https://new.uschess.org/news/just-rules-2022-delegate-rulebook-roundup
RE: TDs calling flags: I have never liked this practice, and I have never done it as a TD, and the column covered both reasons why not: (1) I’m generally the sole TD for a bunch of games, and I don’t think it’s right for me to call a flag here and there when I can’t do it on all boards. Even toward the end of a round, when there are only a few games still going, it’s not uncommon for there to be time pressure in all of them. I can only watch one game at a time, and it could be questioned why I’m watching this game and not that one. (2) Sometimes a player is well aware that his opponent’s flag has fallen, and chooses not to call it. I think this should be allowed, unless it delays the next round.
Once I was playing a much lower rated player in a rated quick chess game. His flag fell, and I didn’t call it, because I was easily winning, and decided I’d rather win on the board than by flag fall. Well, things deteriorated, and I soon found myself facing mate in one. Did I call the flag then? No. That would have made me the kind of person who deserves a name that I can’t print here. A TD calling the flag would have saved me some embarrassment, but I put myself in that position, and I deserved the embarrassment. I believe in letting the players determine the result, for better or worse.
I’m curious as to whether Mr. Kosterman allows players to play on after mate or stalemate.
Alex Relyea
Generally not, although I very rarely witness a mate or stalemate. The exceptions are the two big scholastic tournaments I direct, at which almost all games are played until mate, and the players will generally raise their hands at the end to have me come over and verify that it is indeed mate. If not, I will simply say “no” and let them figure out why not. But even there, things are generally too hectic for me to stand around watching any individual game. I’m kept busy scanning the room for raised hands.
Would that we would expect players to know when mate exists before beginning tournament play. Of course at that level there are many games that aren’t played to mate simply because they end in stalemate first, but many players don’t understand the difference.
I have no trouble intervening to end a game when the rules of the competition say that the game has ended. If that means in some events I call flags and some I don’t, so be it. I can’t imagine that even at one of Mr. Kosterman’s “big scholastics” a fallen flag lasts for very long before being called.
As far as his second option is concerned, I can’t be the only one who has a problem with the idea that the players will decide whether to follow some of the rules or not. Imagine if two players agreed not t call flags so they could effectively play an unlimited time control. Or they agreed not to keep score, or not to enforce touch move. It’s not fair to the rest of the tournament.
Alex Relyea
One of my scholastics is an unrated event at which a good percentage of players don’t use clocks (at least not in the sections I direct, K-5 and K-8 – both held in the same room), and at which flag falls are very rare, because most of the players haven’t yet learned to take their time. For many of them, “chess” and “blitz chess” might as well be synonyms. Even at the other one (the Wisconsin Junior Open, which is rated and used, among other things, to determine our participants in the National Invitationals), flag falls are fairly rare except at the top end of the room.
As for the practice of TDs calling flags, I can only guess that you must direct a lot of FIDE events. I don’t find justification for this in the US Chess rules. According to rule 13C, flag fall does not in and of itself end the game. What ends the game is a player claiming a flag fall. And rule 13C1 explicitly says that “Only players may call flag” and that “a director must never initiate a time-forfeit claim”. That seems pretty clear to me, and I abide by it except in extreme cases (see below).
In general, I will enforce against blatant rule violations when I see them, but flag falls are a different sort of thing. Time limits are not really part of the basic definition of the game and its rules. The possibility of time forfeit is an “add-on” to make it possible to schedule games efficiently at tournaments (especially tournaments with more than one round per day). To that end, the one circumstance in which I might intervene to call a flag is when a game such as you describe (“players agree … to … effectively play an unlimited time control”) threatens to delay the start of the next round. As long as the game finishes on time, I leave flag fall calls up to the players (as the rules require me to do). I am bending (if not breaking) the rules when I do call a flag, not when I refrain from doing so.
I am in philosophical agreement with Mr. Kosterman. Chess is a game between two players (see rule 2A), and as much as possible I let the players decide the outcome. As part of my pre-tournament announcements at scholastics I direct I tell everyone that the TD’s are not going to intervene in a game unless called to the board by one of the players. We’re not going to call illegal moves, flag falls, or anything else unless you raise your hand and call a TD to the board.
Not calling illegal moves is a US Chess rules variation, which of course tournaments are welcome to use without notice. However, I was wondering why this particular issue couldn’t have just become a variation too so that tournaments could have TDs call flags if they wanted to, without the need to advertise this as it would probably be considered a major variation?
(Instead it was laughed off the floor in what I considered quite a disrespectful manner, by both EB members and various delegates, but that is another matter.)
There are tournaments which are small enough for a TD to do this, or maybe a tournament just wants to be able to do this for their own personal reasons, and we know that FIDE-rated tournaments have to do this since they need to follow FIDE Laws. It’s just a little inconvenient for a tournament to implement this without jumping through some extra hoops they don’t need to do, compared to say deciding not to call illegal moves.
I think one of the key things to remember in this area is that despite this being the FIDE Law, it is used for large Swiss tournaments all over the world and in top sections here in the US, and they somehow manage. I guess they understand that although it says a TD can observe and point out a flag fall, it doesn’t mean they must do so, and a player still retains the responsibility to make such a claim in the absence of a TD doing it.
I have the funny feeling that, in tournaments with FIDE-rated sections in the USA, many directors make it a point to stay out of the tournament room during time trouble, so they won’t have to call flag falls or illegal moves.
Bill Smythe
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