Touch move yes, Linger move maybe ?

Running Chess Tournaments
1

When a player is on-turn, if the player (intentionally) touches one of his pieces that can legally move, then he must move the piece, of course.

An opponent of mine had a somewhat recurring practice of moving his piece to another square, and then lingering the piece on that destination square while he carefully maintained his touch on the piece. He used the linger time (5-10 seconds) to study the potential position and decide whether he liked the move. More than never he would retract the move and play the piece elsewhere.

Is such a retraction legal? :question:
Does the rule book speak clearly on this issue? Section number?

I believe it should be illegal to linger a piece on a potential destination square and then retract the piece. I mean that…
Once the piece delays or lingers on the test destination square, the piece becomes committed to that destination square no less than if the player releases his touch to the piece on the destination square.

2

Grasping at technicalities, you could claim that a single finger touching the top of the piece indicates that the “hand has released the piece”, and that therefore the move is determined. I would deny this claim. Even if the TD in your club agrees with your claim, that doesn’t stop your opponent from changing his technique and using both his thumb and forefinger to hold the piece as he considers potential moves. You may do better with a claim based on 20G:

Normally when an opponenet grabs a piece before deciding on a move and only then searches for a destination square I feel good about my chances.

3

There is no rule requiring a player to move a piece to the square first touched by it. I suppose you could try to get the rule changed, but lots of luck on that one.

If a player does this repeatedly during the game, you could complain to the TD about annoying behavior. But then the TD, not you, decides whether the behavior can reasonably be defined as annoying, and what, if anything, to do about it.

If the player ultimately moves the piece to a different square, chances are the originally intended move wasn’t so great, and now he has committed himself to moving a piece he may not, after all, have wanted to move. This is bound to work to your advantage, eventually.

Bill Smythe

4

Rule 20g Annoying Behaviour

The most annoying behaviour to me is when my opp makes a really strong move. All other annoying behaviour pales in comparison.

5

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I have noticed that a lot of discussions about legal-illegal behavior lean heavily on this anti-annoyance concept rule, probably too many discussions.
The anti-annoyance rule is needed, but its usage should be restricted to behaviors that were not anticipated by the rule authors (messy human life produces an endless stream of questionable behaviors that cannot all be foreseen).

In the present discussion it would be improper to invoke Rule 20G, because the behavior, of not immediately releasing one’s hold and touch from a moved piece, is certainly foreseen.

20G cannot be used to make an implicitly legal behavior of your opponent illegal by TD fiat.
20G cannot be used to overturn rules, just because my opponent says my legal behavior annoys him.

In the “linger-then-retract” scenario I began this thread with, I would argue that the touch move Rule 9A is explicitly clear on the question — that 9A does allow the linger-then-retract behavior, even though its verbiage does not use my terms, nor even describe the requirement from my point of view. Linger-then-retract was foreseen.
If you tell me a glass is 76% full, I can emphatically conclude you also mean the glass is 24% empty.

I think linger-then-retract behavior should be made explicitly illegal by the rules. While he lingers before he retracts, my opponent is preventing me from seeing the actual position on the board: he should not have the right to do that to me.
Until the rule is changed, if this behavior by your opponent annoys you, tough. 20G cannot help you.
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I am not talking about ‘touching’ or ‘sliding over’ a square. I am talking about ‘lingering’ on a square with a moved but not released piece, lingering for a few seconds
(“one mississippi, two mississippi, three mississippi, four…”).

Yes the TD has final say on when 20G applies, not the player.
But the rule book should say more about when 20G cannot be invoked. And the criteria should include the concept of whether the behavior was foreseen but not made illegal.
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6

Another stretch application of the rules:

If you succeed with a claim that ‘lingering’ is analysis then perhaps I can use this rule to stop my stronger opponents from analyzing moves in their head before playing them on the board. Of course attempting such a claim brings us back to 20G again…

7

At one scholastic event the annoying/distracting behavior was cited because the opponent let himself be distracted by other games and hadn’t noticed that it was now his move.
The claim was not upheld.

8

You need to get specific about the exact wording of your proposed rule change.

For example:

A legal move is determined as soon as the player places the piece on its new square. The move is completed when the player, having determined the move, releases his hand from the piece and presses the clock. A player who has determined a move, but has not yet released his hand from the piece, is still obligated to move that piece to that square. A player is not allowed to press his clock until his hand has released the piece on its new square.

