During National Chess day (October 8th) I directed my first tournament (4 round G/40 Swiss). There were no issues that I was aware of, but after the tournament a player mentioned an incident.
In the 2nd round the player with Black ended up blundering a piece in severe time trouble and lost to his lower-rated opponent. Black claims that White touched the pawn on h6 but then released it and moved his pawn to h3. See diagram.
Now what should have happened is Black should have stopped the clocks and got the TD to rule on whether this violated touch move. Instead he got flustered and played Nf2, dropping the knight.
Assuming he had stopped the clock and asked for my ruling, my initial thought was that since the black pawn could not be captured White could make any other move. But after talking it over with Black the next week his argument has sort of swayed me. He says that touching the pawn means his intention was to move his King to take it. Although the king cannot capture the pawn on h6, White still is required to move his king. I said I would post this here to get opinions.
While writing this up I reread 10D, and I think I am back to believing that it is applicable - “…no opponent’s piece touched can be legally captured, the player is free to make any legal move”.
So if I had to make a ruling, should I have done the following:
Denied the claim, let the game resume as is.
Uphold the claim, make White take back his move and require him to move his King. No time penalty (1C2b)
#2 with the addition of adding 2 minutes to Black’s time. (1C2a)
I should point out both players are regular members of the club, this wasn’t a major bit of drama, but Black is curious as to the proper ruling (as am I).
No. This is a bogus argument. White did not touch his king, and it’s not legal for the king (or any other white piece) to take the touched pawn; therefore he has no obligation to move his king, no matter what his opponent thinks he intended. It is obviously ludicrous to start making rulings based on what players believe their opponents intended. What if white had touched the knight? Would this indicate that he intended to capture it with the bishop, and therefore he should move the bishop? Such a move is no more illegal than moving into check! Mind-reading is not within the purview of either the players or the TD. Deny claim; play resumes.
Incorrect. White has not touched the king. Even though that is the only way that White could capture the pawn on h6, since White has not touched the king, he is not obliged to move the king. Nor is touching the pawn on h6 a violation of rule 10 (the touched piece), since there is no legal manner in which White may capture the pawn.
So you’re telling me that if my opponent is in time pressure, i can touch/pick up an replace all his pieces i want that arent legally capturable and there is no penalty? Come on, you know that isn’t in the spirit of the rules.
The rule is written the way it is so that the game can go forward. What if the rules didn’t address this specific situation? We’d be at an impasse. Black would insist that White capture the piece, White would have no legal way to do so. The rule says yeah, it’s an illegal move, so lets do what we normally do when someone makes an illegal move…
This is exactly the same as if i move a piece that is pinned to my king that has no legal moves at all, a bishop pinned on a file for instance. That’s an illegal move and my opponent should get 2 minutes. Otherwise, I’d make all kinds of illegal moves and hit the clock and burn off seconds while he tries to stop the clock to bring over the TD where there will be no penalty whatsoever…
Still incorrect. In the original case, the player did not touch the king. Thus, the player has not even determined a move, never mind completed a move, illegal or otherwise. Read rule 9G. Then read rule 11D. Carefully. Especially note the word “completes.”
That is not at all what he said. What he said was this was not an illegal move, because there was no move made or possible. If you start picking up pieces etc then there is a rule about annoying behavior to apply - but that is different than it being an illegal move. So no, it is NOT exactly the same.
First, congratulations to Scott on directing his first tournament (on National Chess Day, no less).
The h6 pawn touched was one that could not be legally moved or captured by white, so touch move does not apply.
By the time the clock was hit the only move made was the legal h2->h3, so there was no reason for an illegal move penalty. As an aside, wait until after a move is complete (the clock has been hit) before claiming it is illegal (I know of at least one time when a player made a move, forgot to press his clock, waited for a while for his opponent to move, went to the washroom, came back to the board to see that his clock was running, made another move, his opponent claimed an illegal move before he actually hit the clock, the TD ruled that it was still the player’s uncompleted move and thus no illegal move had yet officially occurred, the player retracted his second would-be-illegal move, and finally hit the clock after his original legal move - no time penalty, well none other than the time that had run off his clock after he omitted initially hitting it).
