I was a witness to the episode that Steve Immit wrote about and I think he actually did the kid a huge favor by laying down the law as he did. I guess it depends on what your goal is in chess but, for example, to win at Nationals, you have to win games against a number of lower rated players and if your coach and/or parents protect you from having to play lower rated players at weekend tournaments, you might have psychological issues about facing them at states and nationals.
Yeah 
I know all the parties involved, so I’ll ask this:
Has anyone actually talked to this father or emailed him and pointed out to him that this is inconsiderate or unsporting behavior? If not, then how about starting with an email or a call before laying sanctions on the family?
Granted, I’m not sure what reaction you’d get or whether behavior would change. Honestly, you can’t force someone to play, any more than you can force someone to not offer a draw, or force his opponent not to take it. Chess is full of this, top to bottom. It happens any time you’ve got someone who outrates the rest of the field by a substantial amount. There’s a pretty highly esteemed coach in our area who loves to regale his students with tales of this kind of behavior.
It may be most effective to look for the win-win: “Hey dad, next time, keep an eye on the field and the crosstable, and if you think you’re going yank little Bobby out of round four, tell me BEFORE I PAIR THE ROUND so the other players can get decent games and pairings.”
He’s actually an FM now, which might have been his potential, or might not have been. But at the time his potential appeared to be even more.
I think you can be pretty sure that if he’s an FM now, he didn’t get there by only playing those with ratings below his.
In my opinion, Glenn’s problem has only two real solutions: the personal and the official.
Personal: speak to the father privately and point out that hsi behaviour is rude and disrespectful. I give this about a 25% chance of working - and that 25% makes it worth the effort.
Official: establish an official policy, published in advance publicity that “withdrawal without sufficient notice is subject to a $x fine (say, 1/2 an entry fee). Players will not be allowed to register for subsequent events until the fine is paid”. Then, enforce it.
I like Sloan’s proposal but what about cases of real illness? I know that illness can be feigned (and have seen that happen in a few tournaments) but my kids have also played in tournaments where their opponent literally breaks out in a fever in the middle of a round or there was that Nationals where people had food poisoning and were throwing up on the boards . . .
No solution is perfect. There are always going to be some exceptions. As a TD/Organizer you pick the solution that will get you the most mileage as often as possible. As long as you are flexible and fair it will work.
A little common sense goes a long ways, even among chess players, but for those who need to disclaim everything (or feel they need to make others disclaim everything), add something like this: “In special situations, such as an emergency or a sudden illness, the fine may be waived upon receipt of an explanation for withdrawing from the tournament without advance notice. The organizer reserves the right to request independent verification of the explanation.”
I let one older player rejoin a tournament on Sunday after forfeiting the final round on Saturday. He came with a copy of the hospital ER report for the heart attack he had Saturday evening.
Funny, I had a post ready to go and decided not to hit submit. I had written “Most of the time they should still be able to tell the director that they’re sick. Chances are they’re not having a heart attack.”
I’m reminded of one tourney game I played against a woman who must have been at least 75. During the middle of the game, she started to look a little pale, and got up to get some water. She came back to the board and pulled a bunch of pill bottles out of her purse and started taking things. I asked her if she was ok, and she insisted that everything was fine and we should keep playing. I would have been happy to take a draw to give her a chance to rest from whatever was wrong. I was seriously worried that she was going to drop dead right there at the chess board.
After a discussion with the parent, the situation was very peacefully resolved.
Glenn
It does not matter who you penalize, it accomplishes the same result. The father makes the decisions for the child so it doesnt matter.
I recall when the mother of a highly rated kid (age 12 or 13) was banned from the most prestigious local chess club. The kid always behaved like a saint, but his mother’s outbursts annoyed not just the staff but also other players. Some of us hoped that the kid would come with his dad or would be allowed to stay for the day on his own. Unfortunately, soon thereafter, he became the second junior rated over 2100 that I know who quit chess–at least in part because of social pressures from parents (in both cases it was the mother).
Michael Aigner
It’s not clear from what you’ve said that the TD was in any way at fault.
First, your friend should have said “j’adoube” or “I adjust” each time he straightened a piece. It is true that the rules do not absolutely require this (as noted in rule 10F), but to overrule the touch-move rule on this basis, the TD would have to be able to determine the nature of the touch. I’d be surprised if a kid who was pulling a trick like this would be willing to admit the nature of your friend’s touch, in which case the TD would have to decide who to believe. And, in the absence of any impartial witnesses who could corroborate your friend’s story, I think the TD would be obligated to rule in favor of the kid, noting that your friend could have eliminated any ambiguity by saying “j’aboube” or “I adjust” (which would have been audible to other players sitting nearby).
