TD Rules Quiz 2

Running Chess Tournaments
1

Time control is 30/45, sd/30. White has two minutes on his clock, black has one minute. White makes his 26th move and records it. To this point white’s scoresheet is complete and correct, but he stops recording his moves here. Some moves later,

black makes a move and starts white’s clock, then … white stops the clock and claims a win on time. Black protests that white does not have a complete scoresheet. With the help of both players, you reconstruct that the missing moves were:
26…Qf5 27 Bg2 Qe6 28 Bd5 Qf5 29 Qa2 Qf6 claim.

Your job as TD is to rule on white’s claim. Do you uphold?

Cue game-show music…
25
24
23
22
21
20
19
18
17
16
15
14
13
12
11
10
09
08
07
06
05
04
03
02
01

2

Okay, here is what actually happened. First, the TD ruled that the claim was invalid due to more than three missing move pairs. When white argued this decision, the TD reversed it (!) and ruled the game a win for white. Naturally black appealed.
Edit: I think I misremembered!
Upon further reflection, I now think the TD simply ruled against the time forfeit, and white appealed the ruling. The TD did not reverse himself. This happened a long time ago, so please don’t judge my lapse too harshly.

Now, instead of convening an appeals committee, the TD decided to consult one of the special TDs (do they still have those?). Since there was no phone in the playing hall, the players didn’t get to hear either side of this conversation. But when he came back, the TD said the special TD had ruled the claim was invalid. White did not appeal this decision, and the game continued.

Bonus question: What argument did white make that caused the TD to reverse himself?
Edit: What argument did white make in his appeal?

(Note: White’s argument was strictly an interpretation, not the introduction of any new facts. In other words, it wasn’t the orangutan from the zoo.)

3

Given the facts as stated, the claim is obviously invalid, so I have trouble imagining any remotely plausible argument for granting the time forfeit.

4

9G = plausible.

5

I see what you’re saying, but it’s a frivolous argument. It fails even on its own terms, since even without Black’s last move White’s scoresheet is not complete as defined in 13C7 (“No move pair is ever ‘half complete’”). If a player made an argument like that to me, I’d be looking for a way to stomp him, though I suppose there’s nothing more you can do than reject the claim.

6

John, in addition to rejecting the claim, couldn’t you award black two minutes of time?

7

A move pair can be either white-black or black-white (13C7). If white claimed before black actually made the 29th move then there would have been only three missing black-white move-pairs.
Depending on how much time white had, black may have been best served by invoking 13C2 to prevent white from using his time to fill in black’s 26th move (missing only three white-black move pairs for moves 27-29) or black’s 28th move and white’s 29th move (missing only three black-white move pairs for 26/27, 27/28, and black’s 29th).

8

Why did Black help reconstruct? That is White’s sole responsibility, for purposes of the claim.
Of course if Black had a complete scoresheet, White could fill his in on his time. Better write fast!

9

If Black sees White is missing too many move pairs he can always call the flag on himself to prevent White from filling in missing moves.

10

That’s not correct, but I see now why the TD was confused. See 13C7: “The absence of three consecutive individual moves, e.g. white-black white, counts as two incomplete move pairs. The move pair is considered incomplete if either side’s move is omitted or incomplete. No move pair is ever considered half complete.” In the case described (assuming all the facts are as given), White is missing moves 26 (Black’s move omitted), 27, 28 and 29 (White’s move omitted, no need to discuss whether Balck’s 29th counts). The claim must be rejected and the game must continue.

11

I’ll disagree with you. The example of three consective half-moves was to show that you can’t have 1.5 move pairs wrong, but rather it would be two.

Since it explicitly states that a move pair is two consectutive moves (white and black or black and white) missing black, white, black, white would be TWO move pairs (one for the first black/white and another for the second black/white), rather than three. So black’s 26th through white’s 29th is three move pairs and going that extra half-move makes it four move pairs.

If white wrote down white’s 28th move then black’s 26th through black’s 27th would count as two move pairs (for the three half-moves) and black’s 28th through black’s 29th would count as two more move pairs (for the three half-moves) giving a total of four move pairs (rather than adding 1.5 and 1.5 to get three).

12

I’m sorry, but you are simply wrong about this. “The move pair is considered incomplete if either side’s move is omitted or incomplete.” There’s no ambiguity there.

13

In that case, then I would assert that having ONE move pair missing is impossible.

Examples:

A. If White’s 28th move is missing, then there are two move pairs that are incomplete: B27 W28 and W28 B28.

B. If both White’s 28th move and Black’s 28th move are missing, then there are 3 move pairs that are incomplete: B27 W28, W28 B28 and B28 W29.

