since white made the error of trying to accept a draw offer that was no longer on the table and it would be unfair to not let black pursue the win that he was attempting to pursue.

4

If the other player is 1900, he should know better than to either

  • think that he can accept a draw offer from 10 moves ago, or
  • think that he can stop the clock before proposing a draw.

(My point being, this isn’t just a misunderstanding; the opponent was clearly at fault.)

5

You realize what you’ve done? Presented a situation where the circumstances are more interesting than the game.

In hockey that handshake would initiate a bench-clearing brawl.
In football the league would dock both players three games’ pay for fraternization.
At an ultimate frisbee tournament a handshake is the signal for the orgy to begin.
In tournament bridge the director would rule an equivalent gesture as a resignation; a committee would convene to review the ruling and ban both players for life.

Luckily in chess the players “own” the game. Rules, schmules. Reasonable players bend them all the time and the next day the earth is still spinning on its axis.

Almost exactly the same thing, with a twist, occurred to me at the USATE last month. I’m high 1800s, my opponent is a master. I offered a draw on move 30 or so. He said “ok” and gets up. My team mate and I start analyzing, moving the pieces around. My opponent comes back to the table, startled. “OK meant I’d think about it.” Then, 30 moves later, he offers me his hand and says “OK” again. I guess it was beneath him to make a formal draw offer. Still, I asked to be sure.

6

Sounds like a good question for the ANTD exam! If I were the TD I’d probably treat it as an adjourned game, to be played off after both players had finished the next round. If the exact position couldn’t be reconstructed the position should be reconstructed as accurately as possible. If the ambiguous handshake took place in the penultimate round, though, adjournment wouldn’t really be an option, and the TD would be faced with a tough choice. Make everyone in that section wait for the game to be completed? Assign a result? If so, what result? Adjudicate the game as a draw with best play, make it 0-1 because White violated the rules, or give White half a point and Black a full point? There would be a lot for the TD to think about.

I don’t see White’s rules violation as being all that serious, so I don’t see 0-1 as being a reasonable result. I’m also not happy about giving Black a full point, because he (you) shouldn’t have assumed that White was resigning. If I assigned a result it would most likely be 0.5-0.5, but this would be a last resort. I’d much rather have the players continue the game.

7

If the result has already been reported on the pairing sheet, that result should stand, unless the complainant can produce concrete evidence that the result is incorrect (usually by scoresheet or impartial observer).

If the result hasn’t been reported, then the two players have to figure it out between themselves. The one thing I wouldn’t do is hold up the next round for them. So, there would be no replay of the whole game.

If a player does not check to be sure his result was posted properly, his negligence has directly contributed to the problem raised in your hypothetical. So, that negligent player would certainly share in the culpability.

I would prefer to avoid adjudicating a game under almost any circumstance. In this case, if the two players cannot agree on the result of the game, I’d probably adjudicate it as a draw. It’s the result that does the least overall harm, IMO, and since both players contributed to this problem in numerous ways (incomplete scoresheet, failure to follow rules on draw offer, failure to clarify meaning of ambiguous offer), I don’t feel I should completely penalize one or the other.

8

Well, wait a second here. The only conceivable error made by black is not clarifying the meaning of an action that would, under almost any normal circumstance, be a resignation. Neither player is required to keep score when one player is under 5 minutes on an SD time control, especially not the player who’s low on time. If, say, black goes straight to the results sheet and records 0-1, and white doesn’t bother to check until the next round, it seems fairly simple to give black the win. Similarly, if white goes straight to the sheet to record .5-.5, and black doesn’t notice until next round, call it a draw. But if both players are reasonably diligent about going up to check the scoresheet, and only then realize that there’s a misunderstanding, I don’t think you can credit black with any significant rule error, while white has made a clear mistake that resulted in the misunderstanding. Perhaps a draw for rating purposes and a .5-1 result for the tournament score?

Edit: And I’d be very reluctant to adjudicate a draw based on the position; it’s very dangerous for both sides. Aside from the fact that by the time the game gets to the TD, no one can confirm what the position was–if they could, we’d be able to just have the game continue! Think of these scenarios:

White GM, Black GM–very possible that white recognized the position as lost with GM play and resigned. TD probably isn’t good enough to speculate.

White A player, Black GM–quite possible that white thinks it’s even, while black sees a winning position. Again, TD probably isn’t good enough to determine who’s right as evaluation.

White and Black E players/scholastics–here, maybe white doesn’t even see that he has perpetual check to stop black’s mate threat and resigned accordingly!