Second, your friend should have complained earlier to the TD about the kid’s behavior, which would have allowed the TD to give the kid a warning under rule 20G, and even to impose a penalty if the behavior continued. More important, however, is that it would have made the TD a witness to the kid’s behavior, thus insuring a fair ruling under rule 10F when the kid subsequently made the touch-move violation claim.
Third, there’s a good chance that if your friend had been saying “j’adoube” or “I adjust” every time he had to straighten a piece, that in itself would have attracted the attention of the TD, who would have begun watching the game to see what in the world was going on, and who would then have given the kid a warning without your friend even needing to complain.
Bob
…h6 Qxh6 gxh6 is corroborative enough for me.
How so? As I understand it, Qxh6 had not been played when the TD was called over. The kid was demanding it based on the fact that Ron’s friend had touched the pawn on h6. Are you saying that the TD should automatically assume that Ron’s friend was just straightening the pawn because otherwise touching it would have been too dumb? If so, I think we’d have to throw out rule 10B altogether, since touch-move claims are virtually always only made when the claim effectively forces the player to make a dumb move!
Bob
The way to determine what happened would be to say something along the lines of “Black, what exactly did White do?” If the kid is honest at all, he won’t make something absurd up (assuming that he’s trying to use gamesmanship, and not outright cheating), then the TD should deny the claim and say that it didn’t look to him like White was intending to capture the pawn. Even if the kid completely made something up, one would assume that White would say something along the lines of “I did nothing of the sort.” Then we are left with a situation where we have both players claiming things that are completely contrary, which happens sometimes. If there are no impartial observers, as sounds like the case, then the TD is obliged to do that which causes least harm to both players. Since the kid isn’t harmed by his opponent having freedom of move, and the adult would be greatly harmed by being forced to play Qxh6, obviously the TD has to deny the claim. See also TD tip before rule 10. In any event, the TD should probably direct White to say J’adoube in the future, but there is no reason to uphold the claim.
Alex Relyea
You make a good point that the TD should always try to get the players to talk as much as possible about what happened before saying anything about the details of the rules. There’s a good chance that the players won’t know exactly what the rules say and will therefore disclose some important information without even knowing whether it helps or hurts their case.
It would undoubtedly begin with Black making his claim (“He touched my piece, but now he’s refusing to capture it”). Saying something like “Describe how he touched it” would be a safer follow-up than, e.g., asking “Did the touch appear to be deliberate?” since the latter might tip him off that whether the touch was deliberate was an issue. And asking “Did he say anything when he did it?” would be a safer question than “Did he say ‘j’adoube’ or ‘I adjust’?” After Black has given his side of the story, then you should ask White whether he agrees with everything Black said.
I disagree, however, that there is an alternative that doesn’t cause any harm. White is going to be harmed by losing his queen, but Black is going to be harmed by White keeping his queen. And while you are correct that, in cases where there is a dispute over the facts, the TD’s bias should always be in favor of denying the claim, I think you are ignoring the importance of rule 10A.
If (in the absence of objective witnesses) the players disagreed about whether White touched the pawn, I’d deny the claim. And if the players agreed that White touched the pawn but disagreed about whether the touch was deliberate, I’d also deny the claim. And I’d deny it if the players disagreed about whether White said “j’adoube” or “I adjust” before touching the pawn. But if the players agreed that White deliberately touched the pawn and agreed that he didn’t say anything, but diagreed about whether he touched it in a way that gave the appearance of adjustment, I’d be inclined to uphold the claim since, as a consequence of rule 10A, whenever a player deliberately touches a piece, the burden is really on him to make sure his opponent knows that his intent is simply to straighten the piece (something he can easily accomplish by saying “j’adoube” or “I adjust”).
I should add that I have always explained the touch-move rule, and the importance of saying “j’adoube” or “I adjust” when straightening a piece, in my opening remarks at every tournament I’ve ever directed. Doing so may delay the start of play by 60 seconds or so, but that’s better than having to make a call later on that’s going to leave somebody unhappy!
Bob
Maybe I’m being obtuse here, but I don’t see what Rule 10A has to do with it. True, if a player says “J’adoube”, then he’s allowed to touch pieces without threat of penalty, but you can’t go from there to say that, if he doesn’t say “J’adoube”, then he is prohibited from touching pieces under threat of penalty. Rules don’t work like that. The place where you’d have an argument is Rule 10B, but 10B explicitly disallows your interpretation of 10A. If you and I are playing, and I use my pencil to nudge a piece towards the center of a square, there is nothing that you can do to make a claim under 10B. There is no such thing as a claim under 10A. Such a concept doesn’t make sense.
As far as suffering harm is concerned, please consider who is more likely to be harmed, a player who is compelled to make a particular move that he would rather not make, or a player whose opponent is allowed to make any legal move on the board.
In my opinion, the TD is very clearly the one at fault here. Since there is no unbiased witness claiming that White violated 10B, there is no way that it should be enforced, with probable penalty of loss of the game.
Alex Relyea