Situation 1: A player with a queen and king versus a lone king delivers stalemate while claiming that it is a checkmate. Both players begin to mark their scoresheets as a win for the player with a king and queen.
Situation 2: A player with a queen and king versus a lone king delivers stalemate, immediately the player with a lone king knocks over his or her king as a sign of resignation. Both players begin to mark their scoresheets as a win for the player with a king and queen.
Response A: A coach who has responsibility as a steward ignores the stalemate, and allows the players to make the result as a win & loss (respectively).
Response B: A coach who has responsibility as a steward informs the players that the result was a draw because the final position was a stalemate.
Both these situations occurred in the last week, and both these responses were made. What is the correct ruling?
Here is the rule from the rulebook (handy little work that one and all shoudl have a copy of!)–you decide:
14A. Stalemate.
The game is drawn when the king of the player to move is not in check and that player has no legal move. This type of draw is called stalemate. Providing that the opponent’s previous move is legal, this immediately ends the game. Note that it is incorrect to refer to all drawn games as stalemate. The draws described in 14B through 14J are not stalemates. See also 9E, Checkmate or stalemate; and 15H, Reporting results.
TD TIP: This means that anything, including the fall of the flag, which happens after the stalemate move has been legally determined (see 9, Determination and completion of the move) is irrelevant to the outcome of the game. Also, remember a 14A stalemate draw claim is a draw offer (Rule 14, The Drawn Game).
A “steward” is an assistant to the tournament director.
I guess my question can be boiled down to Rule 21D. When is it appropriate for a TD to intervene in a game? Rule 21D states that a TD can intervene in order to answer questions about rules, correcting illegal moves observed (except during time pressure), warning players about unsportsmanlike conduct, setting disputes, and so forth. With the exception of correcting illegal moves, a TD normally does not intervene in a game unless asked by one of the players.
For most tournaments, it is impossible for a TD to watch each and every game. In the situations outlined in my first post, if there was no steward present, the result would have been a win/loss and not a draw. But with a steward present, the result of the game could be changed from a win/loss to a draw.
Bob McAdams writes:
Thus, one could infer, the TD has a responsibility to see that the results are reported correctly. Yes?
If stalemate has occurred, the game is over. One cannot intervene in a completed game, so pointing out that it is stalemate is ensuring that the correct result is reported, it is not interfering with the game.
This is a good example of a situation seeming to mention all of the facts, but not actually doing so.
Personally, if I saw a stalemate (usually because a player called me over to look at the board) then I’ll correct the result. On the other hand there are many times where I may be near a game and not actually looking at it even though somebody else might think that I am. In that situation there may be a stalemate and a tipped king, and by the time I look over to see it I wouldn’t know whether or not the tipped king had actually been stalemated.
So a further question is whether or not the steward was either asked to make a ruling or really did see the stalemate.
Finally, there are some organizers or chief TDs who explicitly state that the agreed result between the two players will stand regardless of what actually happened on the board (generally when the number of games greatly outnumbers the number of stewards / TDs). If one steward had previously worked in a tournament like that while the other hadn’t then they would approach the same situation differently.
Usually that explicit statement refers to a person agreeing to a checkmate when it actually isn’t a checkmate, in which case intervention by the steward or TD would be to cause a game to continue (thus running up against the 21D limitations). In such cases, if one player says that a checkmate has been delivered the TD changes the validating question to that player from “did A checkmate B?” to “did A win?”, and a yes answer to that question is a resignation.
For example, let’s say that no TD is present when the game ends, but (in either scenario) a spectator (who might be a player in another game) points out that the position is really stalemate - not checkmate. The player with the lone king wants to change the result to a draw. But the player with the king and queen says, “It’s too late - we both already recorded it as a win for me on our scoresheets.” Or, in situation 2, the player with the king and queen says, “It doesn’t matter - you clearly indicated that you resigned.” So they summon a TD to resolve the situation.
If the board position has not been changed since the game ended (and, in situation 2, if the final position of the lone king before it was tipped over can be ascertained from the scoresheets), the TD’s ruling should be fairly straightforward.
If the board position has been changed, the TD’s ruling should still be fairly straightforward if the players are in agreement about what happened. If the players disagree, then I would consider it appropriate to replay the game using the scoresheets to reconstruct the closing position.
Scoresheets?
Odds are pretty good that there is not a usable scoresheet in situations like this.
And by usable I mean decipherable in any way if one even exists. I have occasionally been able to tediously work through a scoresheet and, by making a dozen or so corrections after eliciting additional information that the two players agree on, get to a position close to what I am trying to reach.
That makes those rare perfect scoresheets in the primary sections wonderful breaths of fresh air.
Does this question remind anyone else of the (common?) practice of calling the tournament over and asking if the position is checkmate? I have heard in many cases that the tournament director asks (or is told to ask) “What do you think?” Where is that covered under the rules?
My general way of thinking is that, if I am dealing with a smaller local scholastic event or two very inexperienced players in a state/national scholastic event, I try to make the players determine whether it’s checkmate by asking a series of questions without actually answering for them. In that way, perhaps it can become a teaching moment. But that’s pretty much reserved for the newest of the newbies.
