Very clever of you. It was after. So, I just added that.
That doesn’t match the facts as you stated them. 27 and 28 are omitted. 26 is incomplete (only White’s move recorded). That’s three. 29 is incomplete, whether you count B29 or not. That’s four. How is 9G on point? You can’t possibly claim that W29 was “determined but not completed” (since White started Black’s clock), and it wasn’t recorded. It would be possible to construct a scenario in which 9G became relevant, but this isn’t it.
If you really want a case in which 9G might apply, try this: Black stops keeping score after his 25th move. There are no earlier errors. The game continues with moves 26, 27 and 28 unrecorded. Black starts White’s clock for move 29. White makes a move, releases the piece on the square, but his flag falls before he can stop his clock. (We are assuming for the sake of argument that there is no dispute about any of these things.) Question: Does White get charged for an additional “missing or incomplete move pair” because he did not record W29? On general principles I tend to think he should be, but I’m not sure that can be justified by the rules. I suspect I would have to allow the claim. If someone can suggest grounds for denying the claim, I’d certainly be receptive.
Usually, even when I disagree with John Hillery, I see some validity in his point of view. In this case, though, I find it astonishing that he would consider B26-W27, B27-W28, B28-W29 to be four missing move pairs rather than three. It seems to me he is simply, and obviously, dead wrong.
I, too, await Tim Just’s weigh-in on this one.
Bill Smythe
Thanks, Bill. As I pointed out to Alex Relyea elsewhere on these forums, this is a big reason why I don’t want to be a TD anymore. Qualified TDs spend too much time arguing about what the rules actually are. If two TDs get in an argument about what a rule says (as opposed to what it means), it’s possible that one of them is simply unqualified. If lots of TDs frequently get into such arguments about many different rules, and especially if some of them have qualifications like John’s, then the rulebook is bad. Although the TDs are not totally blameless.
Let’s not stop at your hypothetical. A TD could be expected to rule in a whole range of scenarios. Getting back to the actual game in which black played 29…Qf6, suppose (a) black’s flag fell before he touched his queen? Or (b) he picked up his queen and made some ridiculous slow motion movement that allowed white to claim while it was mid-air. Next we get to (c) your case where the piece is released but the clock not stopped. It’s not totally absurd to distinguish (d) the case where black has touched the clock but not stopped it – I particularly have in mind a touch-sensitive Chronos here (perhaps black could claim the clock is defective?). Next we get to (e) the actual game. Continuing on, (f) white touches a piece, (g) white releases the piece, (h) white touches his clock, (i) white starts black’s clock.
Oh, I left out one other detail. The TD was standing directly to our left, observing our time pressure closely. He was then and probably still is an excellent TD. So there would in fact, and not just for the sake of argument, hardly have been any dispute of the facts. The entire point of bringing up this case is this: in a situation where there are already exactly three missing move pairs, under what circumstances would the last additional move count against the player making the claim?
(a) is, I hope, clearly a valid claim.
(i) is equally clearly not a valid claim.
Somewhere in between reasonable men and women will differ.
I argued that (e) is a valid claim. I didn’t only think that because I was white. I was also an experienced TD. I wouldn’t say I was the best at submitting rating reports, nor did I have any ambitions about advancing my certification, but I did give a lot of thought to the rules. It stands to reason that I also think (b) - (d) are valid. The funny thing is that despite all the years since this event, I really haven’t given much thought to which of (f) - (h) would be invalid. That’s because once the special TD ruled against me, I kind of took it for granted that the weight of opinion would be that (c) is valid and (e) is not.
As a player, I need to protect my rights. As a TD, I need[ed] to make decisions that would hold up under appeal. Those are conservative positions.
But in a forum, it’s fun to let it all hang out.
The intent of the rule would count this as 3 missing move pairs (26-27-28).
13C7. Definition of reasonably complete scoresheet.
Unless otherwise posted or announced in advance at the site, a reasonably complete scoresheet is one that has no more than three missing or incomplete move pairs (consecutive moves, white and black or black and white). 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 to be half complete.
