Hypothetical: In the lowest section of scholastic tournament, two players come up after their game to record the result on the scoresheet but then both say that they won the game. Neither one was notating. What do you do?
The game continues from the last agreed or otherwise verifiable position with no adjustment to remaining time.
Optional step zero: Take a headache pill. Then go through the steps below until finding a way to continue. Most such cases will be due to confusion. Sometimes it is deliberate on the part of one person.
Step one: See if they can agree on the last position.
If so then continue with that and you are done. A common error is one person thinking that the opponent was checkmated while the other player sees a winning position if there is no checkmate. Example: one player plays Qg6+, says mate and starts sticking out a hand; the other player captures the queen and shakes the hand thinking the player is resigning.
Step two-A: See if you can reach a position they do both agree on and continue from there.
or
Step two-B: The simplest course may be to accept the one the player with a significantly weaker position gives and play on from there even if the other player didn’t give the same position. Often the other player will look at it and accept it after seeing a way to win and the player whose position you chose was given the full benefit of any doubt.
Step three: Go with your best judgement about what the position was.
Step four: Play a new game or rule it a draw. I detest doing this and have done it maybe twice in the past two+ decades (figure in excess of 400 tournaments).
Note: If you do continue the game then see if you can assign a witness to watch what happens (preferably a TD but I have used non-TD witnesses after giving both the witness and the players explicit instructions that the witness cannot say anything or make any rulings but is only there in case a TD needs to find out what happened - this is one case where I’d accept using a camcorder or cell phone video to track the game).
Step five: see if the hotel bar is open!
Except they probably reset the board - lowest level of a scholastic event - remember. These are probably 3rd graders
Yeah, if you go back to last known position then with beginners the last thing they are going to remember is the starting position.
My actual problem was that while I was handling another issue, a game finished and both players went up to the scoresheet and wrote a result but then one of the boys left and the other was still there when I came back and he then admitted he had erased the original written result and replaced it with the “right” result “because I’d written the result in the wrong place the first time.” So, I take him and track down his opponent who of course said the original written result was correct and that he had won instead. So, I was inclined to say the original written result stands and another TD I consulted with on the phone agreed. That was bad enough but got me thinking about what happens if they come to the scoresheet and I am there and they disagree, ergo this question.
Which are the relevant rule numbers for this case?
They could both be “right”. At the National Open we had a case where a player played the wrong board, wrote the result on the board, and then went back later finding his name and saw he “must have made a mistake” and he corrected the result. Fortunately, the National Open required scoresheets to be turned in and we could see what happened. At a scholastic it would be difficult to figure that one out.
First off, you need to ask why each player thinks the result of the game is what they say. Some kids think stalemate is a win. I remember one that thought the player who executed the stalemate lost the game. (A bit of coaching was needed there). If it’s not a simple misinterpretation of the situation, and if there was no witness (often the kids when not on move look at nearby boards—someone might remember that “White was down to King only”), what I have found generally works fairly well is to put the two players on well-separated boards and ask them to set up, as best as they can remember it, the final position and show me the last few moves from each player. Very few kids who are trying to pull a fast one can invent a position and move sequence that makes sense. Remember, they can only try to wiggle out of a result if (a) they didn’t keep score (b) the opponent didn’t keep score and (c) no TD or nearby player could witness what happened. No one is going to get very practiced at faking the ending of a game.
Was the other TD a Special Referee?
Alex Relyea
Well, this event was not USCF rated but rated by a regional ratings system.
This event was not USCF rated but sanctioned by a state scholastic chess group and rated in a regional ratings system. We follow USCF chess rules in general but since it is not sanctioned under USCF then it doesn’t seem fair to then ask for a USCF special referee 's time to make a decision. The other TD was just another experienced TD who I could get a hold of who I knew had had a similar incident the previous week.
Thanks so much for the other suggestions. If ever in this circumstance again, I’ll try to get them to recreate the final position. That might help with the accidental cases but even my 450 rated son in 2nd grade could construct a checkmate on the board. I guess if the two players construct wildly different positions then you at least then know one is probably lying and not just a misunderstanding.
Some beginners also think that when the game is over you add up the 'points" still on the board (Queen=9, Rook=5, etc.) and one with the most points wins. I have run into that one more than once.
Another problem is that with very young beginners they not infrequently can’t remember what the last move was even when they’re sitting at the board and still playing the game. Asking them to remember the final sequence of moves after the game is over and the board re-set is fruitless.
One way to avoid this is to have a different method of reporting results. Get the result verified by an official at the board before they re-set the pieces, and have that entered onto a result sheet signed by the two players. That avoids a lot of confusion.
My experience has been that the player who is losing and is probably just making legal moves may not remember much, but the player who actually is trying to work for a checkmate does.
This happens all the time in scholastics, especially with the younger kids. It’s not just isolated to kindergartners though…I had it happen three times in the 7th grade section of the Illinois Elementary School Association (IESA) Championship over the weekend. In fact, in one round I had two disputes at the exact same time! In one, they set the board up and both players agreed on the position. That one was easy. The position they agreed to was checkmate. The other was a little messier and involved a draw offer in a foreign language. The third one was easy as well; they agreed on the position but one player didn’t understand stalemate and thought he had won.
I had this happen at the NJ K-3 championship. Both kids showed up at the results desk saying they won. The volunteer I stuck with the worst job in NJ chess called me over. Luckily, tiny kid one had a plycounter with the last position which showed mate. Other kid agreed that was the position but said he won because he was checkmated. Please teach your students check and checkmate before they go to a tournament.
You’re lucky. I have many times had the experience of going to a board to resolve a dispute where neither player could remember the previous move. Neither one had any clue. This usually happened in a K-1 or K-3 section, but not always.
Taking and verifying results at the board before players reset helps avoid this situation in the first place.
I’ve used non-TDs for this in scholastic events, with a TD on hand in case any kind of rules issue comes up. But it shouldn’t take a certified TD to ask both players if they agree upon a result.
I have sometimes done this in large scholastics as well when I couldn’t get enough certified TD’s for adequate coverage. The non-TD is essentially a roving scorekeeper. The only caveat with this approach is that the non-TD needs to understand that s/he can do NOTHING except take results. Even the simplest question needs to be addressed by a certified TD.
I directed a tournament of about 150 kids in which one of the teams had quite a few
Kindergarten and first grade players who did not know:
a. pawns could promote
b. kings could capture pieces
so exactly what checkmate was was somewhat of a mystery.
Rob Jones
This is my preferred approach at events where there are few enough players to make it work. It does create a separate problem, i.e. what to do when you get to the board and can see that its stalemate but the player with overwhelming force tells you its checkmate and the opponent (typically with lone king) agrees.
Did have one case where both players claimed to have won and upon further inquiring they had mutually agreed to a double victory. I had to explain that they could agree to a draw but could not agree that they both won.