I don’t think that’s the spirit of the rules. I would prefer to treat A as one missing move pair and B as two missing move pairs. (It could even be argued that B is also just one missing move pair, since only one set of moves is missing.)

14

I think the intent of the rules is “clearly” that A and B both only count as one missing move pair. :slight_smile:

15

I don’t follow your logic. If White’s 28th move is missing, that’s one missing move pair (even if he wrote down Black’s 28th). If Black’s 27th is also omitted, that’s a second missing move pair (even if White’s 27th is there). If both White’s and Black’s 28th move are missing, that’s still one missing move pair. ("No move is ever half completed). That’s what the rule says, and I see no reason to doubt that that’s what it means. If Tim meant something other than what he wrote, I’d like to hear from him.

16

Alex, please read the phrase where it says a move pair could be either white-black OR black-white. Thus missing black’s 26th and white’s 27th is missing a SINGLE move pair.

In the example given there are the following move pairs omitted:

  1. black 26/white 27
  2. black 27/white 28
  3. black 28/white 29
  4. black 29

If white had written blacks 28th move down then only three move pairs would have been missing:

  1. black 26/white 27
  2. black 27/white 28
  3. white 29/black 29
17

You are still ignoring the clear (and dispositive) statement that “The move pair is considered incomplete if either side’s move is omitted or incomplete.” (Emphasis mine.) Black’s 26th move was omitted from the move pair W26/B26. That move pair is incomplete. Period. You do not get to combine B26 with W27, except in the special case (which does not apply here) of the player writing the moves in the wrong column. If White had written down Black’s 28th but not White’s 28th, that would still be one incomplete move pair, and would not change the situation in any way…

Question: Suppose White had omitted one of his (or Black’s) moves back at move 15. Would you still give him credit for “half a move” and try to combine it with, say, a lone B28 to get a complete move? I certainly hope not.

If you really want to interpret Rule 13 this way in practice, you’re going to have to start posting it as a variation, because it simply is not what the rule says. Or means. Or means to say.

18

In 13C7 the definition of move pair is “consecutive moves, white and black or black and white”. If you are only going to permit white and black to be considered a move pair then THAT would seem to be a variation that would require advance notice.

Since it does not look like either of us will EVER be able to convince the other, I invite Tim Just to explain what he meant when he wrote the rulebook.

19

Wow!!! I am glad I was at work and got to read all this afterwards. I never would have been able to restrain myself!

First things first. The missing moves given, excluding 29…Qf6, were exactly three missing move pairs. This was not in question. Both parties and the TD were in agreement on this, and this is quite explicit in the rules. The language Mr. Hillery keeps emphasizing means only that a half-move on its own counts as a full missing move. Jwiewel is quite correct that black-white counts as one missing move pair. As Mr. Hillery would remember quite well if he just took a pill.

Second, I left out lots of details in my explanation of the events, because they really don’t have any bearing on a correct decision. I was the white player of course, and at the time black’s flag fell I knew exactly how many moves had been played, and therefore how many I had missed. What I did not know was how this particular TD would rule if I wrote down any moves after my opponent’s flag had fallen but before I made the claim. It should not prejudice my claim, but I have seen enough dubious TD decisions to not want to risk it. Anyway, I had a very good reason for thinking that my scoresheet was in fact complete enough to make a claim.

My opponent did not notice the fallen flag, nor did he know how many moves had been played, because his scoresheet was missing way more moves. For all he knew, 35 moves had been played, and that is why he was interested in helping reconstruct the moves. (As indicated, I could have done it without his help.) All discussion about black claiming his own flag is clearly nonsense, because even if he had noticed, he had no real clue how complete my scoresheet was. All he knew was that it was much more complete than his.

By the way, a two-minute penalty would have been quite pointless. Black’s flag is down, the game is either over or continues in the next time control. Two minutes either way for either player would have had no practical effect.

Now that we have disposed of all that, can we get back to the real point of this quiz? Which is rule 9G, of course. This is clearly a reasonable interpretation, not “frivolous” at all. (Edit: Possibly frivolous. At least the point I make next is not correct. In fact the TD never agreed with my interpretation.) In fact our TD agreed with me to the point of over-ruling his previous decision! Quite exceptional. (Edit: Not quite so exceptional.)

If you are the TD, how will you answer someone who reads the rules this way?

20

Allan, you didn’t say whether you made the claim before or after black hit his clock following his 29th move.