At a tournament yesterday, the following happened:
I was TD
Time control = G/45 + 10-sec inc
Fourth and final round, an endgame occurred in which one player was below five
minutes
This sequence occurred:
a) black advances a pawn to a1 and places a WHITE queen on a1 (illegal move)
b) black presses clock button
c) white moves the illegally-obtained white queen to a8, declares checkmate and stops
the clock
d) the checkmate claim is later determined to be false
e) both players approach me for a ruling and a long argument occurs
As TD, I appear to have three options:
Allow the illegal white queen, resulting in a crushing win for white
Correct the illegal move, allow the black queen on a1, resulting in a crushing win for
black
Declare a rule 14J draw
Without stating which option I chose, I invite opinions. Thanks.
The sequence of events as I laid it out in the post was not in dispute,
so consulting scoresheets seemed unnecessary.
I did discover this nugget from the “TD Tip” to Rule 11A,
“No player should gain an unfair advantage for deliberate illegal moves,
or for inadvertent ones, which were deliberately not pointed out.”
In hindsight, it seems clear that white immediately realized the illegal
move and chose not to correct it. The 11A TD Tip would seem to prohibit
the taking of any advantage from it.
You have nothing more and nothing less than an illegal move that was timely observed. White has no remedy beyond the standard penalty (two additional minutes for White, and Black is compelled to make a legal move with the pawn).
That White doesn’t like the prescribed remedy is too bad.
The position should be corrected. Black gets the piece he chooses to place on the promotion square. As to the giving of extra time to White because of the illegal move, I would tend to reject any time change on the clocks as White attempted to muddy the waters by making an illegal move after Black’s move.
Adding two minutes is often just an optional remedy when illegal moves are made. If it occurs early in the game, often the addition of two minutes is not applied unless the offending party commits the offense frequently. Harsher penalties in that case may be applied. One has to especially be cautious when applying penalties to new or very young players. Their understanding of the game and the rules is often minimal.
I assume this was not a FIDE tournament, but FWIW (1) is correct under FIDE rules (since this is rapid). (2) should be correct under USCF 11A, though the timeline matters. If black initially agreed to the checkmate claim in (d), this seems equivalent to a resignation in which case 11D1.b should take precedence (and white wins). Only 1 move after the illegal move was made so 16D is irrelevant.
Even in this small sample, we have varying opinions.
I chose to rule a 14J draw, since any other ruling would result in an immediate win
that neither player deserved. It was, from my point of view in the moment,
the “least inequitable” solution (to use the language of 14J).
I just hope the very public argument did not turn off any of the new players
or any prospective tournament directors.
Oh, that’s easy. Presumably after White played Qa8, Black realized that he had made an illegal move and wished to correct it, as only one half move had elapsed that was possible. Black should receive a time penalty to restore equity. Did either player wish to appeal your ruling?
White has no grounds for an appeal, although I guess he could do it anyway.
There is a questionable issue regarding whether Black agreed to the false
checkmate, so an appeal by Black would be gray at best.
Additionally, Black was in his first USCF tournament and just seemed glad to get
it over with.
It is unlikely either side will formally appeal to USCF.
It makes little difference how confident and comfortable we are with our rulings. The thing that sets us apart from casual chess is that the TD is not a dictator. All players always have the right to appeal, at least until the delegates have their say. The fact that you don’t seem to know that the proper time for an appeal is immediately after your ruling worries me. That is why Special Referees make the big bucks.
Fair enough. I was taking “appeal” to mean an appeal to USCF under rule 21L.
That can’t possibly take place in the moment at 6PM on a Saturday.
You are right that 21H, 21I, 21J provide for a more immediate appeals process,
and yes, I accept the admonition that I should be more familiar with those rules.
All I can do now is interpret those rules in hindsight and determine what could have been
done differently (and do differently in the future).
Given who was still present at the time (it was late in the final round and many people
had left), composing a reasonable 21I appeals committee would have been impossible.
I had no other certified TDs available.
Contacting a 21J Special Referee could have been attempted, that’s true.
However, rule 21L refers to decisions “of the director when an appeals committee or special
referee is not appointed”, which suggests that appointing a Special Referee is not mandatory.
It was a difficult situation, one that doesn’t happen often, thankfully.
I think the best (and, arguably, fairest) decision I ever made in a tournament was one that caused a change in the rulebook. I would now have to rule differently but I still think my ruling was fair. (And, BTW, the chief TD of the event, the National HS, agreed with my ruling at the time, and it was not appealed to the office.)
So, the question is, if the situation arose again, what would you do?
Just please be aware of what Kevin Bachler refers to as “secret handshakes”. That is, just because a player is unaware of all his options, he should not be hindered in using them. I think if you had made any of your three considered rulings and told the aggrieved player (or players in case 3) how to appeal as soon as you were made aware of the facts of the case (which could be almost instantly if you were watching the game) you likely would have shaved off the vast majority of the long argument.
This is unclear. How long after the “checkmate” was it determined to be false? A few seconds? Minutes? As everyone was leaving after the last round? When a spectator spoke up 10 minutes after the “conclusion?”
If Black’s appeal is a gray area because he may have agreed to the checkmate, then how could White have no grounds for appeal?
What were the specific facts and circumstances that you believe would let you allow an illegal move that “ended” the game to stand?
From what you state, its not clear to me why the “mate” wasn’t reversed with penalty and the game continued.
Ooh. This sounds juicy. Let’s talk about your ruling (whatever it was), perhaps in a new thread. It sounds way more interesting than the current thread.
Given the circumstances, the only thing I could have reasonably done differently
is attempt to consult a 21J Special Referee.
When I say White has “no grounds for appeal”, I am expressing my view that White
deliberately failed to correct an illegal move by Black. Taking advantage of that appears
to be prohibited by the 11A TD Tip.
The determination that the mate was false occurred in analysis when I asked the two players
to reconstruct the final sequence. I was not watching the game in the moment.
The false mate claim occurred AFTER the deliberate failure to correct illegal move.
But that was not an illegal move. If moving the white queen actually had been checkmate then it would have been a legal queen move that followed all of the rules for moving a queen on the board (the illegal move was the other player’s pawn “promotion”). Disallowing the checkmate based on it being an illegal move would be incorrect. Given earlier in the thread was a valid option for disallowing it based on 11A.
With the illegal move being pointed out within two moves in sudden death time pressure, you move back to the point of illegality, add two minutes to the clock of the opponent, and require a legal pawn move.