A claim of touching the h6 pawn in an intentional effort to distract the opponent seems to be really reaching.
Hey, thanks guys. Now players have another ploy in the arsenal to distract and unnerve opponents without being penalized. If I can pretend to take a piece and take it back and then make another move, I can cause precious seconds to come off my opponent’s clock before he fully understands what is going on and challenges it. Way to go! This could be really useful in time pressure situations. You can touch all of the pieces you cannot legally capture and not suffer a penalty. Bill Wong has a point. The ensuing confusion has a lot of potential benefits for the offender. It raises gamesmenship to another level. Just upsetting the other player has lots of upsides for the devious, coffehouse style player who wants to win at any cost. Might help him to win hundreds or thousands of dollars in a tournament where the TDs can’t monitor every game. And there is a double benefit. With this type of ruling, you won’t have to worry about players coming back to play in your tournament.
Unlike legal moves, there is no such thing as “determining” an illegal move. The move was never made, much less completed by pressing the clock. Big difference here.
Black’s blunder (…Nf2) was prompted by white’s kicking the knight (h2-h3), not by white’s touching the h6 pawn.
If a player touches all kinds of pieces that can’t be moved, the TD can impose serious time penalties, even forfeiture, for annoying behavior.
I can understand Mr. Wong making up imaginary rules, since Mr. Wong is not a certified tournament director and would not be assumed to have read the USCF Official Rules of Chess. On the other hand, Mr. Magar, you were a certified tournament director with a history that spans seventeen years of directing in MSA (and I have no idea how many years predating the start of MSA records). Given that record of experience, I am dumbstruck by how ridiculous and uninformed this post is.
For the benefit of those who do not have access to a copy of the rulebook or who choose not to read it, I shall quote rule 20G:
I leave it to the reader to figure out how rule 20G applies to the described behavior. Seriously, come along folks, the existing rules quite capably deal with such situations. There is no need for imaginary rules.
This is simply not an illegal move situation. As my friend from MA says read and apply 20G. It is really very simple. Apply the rule that applies rather than one that does not.
I’m not at all sure that, if I were the other player, I’d even complain. If I’m under time pressure and my opponent wants to waste his time advantage touching all of the pieces he can’t legally move or capture, why should I object? Then he can be under time pressure, too!
Or, better yet, he might inadvertently touch a piece that can be moved or captured. Then he’d have to move or capture it, possibly dropping a queen or something.
Um, it’s called body language. It’s usually pretty obvious, to any TD or spectator watching, whether the player is doing it by mistake or to be annoying.
There are a lot of antics that take place in the large, big money tournaments. The TDs cannot watch every board. Applying 20G sounds fine in theory, but in practice in the heat of a tournament game when there are a number of other games going on at the same time, not so easy. Players in this situation are often unsure if they can or should stop the clock to ask for a ruling. The stress of play can cause brain lock that can be exploited by the less than scrupulous.
As a spectator, I watched an Expert, who I knew had a little bag of tricks, move a knight like a bishop which improved his defense considerably. It happened so fast that the other player gave it a quizzical look but since his time was low he just moved a piece. It wasn’t the first time the Expert had done this in games where both players were in mutual time pressure. He also would cough, adjust pieces to put them off center, knock over cups, bump the table, etc. Lots of silly little things designed to slightly disturb the other player to get an edge. No TD around to ask and difficult to prove without a complete scoresheet, a history of previous behavior, plus witnesses. I have also heard stories of games where captured rooks mysterriously reappeared in time pressure to give check. The flustered player resigned and then found out later after marking the pairing sheet that he had been tricked. Too late, game over.
