sit down and play the game.
Maybe the TD was using pairing cards, not software, because that’s the way he’s always done it, it works just fine, the rules say he can do it, and he likes to do it that way? 
29E5f. Colors in a series.
No player shall be assigned the same color three times in a row, unless there is no other reasonable way to pair the score group or unless necessary to equalize colors.
Variation 29E5f1. Last-round exception.
Except for the last round, when it may be necessary to pair the tournament or class leaders, players shall not be assigned the same color in three successive rounds. See also 27A, Basic Swiss system rules; 27A3, Upper half vs. lower half; 27A4, Equalizing colors; 27A5, Alternating colors; 29E, Color allocation; 29E3, Due colors in succeeding rounds; 29E4, Equalization, alternation, and priority of color; 29E4d, Priority based on lot; 29I, Class pairings; and 29M, Recommendations.
Assuming neither the “unless” instances nor the exception apply in this case, what is the remedy? The player points it out to the TD and the TD should fix it? If the TD doesn’t fix it, does the player have any recourse other than to “sit down and play the game”?
This approach is sensible. No argument on the number of missing move pairs being less than three.
And if your opponent calls his own flag, he has resigned, IMO.
What rule are you relying on for this interpretation? Not saying that you’re wrong, just that I don’t understand.
Alex Relyea
In many cases where you are keeping score, an opponent calling a flag is essentially a resignation.
However, calling your own flag is an option that was put in specifically for those cases where one player with plenty of time (let’s say 40 minutes) was blitzing another player with very little time. If the first player has not been writing the past 10 moves then it was felt that they should not have 30+ minutes to reconstruct the game and write the moves after the eventual flag fall. 15B explicitly states that failure to keep score in non-sudden-death (because your opponent is in time pressure) may make it impossible to claim a time forfeit (per 13C). 13C2 explicitly gives a player the right to call his own flag to prevent the opponent from writing down moves (of course, if it turns out that the opponent has a reasonably complete scoresheet then the flagging player would lose).
Personally (in non-SD) once I see that my opponent has stopped writing down moves for a while, I’ll continue keeping score even if I am also in severe time pressure. After all, I can’t lose on time even if I flag and I may be able to call my opponent’s flag.
Sometimes it is necessary. An obvious example would be round three of a tournament where white has won every game. All of the 2-0 players had double-white and all of the 0-2 players had double-black. You have the option of either pairing with three colors in a row or pairing out of the scoregroup.
At Nashville there was a section that had the two tournament leaders (at 6-0) heading into the last round after having white in rounds 5 and 6. One of them ended up getting a third white in a row (no complaint though).
Getting back to your other question. Once black hit the clock for move 29 that move has been completed and you ended up having four missing move-pairs (well, 3.5, but you can’t have half a missing move pair so you jumped immediately from 3 to 4). If you had called the flag prior to black hitting the clock then that move would not have been complete and there would still have been only three missing move pairs.
Before you ask, I will agree that black’s clock fell during his move before hitting the clock, but you didn’t actually call it until after the clock was hit and the move completed. If the flag ever falls while the opponent’s clock is running then that fall may be considered questionable (i.e., was the clock physically jostled to cause the hanging flag to fall?, was the clock erroneously running both sides at the same time?).
Also, if you had kept score and given black time to make one more move before flagging then you wouldn’t have called the flag until after black completed the 30th move and the time control. However, with a reasonably complete scoresheet, in that case you would have received a win on time (as long as you didn’t muddy the waters by starting his clock for the 31st move) because it is clear from the flag that black did not actually complete 30 moves in the allowed time.
Does the “TD as witness only” variation have any impact on this? I don’t have my rulebook with me, but without that variation being used, would the TD observing the game (and noticing that the flag fell before the completion of the move) have any effect?
Even in a double round robin it is necessary to give the same color 3 times in a row around halftime. The only way I know of to avoid that would be to play the second half with first half backwards with reversed colors, but I don’t know if that has ever been tried. The last person you played in the first half would be your first opponent in the second half while your very first opponent would be your very last.
Now we are getting somewhere! Too bad it’s past my bedtime, and I have to rush through this without quoting anybody. Here is a quick runthrough of the issues just raised.
(1) Three blacks in a row – I played without saying anything. In the next round I got black again. Now what should I have done? The reason this is not so off topic, is that it’s the same event where the TD (and special TD) ruled against my claim of a win on time.
