Let’s say my opponent is under 5 mins, let’s say 3 mins left, so he’s been blitzing the last 10 or so moves and hasn’t been keeping score. He is now up 2 pawns, and I’m pretty sure he can blitz out the winning moves in the last 3 mins. I have 20 mins. What’s to stop me from writing down 2 and a half moves pairs that never happened, going to get the TD, and claiming a 3 Fold Draw?
Nothing really. In the absence of witnesses, there are a lot of different acts of cheating that might succeed if just came down to one player’s word against another’s. With no independent evidence, the TD can only guess at the truth.
I remember such a case from the 1970s. A junior player (X) from my state was playing in a big tournament several states away. He won his game and marked the result on the pairing sheet. Some time later, his opponent (Y) changed the result to a win for himself and then revised his scoresheet to show moves leading to a win instead of a loss. X did not discover the scheme until the pairings went up for the next round. When he protested, Y pulled out his scoresheet and cited it as evidence that he had won. As it happened, Y was a local player to the tournament area and the TD chose to believe the player he knew rather than the unknown junior player from another state. A horrible injustice that was never set right.
This kind of thing can happen. All you can do is spread the word about the incident and hope that some day the miscreant will be caught doing something else.
– Hal Terrie
The question is whether the TD would uphold the claim.
There are really two kinds of 3-fold draw situations. One is a compulsory situation (e.g., one player is ahead, but the other can check him at will, forcing him to move back and forth between two positions). The other is a blunder, in which a player, without realizing it, accidentally repeats a board position 3 times.
In the first case, the forced situation must still remain, since the player making the claim must call the TD over immediately. So the player should be able to demostrate the claim by repeating the position 3 more times while the TD watches, and his opponent would be able to do nothing to avoid the 3-fold repeat.
The second case would be much more difficult to fake. A player would be unlikely to accidentally repeat a position 3 times, one right after the other, without realizing what was happening, so this situation would typically occur when the repeated positions were separated by a number of moves. And the player making the claim would have to be really creative and be able to think fairly quickly to come up with sequences of moves that would create such a 3-fold repeat while, at the same time, ending up with the current board position.
Bob
Isn’t a reasonably complete and accurate scoresheet required for a three-fold repetition claim?
I doubt that hastily writing down a few moves (presumably both players had stopped keeping score) would result in a scoresheet which met that test.
Moreover, presumably the opponent would dispute the three-fold repetition claim (and possibly even point out the claiming player’s scurrilous conduct), at which point the TD’s safest course of action is probably to attempt to play out the game from the scoresheet to verify the claim.
The real question may be whether the TD, after all that, might not conclude that not only was the claim erroneous, but it was actually fraudulent. At that point, the player making the claim could be subject to greater sanctions, including (but not limited to) loss of the game and expulsion from the tournament.
With that in mind, why would someone even attempt this?
Why would both players stop keeping score. In my hypothetical, the player who makes the claim has a complete and accurate scoresheet, except for the two and a half moves he made up. Say, for instance, I can write down:
I have a knight on e4 attacking a pawn on g3 that is defended by the Queen on g6.
- Nc3 attacking an undefended Bishop on b5. Then write,
34… Qb6 defending the Bishop on b5. - Ne4 attacking an undefended pawn on g3
- …Qg6 defending the pawn.
- Nc3 Qb6
etc…etc…
According to my scoresheet the draw is made.
The question, again, is why the TD should believe this claim just because it is on your score sheet, when your opponent claims that that’s not the way it happened. If I understand your scenario correctly, your opponent was not compelled to defend the pawn on g3, and would still have been ahead by a pawn even if he lost it. So, while moves 34-36 would be credible, I would find the “etc…etc…” moves to be a bit unlikely, since it would be hard for your opponent to miss the fact that he was repeating the board position.
If you believed that your opponent was ignorant of the 3-fold draw rule, your best bet would be to summon the TD and make your claim to him privately, then let him watch as you did the 3-fold repeat again, after which he could declare the game a draw. But if I as TD were summoned and your opponent disputed that your record of moves was accurate, and there were no impartial witnesses, I’d tell you to go ahead and play. Presumably, he’d yield the g3 pawn, and that would be your reward for making the claim.
Bob
I don’t know about every TD, but I know that a number of us will often watch time pressure games from a short distance away (avoiding giving the impression of “crowding” the players while still keeping an eye on the game). An attempt to add false moves to the scoresheet for a 3-fold-repetition claim has a definite risk of ejection from the tournament.