Note: Sliding a piece over a square, en route to another square, does not constitute placing the piece on the intermediate square.

Or maybe:

A player who, in the process of making a legal move, places a piece on its new square, must either release his hand from the piece or return it to its original square within one second after placing the piece on its originally intended square. A player who exceeds this time is obligated to move the piece to its originally intended square.

Until we have the specifics, there is really nothing to talk about. Please choose A or B above, or furnish the exact wording for your own proposal.

Bill Smythe

9

Consider the enforceability and the arguements over whether it has been 1 second or 3 or whatever. Yes I know there is a clock counting down time, but as soon as you put in 1 second some rulebook lawyer is going to make a claim when all you have is a slow moving player.

10

Technically a player is guilty of the offense of lingering as soon as exactly pi seconds have elapsed between the instant that the piece has touched any part of any square while also being in contact simultaneously with any part of the player’s hand (or prosthetic device). There’s been some talk about rounding pi to a specific number of decimal places to facilitate this measurement, but at the moment the player’s grace period is supposed to end once exactly pi seconds have elapsed. The latest generation of sensory boards is supposed to be getting much better at indicating this.

11

The “lingering” behavior is legal. If the rulebook had wanted to make this type of moving illegal it could have done so. It is not even unusual. Anybody who has ever been in a tournament playing room for any length of time has seen players moving this way, especially younger and/or lower-rated players. So the rulebook writers certainly knew about this behavior and chose not to deal with it.

It would be very hard to formulate a rule against this type of moving which would be enforcable. Either the touch/move rule would have to be changed to require a piece to be moved to the square on which it was first placed, which would be a major change and create another inconsistency between USCF and FIDE rules, or there would have to be some time limit on how long a piece could “linger” on a square before it could no longer be moved to a different square. How would a TD ever be able to know whether a claim that this time limit had been exceeded was correct? Enforcement of such a rule would be a nightmare.

There is no reason to consider this type of moving annoying. If you think moving like this gives your opponent some kind of advantage, then by all means, go ahead and move this way yourself. (Though I wouldn’t advise it.) If you find it annoying, I think you are too easily annoyed by the behavior of other people, and that you should chill.

12

All three of you are correct, of course – and that was my point. Perhaps I should have thrown in some :smiley: :confused: :blush: :wink: :neutral_face: :slight_smile: emoticons :sunglasses: :cry: :exclamation: :mrgreen: :frowning: :laughing: to clarify :imp: :question: :astonished: :angry: :smiling_imp: :bulb: matters. :open_mouth: :stuck_out_tongue: :unamused: :arrow_right:

I note that the original poster, so far at least, has been conspicuously absent since my suggestion to put up or shut up. It’s a question of specifics. Without details, there is no real proposal at all. And, in this case (as in many others), as soon as there is a genuine attempt to provide specifics, it becomes painfully obvious why no such rule has ever been seriously considered.

As Brian M. said, just put up with this “behavior” and chill.

Bill Smythe

13

. .
As Bill requested, here is my attempt at exact verbiage of an anti-lingering rule idea:

9A1. Lingering. Suppose a player who is on-turn grasps his piece and moves it to a new square (to which it can legally move), but the player maintains his grasp. He maintains his grasp of the piece on the new square for seconds longer than can be justified by a calm or deliberate demeanor or by any physical need. The term for this unnecessarily extended grasp duration is ‘lingering’. Lingering is inappropriate.

Lingering for a second or two is tolerated. But lingering that extends beyond 3 seconds may be a violation worthy of an admonition or a warning on first occurrence. The penalty for violations by the same player on any subsequent turn is loss of the right to retract the move on the turn.

Although lingering briefly for a second or two is tolerated, on any one turn the player should not briefly linger with the same piece on the same square more than one time. During one turn, the second occurrence of brief lingering forfeits the right to retract the move on that turn. During one turn, multiple brief lingers with a variety of pieces and squares may be considered annoying behavior which can become forbidden, and after a warning can be punished by time deduction on the player’s clock.

TD TIP: Lingering is inappropriate because it enables the player to see and test a possible future position without committing to the position. The rules of chess forbid the purposeful testing of possible positions when electronic scoresheets are in use, and the rules forbid lingering on the game board for the same principle.
Sliding a piece across an intermediate square and onto another square does not constitute lingering on the intermediate square.

