What kind of penalty should a TD assess when a player stops keeping score with more than 5 minutes left on his clock ? The time control is G/60 with a 5 second delay. One player is under 5 minutes & the feeling is that the opponent, who had a lot more time, was trying to blitz & flag his opponent. Also can the TD insist on scorekeeping evenif the opponent does not complain ? I don’t seem to see anything in the rulebook or the online addendum that addresses these issues. Thanks !
The rule make score keeping optional for both players if one has under 5 minutes remaining. It is up to the opponent to complain. See rule 15C on page 57.
As Harold indicated, since one player was under five minutes in a sudden death time control scorekeeping was no longer required for either player.
Trying to blitz an opponent is an iffy option. I’ve generally had better results taking my time and getting tons of (sound) complications into the position. I’ve lost track of the number of times an opponent blundered when trying to blitz me.
To be honest, I am more than a little bit surprised that someone who has directed over 200 events is asking this question!
Hang on. Doesn’t it only become optional for the player over 5 minutes if the player under 5 minutes stops notating first? If the player under 5 minutes is still notating, doesn’t the player over 5 minutes have to keep doing so also?
Rule 15C. Scorekeeping in time pressure, sudden death time control. “If Either Player has less
than five minutes remaining in a sudden death time control and does not have additional time
(increment) of 30 seconds or more added with each move, both players are excused from the
obligation to keep score….
TD TIP: Only players in games with increment time controls of 30 seconds or more and
using properly set increment capable clocks are required to keep score at all times,
even in the last five minutes of any time control period. Players using improperly set
increment clocks or non-increment capable clocks, even those clocks adjusted for an
increment time control, are regulated by rule 15C.”
The rule does not say " if the player under five minutes stops notating first." or “If the player under five minutes is still notating, the other player must continue to notate also.”
…maybe the “I own and have read the rulebook” pledge isn’t quite enough…
Thank you all for your help !
There’s a big difference between ‘reading’ the rulebook and ‘understanding’ it.
At the workshops each year, Ken Sloan generally makes the suggestion that TDs who think they know the rules should re-take the local exam closed book, then go back and look all of the answers up to see how many of the questions they got wrong.
I suspect there are quite a few very active TDs certified at the senior level or higher who would miss several questions on the local exam.
Not that I want to do the programming (and TDCC would have to build up the question bank), but it would be nice to have a large stockpile of questions that local TDs should be able to answer that we could put on the website, maybe one question each week with an annotated answer appearing a few days later. (That could even be a precursor to making it possible to take the local exam online.)
Here is my attempt at such a thing, which is still quite a work in progress. chesstournamentservices.com/2010 … questions/ Have a go and see how many you get right.
Excellent test! I got them all correct, but had to consult the rulebook on a number of them. (I guess the moral is that one of the keys to being a good TD is knowing when you need to consult the rulebook!)
Bob
Nope - the player with less than 5 can continue to notate while the one with more than 5 minutes can stop if he/she wishes.
This sounds like it would be yet another great opportunity for the Delegates to tinker with a well established rule. Change it so that each player must keep score until he or she has under five minutes left (which is actually the way the old rule used to be for sudden death). Then the fast players would be penalized and there would be lots of additional opportunites for scorekeeping disputes.
In other words, bring the USCF Official Rules of Chess into conformance with Article 8.4 of the FIDE Laws of Chess?
It is not a given that such a thing is desirable. There a many cases (this is one) where the USCF rule is superior, at least for the kind of tournaments we have here in the U.S. The current USCF rule was adopted back in the mid-1980s and has worked well for 25 years.
– Hal Terrie
Ok, you got me Hal. What is so superior about both players being able to stop keeping score when either player has less than 5 minutes compared to only being able to stop keeping score when you yourself have less than 5 minutes?
IMO the FIDE rule is much easier to understand and to convey to players but I’m sure there is some history behind the reason for the USCF version, and I’m probably not the only person who would love to be enlightened.
I think that it is a question if fairness. When the person under 5 minutes stops keeping score, more of his total time allocated is able to be used for analysis (total time less the time to keep score) than the player who has more efficiently managed his time and has more than 5 minutes. It doesn’t make sense to give the player under 5 minutes an advantage because of his own mistakes. With regards to fairness it seems to me that the best option is to allow both players to stop keeping score at the same time.
I think this is the right answer. The playing conditions are kept the same for both players - either both have to keep score or neither.
– Hal Terrie
I can see how that can be argued. I also think it is possible to argue with the FIDE rule that both players have the same amount of their own time to think while being obliged to keep score and the same amount of their own time without being obliged to keep score, which also seems fair. (The FIDE rule also promotes having a more complete scoresheet but that is just an added bonus of their version.) The USCF also has rules to counter their own rule such as needing a complete scoresheet to claim a win on time (not the SD part), thereby encouraging, but not forcing, the player with more time to keep score.
I personally don’t see the USCF version as superior, just a different version that also works and in their mind is fairer. I also don’t know of any other country that has changed the FIDE rule, which they can freely do a la USCF, to make it the same as the USCF version.
I don’t see it so much as an issue of time, since time wouldn’t be important for a player who had more than 5 minutes on his clock unless he subsequently dropped below 5 minutes, at which point he, too, would be allowed to stop recording. I see it more as a matter of distraction. Each time a player records a move, he is momentarily pulled away from concentrating on the game and forced, instead, to think about recording the move. So it can be argued that it’s unfair for one player to have to keep breaking his concentration in this way at a time when the other player is being excused from doing so.
Bob