White E player, Black A player–same as before, but now black, figuring that white can’t play the resulting endgame right anyways, expects a win after stopping the perpetual check.

So I think it’s really an impossible position to adjudicate fairly, unless both players honestly admit that they’d let the perpetual check happen (white not trying h4, black not retreating and interposing Rd7). Safer to not factor in the board position in the decision.

9

Except that Rule 13B clearly says that (1) stopping the clock and (2) the offer of a handshake do not necessarily indicate a resignation. What other basis did black have for concluding that white was resigning? You mentioned that the disagreement was discovered when you asked white why he resigned, so it wasn’t as though either of you saw the board position as obviously being lost for white.

Bob

10

.

Ideally you would write on your scoresheet — “White resigns”, then ask White to sign your scoresheet.

Generally I would prefer that the player who makes the sloppy ambiguous communication (verbal or physical) suffer the presumption of doubt: assume the worst meaning for his perspective (his resignation, not his draw offer).
In golf you are disqualified for merely making an small easily-correctable math addition error on your scorecard. Here in chess some people want to bend over backwards to help the White player who caused problems for others by his misbehavior on at least two levels.

White stopping the clock first is rediculous behavior. He resigned.
Yet in real life I likely would not demand my victory if common sense says everyone can see the position is a draw.
.

11

I’d have the players go back and finish the game with the clock and position set up to the best memory of the 2 players. There was no meeting of the minds. On the other hand I don’t know how any player who makes a move after a draw offer could think that there is still an offer to accept 10 moves later.

On a personal note, I once had my opponent “accept” a draw offer I had made 7 moves earlier. When I responded with “What draw?” he realized his error and we continued playing.

Something similar to this happened in round 4 at the 2012 USATE. One player extended his hand as he offered a draw rather than wait for it’s acceptance. The other player, a senior citizen with some hearing loss, thought he was accepting a resignation. How he thought this was a resignation when had only a slight positional advantage I don’t know. As this was a team tournament the results weren’t reported to the TDs until the last game of the match was over. By that time one of the players was on his way home. It should be noted that there were erasures on the match report card. To me this meant that I couldn’t fault either captain for signing as I didn’t know if the signatures came before or after the erasures. Fortunately either result did not change which team won the match.

I had them resume after their fifth round games were done. I suggested to the players that next time that they hear words that agree with how they think the game ended rather than make assumptions. Both players, their captains, and the other TDs I spoke to agreed with my handling of the situation.

12

As interesting as the theoreticals under discussion may be, it seems to me that there is a basic assumption that is faulty here:

An informal game (no scorekeeping at the point in question, and therefore no reliable way for a TD to establish anything since the last moves he can establish via a scoresheet or via agreement of the players) stops, by what turns out to be a misunderstanding which was thought at the time to be an agreement.

And the rule of scorekeeping has been waived due to the time circumstances.

And no one was made to write down and acknowledge the result.

And various folks here want to apply formal tournament rules to this situation?

USCF is the national sanctioning organization for formal over the board chess competition in this country.

There should be a clear boundary between what is, and what is not, formal competition.

If rules cannot be applied, then the situation seems to be outside of any imaginable formal competition boundary.

For example, the suggestion of obliging the players to resume from a position they agree on only works if they agree.

I suspect that Kolty (were he still alive today) would make the players agree on the result, or offer to record zero for each of them, as a way to force them to make up for the folly of their initial misunderstanding. Perhaps Bill G. might do the same.

To me, this situation illustrates how formal systems lose their legitimacy when not operated with respect and care. I think USCF would do well to be elitist in the managing of rated competitions, and allow high quality to work as an attract mechanism, rather than to try to rate everyone in every circumstances, as the current trend seems to indicate is in the works. In the end, people do respect quality.

13

While true, if they’re both being honest this should not be an issue. Also, this would be a situation in which I would seek witnesses if the 2 cannot agree. If they can’t agree on the final position then it would be appropriate to go back to the last position they can agree on.

This attempt at a solution is looking to make more trouble rather than less. The idea of attempting to force a player who thinks he’s winning to agree to a draw is repulsive. The idea that a player who thinks he’s drawing to concede is equally so. The 2 players in question made an equally bad decision to end play without knowing what the other player was agreeing to. To force a decision will shortchange one player at the expense of rewarding the other. Why would either player agree to take less than a fair result? My solution does not reward either player but returns them to obtaining a result based on their playing ability.

Trying to obtain the correct result should be the goal. Forcing an unwanted result upon a player lacks legitimacy, respect, care, and quality. Having an elitist attitude will not attract more players.