Here’s a follow-up question for all you way-more-experienced directors.
Why would people like that time control?
It totals to 1:15–same amount of time as g/75, which can be readily swapped for g/70 delay 5.
What is gained by setting it up so that players can get into time trouble twice in each game? What is the up side, please?
Was this the organizer’s idea? Or the TD’s? Isn’t that time control equivalent to the TD hanging a sign on his back that says “I want to spend today ruling on flag falls and bad notation because the players were in a hurry twice in each game”?
(later note)
While reading this thread, I wondered about process of this ruling as opposed to the specific content–how does a TD make a ruling like this into a more straightforward process? So far, the only idea I had for this scenario was to change the time control.
There is definitely an advantage to getting games finished when there are 2 controls versus 1. When people are in time trouble they tend to want to play it out to the time forfeit rather than just resigning a lost position. However, when they reach a second time control, they’ll tend to spend some time evaluating their position and resign if they are dead lost.
Personally I wouldn’t want a second control unless it could be an hour (so that analog clocks wouldn’t have to be reset). So anything under 2 hours I would do as one control, but consider splitting at 2 hours and above.
One local player told me that he liked more than one time control because he believed he was better than most other players in time pressure and had more chances to prove it with more than one time control.
That makes more sense to me, too. In a two-hour or longer game, I could see wanting players to be past the opening after a certain amount of time.
Once upon a time, sudden death was not allowed for the primary control.
I agree with Tom M. and M. Thorpe.
If the total control is over 2 hours, I’d just as soon it be broken into two controls, so that those clowns who refuse to resign can’t bore me for even longer than the usual 2 hours.
But for controls under 2 hours total, it’s best just to make it a single control.
The second control, if any, should be 1 hour. That way, analog clocks don’t have to be reset. I have seen players go WAY beyond the first control before bothering to reset their clocks, creating the possibility of a ludicrous dispute as the clock reaches 6:30. “Your time has expired, there’s a white space between the minute hand and the 6.” “No there isn’t, that white space is on the other side.” “I wasn’t even paying attention, since the minute hand was nowhere near the 12. Now you’re going to call time on me with the minute hand near the 6?”
Bill Smythe
You guys are making too much of the time controls. I only put them in the question so you would know the time control was at move 30.
But since you bring it up … I think organizers should be able to use the full range of controls allowed by the rulebook, according to what best suits their tournament. Unpopular formats are still worth trying in certain circumstances. You may have your reasons for not liking certain time controls, but that doesn’t override the organizer’s freedom of choice. And the plain truth is that this particular format was very popular in its time.
I’m reminded of the woman who wrote in to an advice column to complain about men’s hairstyles. It seems she didn’t like hippie hair. She also didn’t like skater cuts, crew cuts, bowl cuts, … I realized her dislikes included my hairstyle as well. That letter was a long time ago, but to this day I still cut my hair the same way.
Maybe a the stylish yet questionable mullet is not the way to go? 
Thanks, Tim. Of course, most of us were sure you’d see it that way, but official confirmation is always a good thing.
That having been said, though, let’s give John H. a little hard-earned wiggle room.
The rulebook, in an attempt to explain that an incomplete move pair can be either white-black or black-white, goes beyond defining “incomplete move pair” and tries to define “move pair” – even though it is pointless to define “move pair” as such, unless the move pair is incomplete.
As Mike Nolan has (facetiously) pointed out, defining “move pair” can lead to absurd results, if one wishes to extend the logic of the definition to its extreme.
For example, in a 10-move game, there are not 10, but rather 19, move-pairs: W1-B1, B1-W2, W2-B2, …, W9-B9, B9-W10, W10-B10. Thus, if there is a single missing half-move, say B7, there are two incomplete move-pairs, W7-B7 and B7-W8.
Likewise, if there are two (isolated) missing half-moves, there are four incomplete move-pairs. Or, if the two missing half-moves are consecutive, then there are still three incomplete move-pairs, etc.
One can possibly understand why John H. would prefer to define a move-pair as white-black only.