The difference is that the situation you describe is nearly always check, so the question the players have is whether there is any way out of check or whether it’s checkmate.
This is covered in Rule 13A. It’s perfectly appropriate for the TD to say “Yes, it’s checkmate” (if it is), or “No, it’s not checkmate” (if it isn’t). What a TD should avoid, as much as possible, is indicating ways that a player can get out of check, since this could consitute the giving of advice. Keep in mind that there may be more than one way for the player to get out of check, and that he might not see all of those ways on his own.
As far as questions from players goes, my most memorable question when working the floor was more than twenty years ago when a third grader called me over to look at a position that he was way behind in. He asked “can you show me how to win this game?” I didn’t want to give a simple “no” answer as that may imply that the position wasn’t winnable (technically a win was still possible if the opponent made enough mistakes - after all this was a weaker board in the primary section) and simply saying the “I can’t tell you” might imply that the position actually was winnable. After thinking about it for a moment I said “I’m not allowed to answer that question because asking somebody for help is against the rules and I am here to enforce those rules.”
How is telling a player if it is checkmate not giving advice? I consider this giving advice because the player is asking for information about their own position in the game. Clearly the player asking the question is looking for information that this player (at a minimum isn’t sure of) doesn’t yet possess. That’s giving assistance beyond the limitations of 21D.
My personal choice is to tell the player asking the question that their opponent is allowed to look at the position. If the opponent agrees that it’s mate the game is over and if it’s not the opponent will make a move and the game will continue. I consider an opponent not seeing a way out of check to be the equivalent of resignation even though that may not be the player’s intent. Either way it is the players and not the director that decides the end of the game. This can be used as a subtle way of teaching the players about checkmate without giving advice.
A stalemate is a different situation. When the claim is that it’s mate, without telling the players the answer I ask “who’s checking the king?” Sometimes I need to ask the question more than once. When they see that the king is not in check they also see that it’s not mate. This corrects what would have been scored as a win to a stalemate.
I have ruled games which are not stalemates to be draws because at the time both players incorrectly “agreed” that the player on move had no legal moves.
It is giving advice, but with very young children, the chess tournament tends to be more a learning opportunity than a meaningful competition, so one bends a bit. I usually follow the example of Chuck Beach, a scholastic TD in Rockford, Ill.: Rather than answer the question directly, I walk the kid through the definition of checkmate and try to get him to answer the question himself. “Can you capture the piece that’s attacking you? Can you block the check? Can you avoid the check? OK, so is it checkmate?” And then deliver an extra warm-fuzzy at the end, after the kid answers correctly: “There. You knew the answer – you didn’t need to ask me!”
I don’t do things in a sequence like that because the first question asked is very likely to incite a move before you have a chance to get to the following questions. There are times when Qx(protected)N is not as strong as a king move.
As far as whether or not a yes/no answer is giving advice, if the answer is yes then the game is over anyway. If the answer is no then saying that the two should come to an agreement is often seen by young players (and their parents) as implying that the answer is yes, which would be the equivalent of not merely giving advice, but giving bad advice.
I came to the conclusion some time back that regardless of how, or even whether, that question is answered, it would be seen by some as having the TD give advice to influence the game. So I decided that I’d simply give an honest and minimalist answer so that the game would continue when it should continue (think of it as an extension of 21F3b where allowing a game to continue is best when there is confusion about the facts).
P.S. If the answer to “is this checkmate?” is yes, and you allow the game to continue then you are violating 18G2. So if you step in at that point to stop the game (and are known to do so) then whether or not you step in is the same as yes or no, with the exception that a yes or no answer doesn’t require you to hang around if (for a yes answer) or have your walking away be the signal for a no answer.
P.P.S. This advice really applies only to directors who are strong enough to correctly recognize checkmate.
It is unlikely that the player who called “checkmate” would allow his opponent to make an illegal move to escape the mate. If one checks rule 21D2 the game in which checkmate has occurred the TD can point out the illegal move if the claimant doesn’t do so first. By intervening and telling a player he is not in checkmate, there is the potential to change the result of the game based not on the player’s ability, but the TD’s advice. A player who is not in checkmate and doesn’t know it and can’t figure it out would have lost without TD assistance.
I will acknowledge that I’m not completely comfortable in seeing a player who incorrectly calls “checkmate” winning. Unless I have a good reason to think that the incorrect claim was an attempt to cheat, I don’t see any firm ground for a TD to intervene. If a TD improperly intervenes and is questioned about not following 21D, does he plead ignorance of the rule? Does he claim that he’s not using the rule? If so, did he do so in advance publicity as required?
Harold correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems from your writings that you feel this rule regarding the TD not interfering with the game is the most important or has the highest priority.
I feel that there are many rules regarding what the TD should or should not do, and they all have their own merits. For instance there is the rule about TD discretion. Now that’s a kind of big one in and of itself.
If a Stalemate occurs, the game is over and therefore anything the TD does is not interference in the game, because the game is over.
Bolding is mine.
If a Stalemate occurs, then it doesn’t matter if both players think it is a Checkmate or not. It is a Stalemate and the game is ended.
You also cannot assume that the player calling it a Checkmate will not allow the opponent to escape with an illegal move. After all, he believes a Stalemate position is a Checkmate one.