(2) Alex – The reason it matters that the TD is watching my game, is because I cannot read the mind of the TD. Will the TD rule that I am allowed to write moves up until either I or my opponent says “flag”? Or will he rule that since he saw the flag fall, any moves I write after that don’t count? Or even worse, will he rule that writing any moves at all after the flag fall has invalidated my claim. All these are plausible, and the uncertainty kept my pen on the table.
(3) I don’t think that black calling his own flag would have been resigning … just very risky, given how close the scoresheet was.
(4) Black “completed” his 39th (edit: 29th) move. Maybe yes, maybe no. If it is not completed, say my case (b), then I do not have to record it. If it is completed, for example supposing I concede in case (e), then precisely when could I possibly record it except after it is completed? Okay, I anticipate the objection, write the move and then make the claim. So, what if black makes the claim first? The logical difficulty I have here is that white’s ability or inability to make a valid claim is entirely determined by black’s actions, at least up until (e). Saying that I could have had a better scoresheet earlier, say only two missing move-pairs before, I think misses the point. The point is that there is a kind of logical discontinuity here, and the discontinuity is being caused by the player who is flagging, not by the player who is claiming. It’s a boundary case, but that’s precisely why it’s interesting.
One thing to check regularly, and especially whenever getting multiple colors in a row when you don’t see the reason for it, is to see whether or not the colors listed for you on the wall chart match the colors that you played. If a TD thinks you played white during one of your blacks then the pairings will look strange.
See rule 13C. There are, unfortunately, many incompetent directors out there, and there is no knowing what a TD will do, but there is no reason not to follow the rules expecting the TD to do the right thing. The rule book is pretty explicit that the flag didn’t fall until someone says it did. The third possibility is just silly, not that I haven’t seen TDs do silly things. Still, there is absolutely no reasonable interpretation that would allow that. There is only one time as a TD that I have called a flag fall. That was a 14G2 situation, where, after both flags had been down for about five minutes in a G/5 tournament, it had become obvious that neither player was intending to call it. We had to get the tournament moving.
Alex Relyea
(1)
In point of fact, there was a good reason for the third black in a row. That’s why I played without saying anything. But I was quite sure that the fourth black in a row was a mistake, and I asked the TD to check the pairings. He tried valiantly to re-pair, but finally gave up, saying he was too tired. I had watched this process and had to agree that he wasn’t going to get it without undoing a lot of pairings. So I played the fourth black … and won a good game.
(2)
Not silly at all. See 13C4. The “benefit of the doubt” phrase could easily be construed as “you wrote some moves and I don’t know how many, so I’m rejecting your claim”. Your advice for me to “See rule 13C” only shows that you haven’t been there recently.
Still waiting for some more opinions on my different cases (a)-(i). So far we have
In a previous post I took his language to mean case (c). Upon re-reading his scenario, it’s not entirely clear to me that the claimant’s clock has in fact been started, although it is half-way implied by the “before he can stop his clock”. If the fallee’s clock is running, it’s my case (c). If the claimant’s clock is running, it’s the game and my case (e).
And we also have
This is a much clearer opinion: (c) is a valid claim, and (e) is not a valid claim. Of course I am just summarizing jwiewel’s opinion, not agreeing with it.
Anybody else care to weigh in?
By the way, I am quite aware that my argument in (4) (Edit: [see #139848] is what I was typing) is different from the one that I made to the TD. In this forum, I have no problem with “pleading the alternative”.
(Edit: didn’t mean to post quite yet; a slip of the touchpad)
Silly I said, and silly I meant. Any TD who was standing right there and failed to tell a player to stop writing moves down after a flag had been called until he had written down so many moves that the TD was unsure how many he had written is more incompetent (and likely biased) than any I’ve seen. I’m quite sure you’d win either case two or case three on appeal, if not with whatever the TD says to the special referee (but see 21J3 which makes that not an issue), then with the TD committee, should you wish to carry it that far.
Alex Relyea
This TD is well known to you, and is neither incompetent nor biased. I’m not sure what you are going on about.
Earlier you said:
I don’t think it is only incompetent TDs who can make surprising decisions. Anybody who reads these forums will find examples of well-respected TDs giving some obviously wrong opinions. As I said before, TDs can get into endless discussions about what the rulebook actually says and not just what it means.