Mike is correct. Per 14C9 and 13C8, a player seeking to claim a draw by repetition must present a scoresheet complete to within three move pairs. If a player presents such a scoresheet, it matches the position on the board, the opponent has no scoresheet with which to contest it, and there are no witnesses, I don’t think the TD has any option except to uphold the claim. It’s true that this could theoretically allow cheating, but you can find a loophole in almost any set of rules,
Some repetitions during sudden death time controls can be claimed with “no losing chances”, when the opponent has no other legal moves. The TD should be called, (stop the clock!), to witness any claim of any rule in sudden death. That includes the 50-move rule.
All the best, Joe
The player in time pressure hasn’t got a leg to stand on I would think. What if the draw was legitimate and he had blundered into it, simply miscounted or played moves quickly to gain time or bide time on the clock til he found the right plan? Then when the TD gets there, he can say it never happened and play something else? That doesn’t seem right?
That is up to the efficency of the directing staff, especially when many players are reaching the end of the time control simultaneously. At the very least, a TD should witness the continuation of the game during sudden death.
All the best, Joe
There could be a dispute even if both players are keeping score. Let’s say that a player makes a 3-fold draw claim, and his scoresheet reads:
- Nc3 Qb6
- Ne4 Qg6
- Nc3 Qb6
- Ne4 Qg6
- Nc3 Qb6
But his opponent disputes the claim, and his scoresheet reads:
- Nc3 Qb6
- Ne4 Qg6
- Nc3 Qb6
And let’s say that there are no impartial witnesses. How do you resolve the dispute? Did White write the move pair a third time so that he could (invalidly) claim a 3-fold draw? Or did Black make a mistake but not write the third occurrence (even though it happened) so that he could deny White’s draw claim?
Bob
In the absence of other evidence, the TD should rule in favor of continuing the game. The burden of proof in on the player making the claim.
Good old 21F3b.
I only had to use it once this past weekend in Atlanta.
What if the time control were 40/2, and White had 41 moves, including the extra
36. Nc3 Qb6
37. Ne4 Qg6
38. Nc3 Qb6
plus some three more moves, arriving at move 41. Meanwhile, Black is claiming a win a time, because he has the moves
34. Nc3 Qb6
35. Ne4 Qg6
36. Nc3 Qb6
plus the same three additional moves, arriving at move 39, when White’s flag fell.
The Rulebook says that in the absence of an accurate scoresheet (or an independent witness), in the case of time forfeit vs. additional moves by repetition, the TD should rule in favor of the claimant (meaning the burden of proof in this case is on the opponent of the player making the time-forfeit claim, to prove why the game should, in fact, continue). Of course, both players’ scoresheets appear to be accurate, they’re both neat and free of cross-outs, etc., and both of them arrive at the position on the board.
The best dispute, which I’m not sure has ever happened (yet), is if White is trying to claim a draw by triple repetition at move 41, while Black is trying to claim a win on time at move 39, at the same time!
That’s actually an interesting question, since logically if one claim is invalid the other must be valid. I think the way to deal with that is to take them one at a time. First, reject the time-forfeit claim because it cannot be determined from the available evidence how many moves have been made, so the game must continue. Then deal with the repetition claim, and reject it because it cannot be proven from the available evidence that the repetition actually occurred, so the game must continue. (Of course, both of these make the implicit assumptions that there are no witnesses or additional evidence, and that both scoresheets lead to the position on the board.)
I would have thought this “burden of proof” was met by being the only one having a scoresheet? With your standard, once one player has stopped keeping score, no claims that require the scoresheet can be made by either player.
No. The player who has stopped keeping score loses the right to make any claim which requires a scoresheet. That’s the price he pays for not keeping score. We’re talking about a case in whioch both players have valid scoresheets, one showing repetition and the other not. In that case, in the absence of additional evidence, the game must continue.
13C9 Player may demonstrate making time control in non-sudden death. If the opponent of the claimant demonstrates that the required number of moves must have been made in order to reach the position on the board, the director shall deny the claim.
TD Tip: If the opponent points out the correct number of moves have been made to reach the position on the board due to move repetitions, but does not have an accurate score or an independent witness to verify the fact, the director should rule in favor of the claimant.
Note that I was actually referring to the specific case of move repetition to nullify a time forfeit claim, not to support a triple repetition claim. But that also assumes that the opponent does not have an “accurate” scoresheet. That also doesn’t address what happens in the case of a simultaneous claim of a time forfeit on move 39 vs. a claim of a triple repetition on move 41.
True, but as I already noted, that refers to a case in which the opponent is trying to dispute the claim without a scoresheet. That’s not really relevant to the case in question. As for your hypothetical, in the absence of a witness and if the actual number of moves made cannot be determined, I’m pretty sure I would reject both claims and rule that the game must continue. (Of course, that raises the annoying question of what happens if the position is repeated again. How many of the earlier supposed repetitions should be accepted?)