Just a quick clarification on the touch move rule.
A player picked up his own queen and touched (lightly, without displacing it) his opponent’s bishop using the queen, not the hand. Is he now forced to capture the bishop or is he forced to just move the queen?
Thanks,
Chris
If the player was doing something like moving the queen from d2 to d7 and accidentally brushed a bishop on e3 (or d8 ) then a case can be made that it was not a deliberate move (similar to the case made if it was the hand that brushed the bishop). I can see different TDs ruling either way.
If it was an apparently intentional tap, then whether or not the piece was displaced is irrelevant, the bishop was touched, and I would rule it must be captured.
When reveiwing later I saw that I had to change the parenthesis to keep d8 from coming up as a smiley face.
If the player touched the opponents’ Bishop with the fingers, then it would be touched.
If the movement of the Queen bumped into the Bishop, even if it displaced the Bishop would not feel the Bishop was touched. When players get into time trouble, they will move much faster. Like the old joke, went to play in a G/90, and ended up in a blitz game in the end. If the player has less then a minute in the game or just started, the time on the clock is not a factor for a bumping of a piece with a different one.
This rule is covered in the current rulebook on p. 21, section 10C.
“10C. Touching pieces of both colors. Except for 10A, a player on the move who deliberately touches one or more pieces of each color, or who moves the player’s piece and intentionally displaces an opponent’s piece with it, must capture the opponent’s piece with the player’s piece,…”
There are 2 points I’d like to make to this discussion:
Note, there are no distinctions as to how much time is left on the clock, etc.
Kind Regards,
Tom Ewers
Ah yes, the wonders of modern computer technology. A while ago, when I used the phrase “every Tom, Richard, and Harry”, but with Richard replaced with its usual nickname, the software censored it.
Let me try it again now: Tom, Dick, and Harry. Yup.
Bill Smythe
I agree with Jeff. What is displacement? I recently ruled that if a player touched his opponents piece with intent, the piece was touched in my opinion regardless of how little the piece was displaced. Unless the TD was there, there is no way that one can reasonably determine if the piece was “displaced”. Therefore, my fall back position is the basic premise of the touch move rule - of intent, i.e. deliberately touched.
The displacement was not intentionally, if the piece was bumped with a piece during the move. Having a time delay clock, could help out with the game with bumped or displacement of the pieces. If the player displaced the piece when moving, then punched the clock. Would punched the clock back and ask for a clean board. It was a displacement of my piece not a intentionally displacement.
Having a clear displacement would be like the Queen on a1, and moves to Qc3. If the player has some displacement of a piece on c2, the Queen could not capture any piece on c2 as the Queen was on a1. If the player calls it a touched move then a displacement, would have to break the most common rule. As a touched piece must be captured, and the only way a Queen on a1 can capture a piece on c2, would have to grant the Queen on that move to be a Knight. If the piece on c2 was the King, that would be breaking a number of rules: if the Qa1 and Kc2 was Q x K.
If the Queen touched the Bishop and the piece was not within a legal capture then obviously it would not be considered touched. Since he did touch the Bishop with the Queen then it must have been a legal move to even be considered as a touched peice. With that said, the Queen must take the Bishop because there obviously was intent.
Not having seen the incident, I don’t know that we can infer intent.
If the piece was brushed, that’s likely to have been an unintentional touching. If the player knocked the bishop over with the queen with a sweeping motion, that would seem to indicate intent to capture it. (It’s rather gauche, but I’ve seen it done even in adult games.)
In this case, I lean (based on the report of the original poster) towards this being unintentional.
You could investigate such an incident further, but the bottom line is whether there was intent to capture. As such, it would seem important in the ruling to interview the player on move to ask what he was doing. If he can legitimize an inadvertent touch without being caught in a lie, he should probably not be obliged to capture.
Objective evidence to evaluate the moving player’s claim of nonintention should come from the board layout. If the bishop is right next to the queen then maybe an inadvertent touch is conceivable if the player is just trying to get the queen past the bishop on a different diagonal. If however, the queen moved across the board and the only thing in that area was the bishop, then he has to be really believable when he says he only intended to stop short of the bishop.
Below are further examples I have seen.
At the Illinois Class Championships in 1991, my opponent went to write on his scoresheet and knocked his king clean off the table. Ignorant of the rules, but a little opportunistic since he had a piece en prise, I asked a TD for a ruling. Clearly there was no intent, so there was no obligation to move the king.
A friend of mine played in a tournament where he picked up a rook and went to capture another rook, but his hand slipped and the rook rolled away along the file and came to rest at a legal square, but one where he was simply dropping that rook. Intent didn’t save the moving player and I think the rules specifically don’t save him here.
Sorry, I forgot to close the quote.
True but listening to the way it was worded it sounded as if someone called him on the touch move, really a touch take. Also, the way it was worded as touched lightly, brushed was never mentioned, it sounds as if when he was about to hit the peice he saw something. This is just what I got out of the original post. Without further clarification we can only speculate. By the way it was worded, without having any additional info, my opinion is it was intentional.
I guess your interpretation of the following differs from mine.
I don’t see a clear intent indicated here, but that’s a judgement call, tempered perhaps by the fact that my wife has an inherited tremor that could easily cause an inadvertent touching such as this.
You’re too trusting Mike. It’s all just for fun. Without seeing or hearing what really happened we can only guess as to whether it was intended.
As stated in the above posts, the director on site must ascertain intention before ruling on whether or not to enforce the capture of the bishop. A piece touched or displaced, by the rules, is only touched or displaced if it is clear by the action of the move it was the move intended.
Here is another actual situation:
Black pawn on d4; queen on d7
White pawns on b2, c4, d3
many other pieces on the board, but irrelevant to the position.
Whate moves b2-b4
Black player had stepped away from the board to get a cup of water.
Black returned, entered the move c4 (wrong move) on the scoresheet.
Proceeded to capture by playing d4-c3 e.p. and removed the pawn on c4
It was clear that the intended move, and the first piece touched was the pawn on d4 making an en pessant capture, which turned out to be illegal.
It was also illegal to move the d pawn (as it was blockaded on d3)
The queen is the only other piece that can legally capture the c pawn.
Must black capture the c-pawn with the queen?
how would you rule?
The move to c2 would not be legal.
When I look at the post, do not see it from a real game. Its’ just conjecture. There is no right or wrong answer to the question.
Yes
Char-TD
This is the reason it was an accident, as the Queen cannot make a legal move to c2. If the player smack the piece hard in malice, it would be a different issue then a touch move.