I don’t find this idea of writing or not writing more moves to be particularly interesting. (Edit: A poor construction. It is interesting if white is allowed to write black’s 29th move after the flag fall is pointed out, as I argue in one place.) I chose not to write any more moves. That was a conservative choice, made because by not writing any moves there was no way I could prejudice my claim. A claim which I was sure was valid on the merits of my scoresheet as it stood without writing any additional moves.
What I do find interesting is that a claim I was sure was valid was denied by a special TD. It seems not many others find it interesting, though.
If Black completes his 29th move by hitting his clock, White may record THAT move and then call the flag.
If White calls the flag before Black hits the clock, the move is not completed and need not be recorded - it should not count as part of one of White’s missing move-pairs.
White cannot correct his score with any other missing moves after Black’s flag has fallen. How the missing move-pairs are tallied depends on whether the FIRST missing move is White’s or Black’s. If it is B’s 26th, then the maximum permissible missing moves would be B26-W27, B27-W28, and B28-W29.
In the case of Black calling his own flag to prevent White from completing the score before making a claim, I cannot see how this can be construed as a resignation - particularly in the given circumstance that Black’s score is even more incomplete than White’s. Black notes his flag is down; no one may record any more moves, and it must be determined whether time control has been made or not, or if it cannot be proved.
I’m not sure that black’s move is complete if his flag is down. I’m also not sure that white may record the move after the flag is down (although I argued in point (4) of post #139848 that black’s 29th move only should be allowed to be recorded). Two sentences later you say that white may not. Which is it?
This is what I have labelled case (c), and if I read correctly, you are saying that case is a valid claim for white. Fair enough.
Absolutely correct.
There is a proviso in 13C1 that the flag is considered to have fallen when it is pointed out. But if the TD is observing the game then I think it is reasonable for the TD to rule the flag fell when he observed it. Alex Relyea seems to disagree strongly that that would be reasonable. But I think some (many?) TDs would think it reasonable. This is also touched on in the topic TD Question Flag Down/Illegal Move.
Under FIDE rules black would be very foolish indeed to call his own flag. Under early USCF rulebooks it also would have amounted to resignation. Under modern USCF rulebooks the interpretation should be that black is calling attention to the flag simply to prevent white from filling in any moves on the scoresheet. But I consider this a side issue. There is the fact of the flag fall. How that fact is established – claim by white, protective claim by black, observation by TD – does not bear directly on whether black’s 29th move should be counted as missing, or on whether white should be allowed to fill it in.
13C4 says, in part:
(Italics mine).
How can you read that and come up with the interpretation that the TD can come up with another time when the flag falls?
Alex Relyea
I don’t think when the flag falls is as clear-cut as you make it out to be. I think you are taking what my sister calls an “always and never” position. Anybody who wants to know how I would answer your question can just re-read my earlier posts on the thread. Rather than risk boring the readers by repeating myself, let me expand the subject a bit.
I’m not a lawyer, but I believe there is a serious debate whether the law should be based only on the actual language, or should also take into account the intent of the framers. (Maybe the debate is only the extent to which this should happen. Again, I’m not a lawyer.) This argument rages fiercely in Constitutional law, but also matters for statutory law. (In fact, there is a similar debate in literary criticism – should the intent of the author be considered context? Or do only the words matter?)
So one reason that I can read “plain language” and come to a different conclusion than you is because I am thinking about why that language was put in there. That means that I take into account what earlier versions of the rulebook said, what particular cases and decisions caused that language to be inserted, and what the rules committee was trying to accomplish with their change.
Some might say that’s all nonsense, it can only lead to chaos. The counter-argument is that strict reliance on the written word also leads to chaos.
- Any rulebook’s language is necessarily brief and therefore imperfect.
- All rules are written in a narrow context. In the reductio ad absurdum, each word has its own context. But the rule’s applicability is narrow or wide, and this is not always spelled out, nor can it be spelled out.
- Much of what is written in the USCF rulebook is not even rules.
The correct approach is in between, to consider both words and intent. The difficult part is figuring out how much of each to rely on. Reasonable men differ on rules all the time. Not all decisions hold up under appeal. The best anyone can do is refer to the rules, try to understand them, and then apply them to the situation at hand. I wouldn’t expect the TD to do better than that. And I certainly wouldn’t expect that there is only one way to rule in every situation.