14

Harold - I share your desire for all the positive values you state. The concern I have here is that we may be allowing “the rule of law” to break down, leading to a lawless or random situation.

My use of the term elitist was intended in the sense of high quality.

In the example under discussion, scorekeeping has ceased, and then the players shook hands and put away the pieces and left the table without a clear agreement as to how the game had ended. Both of these matter.

If we find more reasons to not require an accurate game score, and then begin to revisit the possibility that games should be somehow resumed after players had shaken hands, results had been reported (though later disputed), and the next round may even have been paired and may be underway, well…where might this lead?

15

While I’m OK with most of what’s been said here (and am inclined to say that the correct result is a draw if the players can’t agree to a position to continue), this line is bizarre. The USCF currently uses a d5 standard time control and encourages SD time controls. Not inc30, where there’s time to record, d5. Expecting a player to keep recording with 2 minutes left in a d5 time control is absurd, and contrary to the current rules. Maybe it’s an argument for moving to an inc30 standard, but you have to work with the rules you have.

16

If scorekeeping is integral to formal tournament play, then moving to an increment of at least 30 seconds might be a good thing to do.

I grant that USCF allows much smaller increments now, and that scorekeeping is not required once one player has less than five minutes left at smaller increments than 30 seconds per move.

USCF has traversed a path paved with good intentions over the last twenty or twenty-five years to reach this point. Maybe it’s time to review and take stock of what this has achieved.

First, 30 minute sudden death time controls were made ratable in the late 1980s; rapid chess was said to be the path to making chess suitable for television. But that never happened. Nor has the number of adult USCF members expanded as a result. Nor has chess wooed millions away from video games, although many elementary school students do pass through formal chess classes nowadays, which helps maintain the level of chess literacy among the American public.

The time scrambles at the end of rapid chess games led to new rules issues, leading to many vague situations, and ultimately to more complex rules about insufficient losing chances. The development and proliferation of successive generations of digital clocks has led to first delay and then increment mechanisms; which created new possibilities, and eliminated the worst consequences of sudden death games.

With faster time controls comes diminished time for strategising or for very deep calculation, and for subtle endgame play. In my opinion, these are some of the things that make playing tournament chess deeply satisfying, and today, they are diminished. I’d like to see us find a way to bring back opportunities to think deeply, and to seek to create subtle beauty in the course of tournament play again.

I have supervised five IM and GM level internationals in the last year and a half, all with 30 second increments. Scorekeeping never broke down, and rules enforcement was never difficult as a result. However, at these high levels, the games seemed to become more shallow as time grew short, and unlike in past eras, once time grew short, it never ceased being short.

Perhaps it’s time for USCF to consider 30 second increments as a minimum for serious tournament play, and for professional events to consider 90 second increments, such as 60 minutes to start and 90 seconds added per move.

17

The important point here is that these disputes almost always get resolved equitably, with both players satisfied, without invoking the letter of the law or calling the director. Chess is quite different from other sports or games in that regard.

I had an incident a few years back where BOTH of us thought the other was resigning. He thought he had mate in two; I knew I was escaping and winning a piece. We both mis-read the ear-to-ear grins on the other’s face. Imagine my surprise when I went to check the score and saw 0-1 (he was black).

We set up the position, estimated the time remaining, I won, and now we have a great story to tell.

18

I agree with the sentiment you express, but I respectfully disagree with your opinion about the most important point.

Most of the time, players resolve their own issues without director intervention. The most important point in this thread is the discussion about what to do in those cases where a dispute such as this is NOT resolved without director intervention. It’s situations like these that make running a chess tournament difficult, and it’s a good thing to exchange ideas on how to approach them.

19

We’re disputing whether the need for or importance of rules surpasses the rather low incidence of director involvement in the day-to-day conduct of chess. I’ll concede this point.

What I was trying to stress was not that we don’t need rules, but that chess players are lucky. Think of the labyrinth of factors playing into a botched NFL replay ruling.

In the world of tournament bridge directors are called a dozen times or more per session (roughly equivalent in elapsed time to a round of chess). In many cases the rules are vague, directors are not fully familiar with them, and players “forget” or exaggerate what actually occurred. Someone may pause for an extra five seconds before bidding and the “lawyer” opponent says he took “two minutes.” Director rulings are often disputed, requiring an appeals committee to convene after the session. Bad feelings are not uncommon.

This sort of thing is extremely rare in chess.

20

Agreed. But the disputes I deal with now make me wonder what chess would be like if there were more money in it. :unamused: