I directed a scholastic tournament this past weekend, and witness something I have not seen before and thought that I would share it here.
The tournament was set up for 4 rounds of game in 30, as most of the players were newer and we had a limited supply of clocks the decision was made that we would not place clocks on the games at the start, but after 40 mins of the round had eplased we would place clocks on the boards with 10 min for each player, In the last round, a game made it to the 40 min mark, and I placed a clock on the board, the game continued, when one of the players time ran out, the oppenent did not make a claim and so I did not call the game an allowed play to continue, after about 2 min of this, the player that still had time on his clock offered a draw to his oppenent that had no time, and the draw offer was refused, the player with no time on his clock asked me if he could take a bathroom break, I told him that it was his time and the clock would continue to run, not wanting to interfere with the game, he did not leave, the player with time on his clock still had about 1 min left when the player with no time on his clock delivered checkmate, I explained to the players after the game that the player that had gotten checkmated had a win if he would have claimed it but that I could not interfere with the game and therefore the result on the board was the result and so the player that ran out of time got the win. Neither player was upset about the ruling, and as a result of that game there was a 3 way tie for first place. Just wondering if anybody would have handled it differently. From what I know of the rules I handled it correctly, but it was tough not interfering, especially realizing that the player that had time on his clock probably didn’t know the rules., but once the game is started I won’t interfere with play unless asked a question and then will only answer the question asked.
You made the correct ruling. It is covered in rule 13C1. As the player with time on his clock did not ask for any information you were correct not to give unsolicited advice. I also would have informed the player after the game of his opportunity to make a claim of a win on time. I see this happen a few times every year.
The one thing that surprised me was that some spectator didn’t point it out during the game. Even though I make announcements before scholastic tournaments that no helping is allowed there often seems to be someone who thinks pointing out the flag doesn’t count.
You did the right thing, that’s for sure. Once you’ve directed a few more scholastic tournaments, you’ll realize that stories like this one are not at all uncommon.
Well if Both Flags are down 14G would apply and it doesn’t let a player claim a win, but instead gets a draw.
So I would think that the same logic would apply to a player claiming a win with his flag down. He would only be able to score a draw.
Then again looking at 13C1. Only players may call flag. … it is considered to have fallen only when either player points this out. …
So using that logic, the flag never fell because it was never called by the player, so the checkmate came before the flag fall. The time on the clock doesn’t matter because technically the flag hasn’t fallen.
We had a speed chess tournament on National Chess Day. It was held in a coffeehouse, and while we followed standard USCF blitz rules for the most part, we had a preannounced policy of laxity toward spectators – people could make noise, talk trash, even comment on the game, as long as they didn’t give any actual suggestions to the players. Observing one game, I couldn’t help laughing as one player, then the other, ran out of time, and neither noticed or called it. Especially hilarious was when the second player to run out of time consoled his opponent, whom he was beating, by saying, “Hey, I could still run out of time!”
I am currently directing a scholastic tournament (2 games per week). Yesterday, I had a new problem and I’m questioning how I resolved it. A couple 4th graders called me over. I found that white had black in checkmate but white’s flag had been down for about 3 minutes. When white had checkmated black, white did not know it was checkmate. Black called white’s flag. A discussion ensued and they determined that black was checkmated and called me over to find out what the result should be. From playing blitz, I’m used to whomever calls the win first gets it (black had mating material) so I ruled in favor of black. But now I’ve been poking around the Internet and I’m starting to wonder if the checkmate should have spoken for itself and white should get the win.
Game was G/10 and as you can probably guess, I’m not up on QuickChess rules (my tourney days were 70s and 80s) so if it makes a difference, please give an opinion based on using Blitz rules.
From what you’ve written, it sounds like White checkmated Black before Black called White’s flag. Assuming that’s the case, White wins, because checkmate immediately ends the game (Rule 13A) even if the players don’t notice this (see Rule 18G2), whereas the flag is considered to be down when a player has made a claim to that effect (13C and in particular 13C1). This should be the result regardless of whether the game was played using regular, quick or blitz rules.
Quick chess (used to be G/10 to G/29, currently G/5 to G/29) uses the same rules as regular chess except that players aren’t required to keep score even if they both have more than 5 seconds left on the clock and the default time delay is 3 seconds per move instead of 5 seconds.
This is an old post, but it contains an erroneous statement that shouldn’t be allowed to stand.
Rule 14G1 clearly states that a game where there is a checkmate but both flags have fallen is still a checkmate. The only situation in which it is not is when a player points out that both flags have fallen before the checkmate occurs. If the TD can’t determine whether the checkmate occurred before or after the claim of both flags down, the checkmate stands.
Assuming neither player has called the flag and the director hasn’t declared the game a draw under rule 14G2, the player who administers the checkmate wins (9E, 13A1, 14G1).
In some other topic I had read, the responder said the result was one way for blitz and another way for QC, so that is why I mentioned the time control.