I am following couple of threads on different social networks where the following situation is being discussed:
Tournament is G15. It is NOT taking place in USA and presumably FIDE rules are used.
Scholastic player A has an overwhelming advantage (two queens on the board already plus tons of other material : Knight and Two Bishops) over his scholastic opponent B (King and Knight only). Player A promotes the pawn, in the absence of another queen takes a rook, replaces the pawn with rook turned over and exclaims - “Queen”. TD is standing nearby and observing the situation and says nothing at this point. Five moves later, overturned rook makes a diagonal move, TD stops the game and player B gets a full point, with a rationale given that player A made an illegal move.
I have multiple questions here:
Was the TD right in this situation under FIDE rules. I was under impression that he was supposed to give Player B two minutes extra time and only rule game lost to Player A after the second offense?
Does it matter under FIDE rules that it is rapid chess at Game 15? In other word, would ruling be different in slow time control?
Would it be any different if the tournament took place in USA and USCF rules were enforced.
Same condition as 3 but slow time control.
Is the fact the player B had only King and Knight could make any difference under USCF rules?
This depends on staffing. If there are at most three games per arbiter and score is being kept by the arbiter, then this is incorrect. If not, please see A4.
Yes, possibly. Standard games use competition rules, thus the player would get 2 minutes, and a forfeit the second time. I emphasize that this is not impossible in rapid chess.
3&4. Yes. US Chess only requires legal moves during Blitz.
No. See above. It is only relevant if the player loses some other way, e.g. time.
I don’t know about FIDE, but as far as I know, under USCF rules an overturned Rook is perfectly acceptable as a Queen, and I would never make the ruling that this TD did. I don’t see that player A did anything wrong whatsoever.
FIDE rules may be different in this respect, though. Maybe he should have stopped the clock and asked for a Queen. But if the TD/arbiter didn’t say anything at that point, it’s a bit odd that he would later make the ruling he did.
TD did not say anything, because presumably under FIDE rules overturned Rook is a Rook, however you may call it. Pawn promotion to a Rook is legal, so TD did not need to intervene at that particular point.
TD only acted when “this Rook” made a diagonal move, which is illegal.
The bellow, no. But in the absence of an actual physical Queen, placing an overturned Rook on the board and indicating that it is to be considered a Queen seems reasonable. What other options did he have? I’ve never heard of a rule saying that you can’t promote to a Queen unless there is an actual Queen available.
Many USChess tournaments do not provide sets, so the players have to bring their own. If a promotion is done there may not be an extra queen available while there is usually at least one rook exchange having been done (freeing up the rook). Thus the logistics of the tournament makes it reasonable for an upside down rook to be treated as a queen instead of having to spend a number of minutes trying to find an extra queen (possibly requiring running to a store and purchasing a set so that an extra queen is available - granted, extremely unlikely that extent will be reached). I’ve also seen two pawns crossed on their sides used as a queen (at least one pawn is available because it promoted and there is usually a second pawn that was taken earlier). Note that the upside down rook is, per USChess rule 8f7, a queen even if nothing was said. Other alternatives are not explicitly supported by the rulebook.
In a perfect world there are plenty of extra queens, rooks, bishops and knights available. When there aren’t, alternatives need to be pursued.
At non-rated tournaments with additional sets available I will do the swap of queen for upside-down rook, thus avoiding confusion if the rook is later knocked over and thus needs to be reset with the two players disagreeing on whether it should be right-side-up or up-side-down.
Under USCF rules, it has been the traditional practice that an overturned Rook = Queen. This is the normal way of promotion when an extra Queen is not available. See Rule 8.F6 and 8.F7 in the Rulebook, on pages 21-22. The player should first stop the clock and request that the TD find a Queen to place on the square. Then he should promote the pawn, replace it with a Queen and press the clock. When a Queen is not available, and the more likely situation, when a TD is not available, the player can use an upside down Rook to substitute for the Queen. He should announce that it is a Queen or other piece to minimize confusion.
If the FIDE rule is contrary to this, then the player was really s-c-r-e-w-e-d by FIDE rules and the arbiter. The OP did not say what country this occurred in, and whether the arbiter knew the language of the players. Miscommunication is possible, but it seems to be more so on the part of the arbiter than the player. The inconsistent arbiter intervention to prevent a problem and then penalize the player for playing chess is sure to cause an uproar, regardless of whether it was a scholastic or open tournament. One of the ironies is that under FIDE rules, the K+N can still be mating material in spite of the material difference if the flag of the materially superior side had fallen.
This type of situation is the reason why I tell my students not to mess around and get multiple Queens in order to checkmate. There are often no additional Queens. The TD may not be around when you need one in a pressure packed situation. When in doubt, pause the clock and ask. Better yet, finish the game with the overwhelming force you have. If necessary to avoid a loss on time, take his last pieces and all pawns, leaving him with a bare King; the worst you can do then is draw.