Bill Smythe
Isn’t it intuitively obvious that a half-move cannot be part of two move-pairs for purposes of counting missing move-pairs? Granted some of our chess-lawyers might try to muddy the waters, but any TD who would back down on that kind of argument probably shouldn’t be directing. They’d do Charlie Brown imitations every time there was a legitmately gray area to make a ruling about.
So far only rfeditor and jwiewel have picked up on why I appealed (it wasn’t black who appealed; I edited my earlier posts to reflect that white appealed).
My basic argument was that since black did not complete his last move, it should not count on my scoresheet as a missing move-pair. This interpretation is either correct or incorrect. As of now it has barely been discussed. The special TD ruled that it was incorrect, and I did not appeal that decision, even though I did not and do not agree with it. As noted before, the TD presented the case to the special TD out of earshot of the players. I have no idea how that conversation went, but I have a sneaking suspicion that the tournament TD did not make a persuasive case for my point of view. I do have absolute faith that the facts were correctly related. But regardless of how that one decision went, I submit that there must be some set of facts where a similar interpretation to mine will be correct.
Starting from a situation where white has exactly three missing move-pairs on the scoresheet, black’s clock is running, and black oversteps –
whether or not white has a valid claim entirely depends on whether black has made a move which must be recorded by white. That move (39…Qf6 in the game) would be the fourth move-pair, which would invalidate white’s claim.
In an earlier post I labelled the sequence of events to facilitate the discussion. Black’s flag could fall at any of these points:
(a) before black touches a piece;
(b) in the middle of black’s move;
(c) after black releases the piece;
(d) after black touches the clock;
(e) after black starts white’s clock (before white touches a piece);
(f) after white touches a piece (in the middle of white’s next move);
(g) after white releases the piece;
(h) after white touches the clock;
(i) after white starts black’s clock.
In all these cases, the TD is closely observing the game, so there is no dispute about when the flag fall actually occurs. Let’s go even further and say that white, black, and the TD are all in agreement about when the flag fell. The only thing to consider here is the correct interpretation of the rules. And yes, I am aware that the rulebook says the flag is deemed to have fallen when attention is drawn to it. In the game I was acutely aware of this. Would the TD say that I invalidated my claim by writing in moves after the flag fell, even though I had not officially claimed a win? For the moment let’s just say that the flag fell when the TD noticed that it fell, and both white and black agree with that call.
Again, I made my claim at (e), and I argued that black’s move, even though completed on the board, was not actually complete because his flag fell before he started my clock. In the lingo of rule 9G, black’s move was determined but not completed. My argument was and is that if his flag falls first, black’s final move can never be completed, in the sense that I am required to record it, because the TD is watching. Once I claim a win, I cannot write any more moves. Once black calls his own flag, I cannot write any more moves. Once the TD observes the flag fall, I cannot write any more moves. Given that state of affairs, the only way I can ever record black’s 39…Qf6 is if his flag is still up after he makes the move.
If the TD is not watching, I have another recourse. I can write a move and then claim a win on time. Here is the situation where black can call his own flag to stop me from writing a move. I don’t like the logic of that, but black probably likes it even less, because he has only two really bad choices – either call his own flag and hope for the best on the scoresheet, or keep his mouth shut and watch me fill in moves.
But even if you don’t agree with my argument about rule 9G, as a TD you are not off the hook. Because you have to be ready to make a ruling in any of the possible scenarios (a)–(i). There is simply no way for you to know in advance which set of facts will prevail when you make your ruling. So you still have to think about when there is a fourth move-pair and when there isn’t.
John Hillery wants case (c) to be an invalid claim, but thinks it is valid:
You’ve heard my opinion.
Anybody else thinking about this?
Unfortunately, it has been demonstrated time and again that when it comes to tournament chess rules, very few things are intuitive to everyone, especially those who feel they can get an edge with a different interpretation of a specific rule.
Right on both counts. Of course, I trust in that second part you are speaking generally and not referring to me.
Speaking of edges, if a TD gave you three blacks in a row, what would you do? (Not completely off topic, as I will explain after your answer.)