This happened in a large multi-sectional tournament in an important game played at G/120 between two young players I'll Call "A" and "B":
"A" had about 36 seconds and "B" had 13 seconds left on their clocks. (I got the impression that they were using 5-second time delay.) Shortly afterwards the "B" ran out of time, but "A" didn't claim it. "A"'s last move was moving his king into check. (Later while thinking about it, I'm not sure of the order of these last two moves.)
“B” called for a TD. The first TD, seeing that “B” was out of time, said “you won” to “A”. There was further discussion and another TD came over. “B” claimed that an illegal move was made. The decision was to restart the game giving the “B” 2 minutes on his clock. “A” still had about 30 seconds, and eventually lost the game.
Did the TD(s) make the correct decision?
There seems to be two rules in play here:
The game is over when the flag falls (if claimed by a player), or at least a player can’t make a TD claim when his flag is down.
If there is an illegal move made during the past 10 moves it needs to be corrected.
How should these two “rules” be reconciled?
Scenario 1: “B”'s flag falls and then “A” makes an illegal, move and hits the clock; then “B” calls TD.
Scenario 2: “A” makes an illegal move and then “B”'s clock runs out before he can call a TD.
I don't see much difference in either scenario.
The TDs could have awarded the game to "A" (on time), called the game a draw, or restarted the game as they actually did.
What is the correct decision?
The first TD who said “you won” should not have made such a statement. He was called to the table by B and needed to hear B’s complaint before saying anything.
Since B claimed (correctly) that A made an illegal move, that is going to be the key feature. The time claim hadn’t been made yet.
In your Scenario 1, A’s illegal move is irrelevant, since it took place after the flag fell. The problem here is determining whether the flag fell before or after A made the illegal move and pressed the clock. Assuming this can be determined (somehow), then A wins on time. In Scenario 2, assuming the facts are not in dispute, A has to make a legal move and B gets two minutes added to his clock (11D). If the order of events can’t be determined, it’s a judgment call. I’m not sure there is a “correct” decision. My inclination would be to give B a very small amount of time (not the full two minutes, since it is not clear that A deserves a penalty) and continue the game, but other rulings are perfectly defensible.
A point to note, however, is 11D1: “A director should not call attention to illegal moves in sudden death time pressure.” If B did not make the illegal-move claim himself (i.e. if he was prompted by a TD or spectator), the situation is not so clear. (I think 11D1 is a bad riule, but it’s there.)
No. The flag fall is irrelevant until somebody calls it. If B’s claim about an illegal move is made before any claim is made about the flag fall, then it gets corrected.
I don’t think that’s a correct (or plausible) reading of the rule. You’re saying that once B makes an illegal-move claim, it pre-empts A from claiming a time forfeit, and vice versa. That may work in a game of tag, but not in a tournament. Assuming that both claims have been made, the determining factor is the order of the illegal move/flag fall, not the order in which they players said “I claim X/I claim Y.” In the specific case given, A claimed the time forfeit first, but this does not preclude B from claiming that A made an illegal move before the flag fell. If it did, a player would be allowed to make an illegal move to startle/distract the opponent, then shout “Flag!” before the opponent had time to realize what was happening.
Then what exactly are you saying? That a claim of an illegal move before flag fall must be made before the claim of the flag fall is made? I think that construction leads to absurd results, but I’m not going to go to the trouble of writing a refutation unless that’s really what you meant.
If the illegal move took place before the flag fall, I agree. But that’s not quite the point.
Case 1: A makes an illegal move. B’s flag falls. A makes a claim of a win on time. B makes a claim of A making an illegal move. Assuming the facts are not in dispute, B’s claim prevails because A’s infraction came first.
Case 2a: A makes a legal move. B’s flag falls. A doesn’t notice and makes an illegal move. Then A notices the flag is down and makes a claim. B counters with a claim of an illegal move. Again assuming that the facts are not in dispute, A wins on time.
Case 2b: Same as 2a, except that B makes his claim before A. Same result.
Of course, the joker here is that facts are usually not agreed upon. If there’s a dispute about the order of events, well, that’s why TDs get the big bucks.
It’s natural to read into the scenarios that A claimed a win on time, even though this is not explicitly stated. Otherwise, why would there be two rules involved? As tanstaafl says, TD1’s handling pretty much amounted to making A’s claim for him, which just shouldn’t happen.
Well, you are right that B could claim that “A made an illegal move before B’s flag fell”. B could make that claim at any time, but to do so before A made a claim would be tantamount to calling his own flag. And in either situation the TD would have to consider B’s claim as impacting A’s claim.
What tanstaafl is saying is that if B claimed an illegal move was made, and afterwards A claimed that B’s flag was down, B’s flag is deemed to have fallen at the point when it was claimed (13C1). So if the claims are B then A, the claims are in the order of the alleged facts. But if the claims are A then B, the claims are in the opposite order of the alleged facts. In both cases the alleged facts are illegal move, then flag fall. In both cases the TD should rule on the illegal move first, and however that decision goes will affect what happens with the clock. Note that the case of flag fall then illegal move simply can’t arise, since 13C1 determines when the flag fell, not the video replay.
I think 13C1 is a poor rule, but there it is. If I were a TD who witnessed B’s flag fall, followed by this sequence of events:
a whole string of extraneous moves;
an illegal move by A;
a claim by B of an illegal move by A;
a claim by A of a win on time …
then I would be inclined to rule against B and for A. (That’s similar to but even more extreme than case 2a just above.) But a literal reading of 13C1 says otherwise.
