Since it was a back rank “mate” are you saying that the white king had been moved from b2 (where it was in check) to a1 (where it was still in check)?
A handshake alone is not a resignation. Did white say something else to indicate it was a resignation? If not then there have been appeals where a player plays “checkmate” and the opponent reflexively shakes the hand while capturing the checking piece with the other hand. The TD ruling was to continue the game (with the “checkmating” player having lost critical material), the appeals committee of lower-level TDs ruled 2-1 that the handshake was a resignation, and the Rules committee said that the TD ruling was correct, the appeals committee majority was totally wrong, and the Rules committee then implemented the special referee concept to avoid a future appeals committee of low-level TDs wrongfully overturning correct rulings by higher-level TDs.
It sounds like it was unlikely to be a valid scoresheet, so even restoring the position (to the king on a1 with the black rook on e8) with white to move out of check sounds like it would have finished Kb1 Re1# (assuming there was a white pawn on c2). If that was the case then opting to go back a move (a common way of getting the king out of check to restore legality when there is not a good scoresheet) would not have changed the result.
If the white king had earlier moved from check on b2 to the safe b1, and then the Re1# move was played then that was a legal move in a legal position that ended the game.
The hyperactive Black king was indeed on b2 (supporting a passed pawn on b3 as a good endgame king should). The backwards diagonal check Bg7==>Kb2 was overlooked by both players for several moves in time pressure.
Had it not been for the back rank, the White king would have been secure in his middlegame fortress (Kg1, Ph2, g2, f2).
Black did not say “checkmate.” White (who might have muttered, “it’s checkmate”…again my memory is unreliable) freely offered his hand.
If there was nothing definitive said then I’d say a handshake is merely a handshake and with both players having missed it for multiple moves I’d be inclined to put the rook back on e8, ask black to get out of check and to NOT consider the rook touched since the black king was already in check prior to white’s last move.
In this case it sounds like there might have been something definitive said by white and they both appear to have initially agreed that black won and the game was over. I don’t think there is enough evidence to overturn your ruling.
Completely unnecessary. Please read rule 12 (and, notably, rule 12F) more carefully. There is no prohibition about announcing check.
I suppose TDs would mostly focus on touch move (rule 10), illegal moves (rule 11), and exceeding the time limit (rule 16), as these are the most common rulings a TD needs to make. But the rest of the rulebook is there for a reason, and it is worth every TD’s time to reread the rulebook (at the very least, chapter 1) once a year. Indeed, Kenneth Sloan has advocated this practice and follows it himself, and he has said that he usually finds something that surprises him.
I’m not clear on why you say that it “would have been a back-rank mate except that the poor Black king is still in check.” If a player is in check and has no move that will get him out of check, it is checkmate, period. The fact that he has his opponent in check simply means that his opponent put him in checkmate by making an illegal move.
Why would you regard this as a reason for not considering the rook a touched piece? The relevant rule would be Rule 10D, which says that “If no piece touched has a legal move, and no opponent’s piece touched can be legally moved, the player is free to make any legal move.” But the only reason Re1# was not a legal move was because it left Black’s king at b2 in check, and that means Black had a legal move for his rook (Re5).
So the real issue (which I’m not sure anyone has yet addressed) is: When a player is checkmated via an illegal move, at what point does he lose his right to claim this? Let’s consider some possible scenarios:
His opponent moves and says “checkmate” and he shakes hands with him, but then says “Wait a minute! You made an illegal move!” Does the fact that he shook hands with his opponent mean he no longer has the right to make an illegal move claim?
His opponent moves and doesn’t say anything, but he shakes hands with him, but then says “Wait a minute! You were in check!” Did his handshake mean that he agreed either that he was checkmated or that it was a draw, and that he therefore no longer has the right to claim an illegal move?
He and his opponent call the TD over and they mutually report that his opponent has checkmated him, but at that moment (while the TD is still there) the player suddenly exclaims “Wait a minute! You couldn’t make that move because I had you in check!” Is it too late for him to make that claim because he already agreed with his opponent that he was checkmated?
Technically you should go back to when the king was first left in check (and touch move would apply in that case). If you are not going back to that point then applying touch move can give people a chance to game the system by waiting until a disastrous piece is touched before calling the illegal move. There is already the 11A TD tip saying a player should not gain an advantage by opting against calling an opponent’s illegal move.
So you balance the expediency of going back only as far as you need to (when you aren’t sure how far back you have to go and opt to stop at a point that is likely not the absolutely correct one but which is relatively reasonable) versus the fairness of not requiring the move of a piece that was probably not the one touched when the first illegal move occurred.
Checkmate is an invalid term in that case. Shaking hands with nothing valid being said is just an ambiguous hand shake.
Saying “you won” is a resignation. The “loser” marking the score as a win for the opponent has resigned. That is why scholastic national TDs coming to a board (where the players both say there was a checkmate) will ask the losing player if the opponent won (they already signed a sheet saying that), and an affirmative answer is a resignation.
That’s a good point! If you knew for sure that White had just moved Ng7+ on the previous move (but hadn’t announced it, as the rules permit), and Black had responded Re1#, then Black would clearly be required to move Re5. But if an unknown number of moves have been made since Ng7+, then I could imagine a scenario in which White realized that he had put Black in check but chose to wait to bring it to his attention until Black moved a piece that he wanted to force him to move so that he could capture it without cost.
Maybe my experience is unusual, but I’ve never been in a tournament in which players were required to sign a sheet saying they had won or lost. I have seen tournaments in which the players were mutually reporting a checkmate to a TD, but while they were reporting it, one player noticed, and both players agreed, that it was not checkmate. In such cases, play continued.