I am considering submitting the following Advance Delegate Motion for the 2011 Annual Delegates Meeting. This is one of three proposed ADMs dealing with pawn promotion. Comments are welcome, including comments on whether it would be better to submit the three motions dealing with pawn promotion as a single ADM.
Bob Messenger
Massachusetts Delegate
In Rule 9D, after “If the player has released the pawn on the last rank, the move has not yet been determined, but the player no longer has the right to play the pawn to another square.” add the following:
“If the player announces the piece to which the pawn will be promoted, such as by saying ‘Queen,’ the move is determined but it is not completed until the player has replaced the new piece on the promotion square and pressed the clock.”
This ADM comes from a discussion in the topic “Rules question - pawn promotion” in this forum. It addresses a situation which is common in blitz chess and in scholastic events, where a player moves a pawn to the last rank and instead of replacing the pawn with a new piece, simply announces what piece the pawn is being promoted to. As I see it, if the opponent replaces the pawn on the promotion square and this turns out to be to the player’s disadvantage, e.g. because promoting to a queen produces stalemate, the player shouldn’t be allowed to promote the pawn to a different piece.
This rules change also addresses an ambiguity in the current rules. If a player advances a pawn to the last rank and says “Queen” but doesn’t replace the pawn with a queen or an inverted rook, and the opponent elects not to restart the player’s clock but continues play with the pawn still on the last rank, is pawn on the last rank really a queen or could the player decide to promote it to a rook or knight instead? The current rules don’t address this situation. Under the proposed new rule, the pawn can only be promoted to a queen.
I have not seen a persuasive argument that a player “announcing” the promotion piece should carry any meaning whatsoever. This strays even further from the FIDE Laws of Chess. (Note that, while the Laws of Chess do not use the term “determined” to describe a move, the laws do state that the choice of promotion piece is final as soon as the promotion piece touches the promotion square.)
In the absence of a compelling argument, I am opposed to granting the practice of “announcing” the promotion piece any recognition at all in the Official Rules of Chess. A practice being widespread does not make it correct.
One reason for the USCF rule to differ from the FIDE rule in this instance is that the practice of a player announcing the promotion piece is much more common in USCF tournaments than in FIDE tournaments. I don’t feel strongly about this particular ADM, though, so unless other people here speak in favor of it I probably won’t submit it. My other two pawn promotion ADMs don’t depend on this one being passed.
By the way, if I do submit this ADM I will change the wording slightly:
“If the player announces the piece to which the pawn will be promoted, such as by saying ‘Queen,’ the move is determined but it is not completed until the new piece has been replaced on the promotion square and the player has pressed the clock.”
The passive voice (“the new piece has been replaced on the promotion square”) means that after a player has announced “Queen” either player can replace the pawn on the promotion square. In actual practice, especially at scholastic tournaments, it is often the opponent who replaces the pawn.
I’m wondering if this should go through the rules committee first for their review and recommendation before going to the delegates.
I agree with Bob that a player should not be allowed to declare verbally what the promoted pawn becomes and then place anything other than that named piece of the same color on the board.
I would be opposed to this change. The current rule is quite clear: the pawn promotion is determined when the promoted piece is released (or in the FIDE rules, when it is placed) on the square. I don’t see any need to move the determination back to the point where the player is “announcing” to what piece the pawn will be promoted, before he has actually placed a piece on the square. It just creates the possibility of an irregularity where a player announces one piece and places something else. I don’t see why we need a rule to prevent a player from changing his mind from what he “announces”. The “announcement” should be irrelevant. What matters is what happens on the board. If the player is in the habit of making distracting “announcements” on which he does not follow through, there are other ways to deal with that.
If we are going to introduce new rules, then lets have a rule which states that the players should be quiet, not make “announcements” of any kind, and let their movement of the pieces on the board, and their presses of the clock, be their “announcements”.
Next thing you know, we’ll have an ADM that a regular move is “determined” when a player announces it. Just because some players have gotten into the habit of saying “Queen”, does not seem to be a good reason to change the rules for determination of pawn promotion moves.
Bob’s point is that if a player declares his pawn to be a queen, realizes that a queen would be a stalemate and then places a rook on the board he has changed his move. What if he presses his clock between his declaration and the replacement?
Here’s another hypothetical situation. White moves his pawn to the last rank, says “Queen”, doesn’t replace the pawn with a new piece, and presses the clock. Black plays Qg2 mate. White says “You can’t do that because you’re in check.” “What do you mean I’m in check? Your queen is on e8 and my king is on g7.” “That’s not a queen, it’s a knight.” White then replaces the pawn on e8 with a knight, having seen what Black would do if he’d promoted to a queen.
Even if Black had replaced White’s pawn with a queen before playing Qg2 mate White might argue that he could change his mind and promote to a knight because Black had no right to replace the pawn, and the choice of piece wasn’t determined until White had done this.