I agree that it’s possible to squeeze that interpretation out of 13C (though the first sentence of 13C(b) militates against it), but it’s an absurd result and I wouldn’t consider ruling that way. You can’t have players making claims after their flag is down because it’s only “virtually” down. You also can’t allow the decision to be controlled by who talks faster. The rule I have a problem with is not 13C but 11D1 and its offspring.
I’m with you on this one. Terminal absurdity is why I decline to be a TD anymore. There are too many cases in the rulebook where extra language, designed to clarify one point, causes confusion on other points. See, for example, rule 13C7, where it says: No move pair is ever considered to be “half complete.” That sentence should never have been written, as I’m sure you will agree.
Similarly, the clause in 13C1 – it [the flag] is considered to have fallen only when this is pointed out by either player. – is possibly meant to clarify the next sentence – A director must never initiate a time-forfeit claim. Or possibly it means that all the moves made before the “claim” count towards making the time control. But who knows why it was written? In practice, it is interpreted as a “virtual flag”. (A nice turn of phrase, by the way.)
It seems clear from 13C1: “It is considered fallen only when either player points this out”, that in both of these cases an illegal move was made before the flag was officially fallen. If it is a sudden death time control and the illegal move occurred before Black has played 2 moves, then 2 minutes is added to Black’s time and if his flag is not down the game would continue.
A similar situation (Scenario 2, above) happened to me. Remarkably both players knew White’s move was illegal as soon as the clock was punched (seconds later Black’s flag falls), and both players felt that a forfeit flag loss on Black was not “right.” When I was called over for the claim, Black correctly made an illegal move claim while both asked, “What does that mean if a flag is down?”
When I returned from cross-checking in the rule book, the players informed me they had agreed to a draw rather than have either person “wronged” out of the unusual situation. All well and good, but I didn’t quite know what the most correct ruling was…it isn’t a situation outlined in the book.
Based on verifiable information, my first instinct was to go with sequence of events – the illegal move occurred prior to the flag fall, so that overrides the forfeit. Black was clearly attempting to make a claim and couldn’t stop the clocks in time.
Yet, a much more experienced TD made a good point to me in a debrief: a TD usually does not have verifiable (reliable?) information on the sequence of events. That is why the order of claims is important if the TD wasn’t present. If only one player makes a claim, it’s open/shut. If both people attempted to blurt their claim out at the same time, then it’s time to walk through the sequence of events.
In the scenario posted, Player A did NOT make a time claim at all - at least as far as we were told. All the arguing about competing claims is hypothetical only, and has no bearing on the case presented according the facts we have in evidence.
Therefore, the ONLY claim the TD is called to rule upon is the illegal move. IF he determines an illegal move has been made, he adds 2 minutes to B’s clock. IF that leaves B with time remaining, the game continues (if B’s flag had been down more than 2 minutes, he should be forfeited, as the TD could hardly be expected to overlook that). These situations are a good reason to have digital clocks, too!
The TD should never be calling the flag otherwise, unless umpires are assigned to watch all flags in the event…
Player A DID make that claim in the case I wrote about:
As to the original post starting this thread, there’s two situations from the above quote that should be debated separately: which claim should the TD hear, and whether or not a TD has to consider actual elapsed time (as indicated by a wall clock, TD’s watch, etc) when deciding to add time to the chess clock.
Yes, the case you describe is quite different from the original where no time forfeit claim was made.
In the original post there was only one claim. In the case you presented, you have two: the time forfeit claim, and the illegal move claim (which if granted would win the player 2 minutes and negate the time claim, since apparently the sequence of events - illegal move before the flag fell - is not in dispute).
It’s a trickier situation because there were TWO illegal moves: the King wouldn’t have been “captured” had it not been illegally left in check, so the the claimant would profit by his own misdeed. I think the fairest solution is to add the two minutes to each and let them play it out, as you suggested.
I am unaware of any circumstance where time measures other than the chess clock in use have any bearing, unless the claim is a defective clock.
I don’t really understand why some people think rule 13C1 is a bad rule. I can imagine all sorts of disputes arising if a TD had to try to figure out whether a flag fell before or after some other event (like an illegal move) occurred. Rule 13C1 makes it very objective: If the flag fall hasn’t been called, it is not considered to have occurred yet.
Note that if a player is getting ready to move and notices that his opponent’s flag has already fallen, he’s not going to move. Or if he has already moved, but notices that his opponent’s flag has fallen before he has hit the button, he’s not going to hit the button. So if A has made an illegal move and hit the button, and B’s flag has fallen, the evidence is clear: Regardless of whether the flag fell before or after A completed his move, it’s clear that A couldn’t have pointed it out, since if he had noticed it, he wouldn’t have completed his move. So under rule 13C1, the TD doesn’t have to try to guess whose story is true.
When the first TD pointed out to the players that B’s flag had fallen it was a serious violation of the rules, and if a spectator did this, I’d eject them from the playing room! For example, what if it turned out that A’s move really wasn’t illegal, and A tried to call the flag fall? On the one hand, it wouldn’t be fair to permit the claim, since A had received advice from the TD. But on the other hand, it wouldn’t be fair to permanently exclude A from making the claim, since he would probably have eventually noticed the flag fall on his own. But would he have noticed it before his own flag fell? There would be no way of knowing!
The first TD really lucked out in this hypothetical situation, since the extra time given to B made it irrelevant that the TD had given advice about the fallen flag.