Most of the chess sets I see here in the US have an extra Queen. Is this true of European sets? Do players in these tournaments start with an extra Queen sitting on the table? In the normal European tournament, do the organizers provide pieces and boards? In the Canadian tournaments I played in, all equipment was provided by the organizer to provide equal conditions for all players.
I strongly disagree with Messrs. Magar and Kosterman. The player made a legal move. That he bellowed something inconsistent with his move is, IMO, irrelevant. If the player wanted to promote to a third queen he should have stopped the clock and asked the arbiter for one. To take an absurd example, if I play 1.e4 and bellow “Checkmate” does that mean I win? Should it? IMO the arbiter acted completely correctly, unless, as I have stated above, the game was being played under competition rules.
There is no good reason, except for historical precedent, that US Chess Rules should allow this practice. As we have disregarded historical precedent for many rules, perhaps we should expect people to promote correctly.
BTW, I once saw a player, I think a master, use a promoted right-side-up rook as a queen.
While the Laws of Chess don’t come right out and disallow using an upside-down rook for a queen, it’s what is intended, and the FIDE Arbiter’s Manual does specifically state
And here’s the default way FIDE deals with illegal moves:
But, if it’s a rapidplay or blitz game and you don’t have the arbiter ratio cited by Mr. Relyea (and that’s likely here), here’s how illegal moves work:
Well, the difference is that playing 1. e4 and bellowing “checkmate” would be totally unprecedented and obviously absurd. On the other hand, using an overturned Rook as a Queen when promoting has been a standard practice in the US chess community for as long as I’ve been playing tournament chess (over 30 years). Maybe FIDE rules are different (I am no expert on FIDE rules, having never played or directed a FIDE event), but if this player was from the U.S., it’s quite understandable that he would do what has always been standard practice in the U.S. In my opinion, it would be desirable for U.S. and FIDE rules to be identical, but since they’re not, I would be inclined to cut the player some slack in such a case. I guess I will never be a FIDE arbiter if they are required to make silly rulings like this (not that there’s any chance I would ever be one anyway). Someone who is overwhelmingly winning a game (that his opponent should have resigned long ago) should not lose it on a trivial technicality that he wasn’t even aware of.
GM Josh Friedel (who was an IM at the time of the incident) lost a game by running out of time when he had K+R vs. the opponent’s K+N. He expected that the result would be a draw because US Chess rule 14E says so. Under the FIDE Laws of Chess, there is a legal sequence of moves by which K+N can checkmate K+R, so the game was won by the opponent.
It is the player’s responsibility to know the rules. The arbiter’s action in the case of the upside-down rook were completely correct and in compliance with the FIDE Laws of Chess. It was not illegal to not have the base of the rook touching the board, and there was nothing wrong until the player attempted to move the rook diagonally. I strongly disagree with the idea that arbiters should cut players slack because the FIDE Laws of Chess differ from the Official Rules of Chess.
Under USCF rules, if no Queen is available, an upside down Rook is acceptable in practice. The player, under Rule 8.F7 is required to make an “announcement” to the opponent which piece he has promoted to. There is no “bellowing”. Absent such announcement to the opponent what the upside down Rook is, it is assumed to be a Queen by our rules.
IMHO, the arbiter the OP referred to did not do such a snazzy job in this scholastic tournament. He has potentially created a poor atmosphere of angry parents and players because of the way he implemented the rules. In this particular case, I think our rules and practices are better.
In the FIDE rated tournaments I have played in over the years, there are usually not enough TDs to handle rules situations. In practice, it is difficult for a player to find extra Queens, a TD, or even leave his table on a quest to find what he needs. He may have to leave the tournament room to cross half the hotel to find an arbiter. It appears from what the OP has written that the rules were selectively enforced by a TD that did not communicate to the players what the proper procedure was for promotion. This lack of communication caused further problems. Since this was a scholastic tournament, I find it difficult for the onus to be put on the players to know all of the niceties of the rules. Instruction rather than penalties were in order. The spirit of the game is more important than the exactitude and crushing penalties afforded to the arbiter by the rules. The kids were doing just fine, according to the OP’s facts, until the arbiter needlessly inserted himself into the game.
It seems that there are three possible ways for the rules to handle a promotion to an upside-down Rook:
It’s a Queen
It’s the moral equivalent of not choosing a piece and thus needs to be replaced with an actual piece in proper orientation (presumably a Queen under the FIDE rule for that situation).
It’s a Rook
IMO, (c) seems just absolutely silly. If I decided to flip my Rooks over at the start of the game, would it be the opinion of the FIDE-philes that that’s cool as long as I move them like a Rook?
The answer isn’t as much (c) as it is “(b) is dirty pool, and the penalty for (b) is (c).”
Were a game to be started with Rooks flipped over, under either ruleset, I would speak up at the start of the game. A rapidplay endgame with a specific and explicit rule treatment? I’m not sure I would.