The same way you’d resolve a dispute where one player claimed that he’d said “j’adoube” and the other said that he hadn’t. In this case I think the burden of proof would be on the player who claimed that his opponent had announced the promotion piece.
At present, in this situation he has not changed his “move”; he has just changed his mind, and the rules allow you to change your mind even after you make various “announcements”. Announcements are irrelevant, unless they are distractions, in which case they should be penalized as distractions. What matters are moves. I don’t see why this needs to change.
That would be pressing his clock before determining a move. That is always a violation of the rules. In this case it is a violation of 8F6, which states “the promotion piece is placed on the eighth-rank square to which the pawn was moved”, and 9D, which states that “the move is determined with no possibility of change when the pawn has been removed from the chessboard and player’s hand has released the new appropriate piece on the promotion square”. Since no move has been determined, pressing the clock would violate 5H and 16C, which together state that players are to keep their hands off the clock except after moving. It is within a TD’s discretion to decide how to penalize all these different violations (though Bob will say that because 8F7 gives the opponent the self-help option of immediately pressing the player’s clock and requiring him to properly determine the promotion, there is no other penalty which can be imposed by the TD.)
So the TD has a new dispute to settle with your rule. So far I am with Brian on this one. Besides if your passes it is in direct conflict with what Brian has pointed out. IMHO, some revisions of that rule will be necessary to make your rule work.
In either case, by completing the move before replacement and leaving the pawn on the board, the promoting player has violated 8F7. The opponent may restart the clock of the promoting player without moving. Anything else seems outside the bounds of the rules, to me.
My inclination would be that such a move - completing without replacing the pawn - would be an illegal move, especially since the rules specifically provide for pausing the clock while a replacement piece is found. Though I wouldn’t necessarily rule that way because of 8F7.
I have yet to understand why the current rule (promotion piece determined upon it’s release on the promotion square) is insufficient. And I suspect 8F6, 8F7 and 10H would also have to be rewritten as well.
The problem I’m trying to solve with this ADM is that, as I see it, the current rules don’t adequately explain what happens if a player announces the piece to which he is intending to promote a pawn but doesn’t actually replace the pawn with the new piece. Apparently the pawn sitting on the 8th rank is in an undefined state, and the player promoting the pawn can decide at some later time (how late, I’m not sure) what piece to promote it to, possibly after gaining information about the position that he isn’t entitled to, such that promoting to a queen produces stalemate or allows the opponent to checkmate him. This is rewarding the player who violated rules 8F6 and 8F7 by not exchanging the pawn for the new piece before pressing the clock. If announcing the new piece determines the move the player isn’t exactly punished for doing this but also isn’t allowed to benefit from it by changing the promotion piece after seeing the opponent’s reply.
Your suggestion that pushing the pawn to the last rank and then pressing the clock without replacing the pawn with the new piece should be considered an illegal move does have the merit of making the USCF rule the same as the FIDE rule in this situation, and for that reason it probably has a better chance of being adopted. In my proposed ADM to change rule 8F7 I said that moving a pawn from the 8th rank when it hadn’t been exchanged for the new piece would be an illegal move. Your proposal goes a step further.
At regular chess and quick chess making this partial promotion an illegal move would have little effect in most cases, although sometimes adding two minutes to the opponent’s remaining time can be significant. The new rule would make a dramatic difference at blitz chess because the opponent could claim a win. Blitz rule 17 (which allows the opponent to stop the clocks while a replacement piece is found) would probably have to be modified or deleted, although I’ve already proposed an ADM which would delete it.
You’re right that 10H and the TD tip in 8F6 would need to be changed to say that the choice of piece is fixed after the player makes an announcement, as well as being fixed when the new piece is released on the promotion square. I don’t think 8F7 would have to change, except maybe to explicitly state that the opponent can replace the pawn on the promotion square after the player has announced what piece it’s being promoted to.
Frankly, though, since three NTDs have already spoken against this ADM I’ve pretty much given up on it.
Of course you realize that in that case the TD will not grant the touch move claim unless there is clear independent evidence. So if one player says you said queen and the other says I did not then the TD does nothing.
This is a bad change, and I think it has less than 0 chance of gathering any support, much less enough support to pass.
You are trying to solve a problem that we rarely, if ever, see as TDs. The move is determined when the new piece is placed on the promotion square. If is fairly striaght forward.
Bob Messenger has made several suggestions, many of them good (and one or two not so good) regarding several areas – promotion, capturing, etc.
I hope, however, that if these ADMs get to the floor, the delegates will have the good sense to refer them to the rules committee.
It is my further hope that the rules committee will then act on the recommendations, one way or the other, rather than ignoring them indefinitely.
Better yet, the rules committee could begin discussion now (if it has not done so already) on Bob’s suggestions, and propose its own ADMs for delegate consideration.