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[size=100]ENFORCABILITY[/size]
Rule books do not close their eyes and plug their ears when confronted with issues that cannot be enforced as easily as the Stalemate rule. It took me less than a minute to find rules 10E & 10F as just two examples (USCF Rules 5th, pg 32).

Players of good character tend to avoid violating rules against a dubious behavior, even when inherent vaguarities enable them to cheat the rule and get away with it.

[size=100]20G, ANTI-ANNOYANCE RULE[/size]

You are confused Brian.
It was not me who introduced the idea that the 20G Annoyance rule might apply to lingering. Those who read more carefully will see that I argue 20G is not applicable to lingering.
Discussion of the annoyance factor is derailing, it is not the point of the anti-lingering stance.

[size=100]ABSENT?[/size]

Calm down Bill.
You posted your two drafts of an anti-lingering rule yesterday evening at 19:05pm, and then this quoted complaint at 04:20am this Sunday morning (so says my forums display). That time window deserves the judgment of “conspicuously absent”?

[size=100]SAME PURE PRINCIPLE AS WITH ELECTRONIC SCORESHEETS[/size]
We would not allow a player to use his MonRoi-ish electronic scoresheet to move his piece on its display before he moves on the live board, especially if the tentative move can be retracted on the device.

Much the same principle is at the heart of the anti-lingering perspective. This is a pure principle of formal chess play.
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14

Moderator Mode: Off

Gene, I have a question about this lingering.

Let’s say a player picks up a piece and hovers the piece over a square without either the piece or his finger(s) touching the square. Let’s say he hovers this piece for something like 2.5 seconds and then replaces the piece on the original square, saying to his opponent that he will move that piece. He then considers his move and a bit later moves that piece to a different square correctly and hits his clock button and then notates the move on his electronic score keeping device.

Was there any lingering in this situation?

If the player would have let the piece hover over the square, without touching the board at all, for 4 seconds and then proceeded as I described above, would that have been hovering?

Can the person put the piece back on his original square, think about it a bit, then move the piece wherever he wants?

Also, what if he briefly touches the board/square with the piece, say for 1/2 second? Is that legal?

15

Full credit for stepping up and delivering specifics for your proposed rule change. I suggest that your rule can be improved by taking from Bill’s examples. Bill used clear and definitive terms: “is determined”, “is completed”, “is obligated”, “is not allowed”. The wording in your rule is more subject to differences in interpretation: “Suppose”, “longer than can be justified”, “inappropriate”, “tolerated”, “unnecessarily”, “may be a violation”, “may be considered”. In your original post you wanted a clear answer about whether this was legal. The rule that makes it illegal should be clear as well. There are other existing rules that are not so clear, but I would hope that any new rule would be modeled after the well-written rules.

Addressing the substance of the rule, I disagree with making this change. Touch-move is a clear and objective indicator for determining a move, and I oppose moving to a more subjective rule.

16

I would certainly enjoy if my opponent endeavored to “linger” with a piece. He has just given me a tell concerning his hesitancy and lack of clarity of what to do. Plus he is showing an inability to use his time properly. Each second of “lingering” detracts from his confidence while adding to mine. So I am not bothered by it at all. I would consider legislating against “lingering” as taking away an important tool from me to understand my opponent’s psychological state. Certainly, I would not call a TD about it as it is no annoyance to me.

To implement your new rule you might have to give the TD the authority to initiate claims in a game to apply the rule against players who tends to “linger” with a piece. This would be especially necessary because some players would be likely not to call the TD. To have wide applicability, the rule would have to be enforced at all times. You would also have to define with great specificity how much time is required to “linger” with a piece. How would that time be measured, and by whom? Will we have to install cameras with slo-mo capability to determine infractions? Then there is the question of how high above the board must a piece be to become a “lingering” piece. Would it be one inch, three inches (we might have to use millimeters to accomodate future FIDE rules), or even higher? What if the player merely picks up the piece and holds it in his hand, a very common practice? How long would he/she be allowed to hold the piece? This is not defined by the proposed rule. There is also no mention of when the rule would take effect after delegate approval. So many missing details.

We have not even mentioned the most flagrant practice of a hand “hovering” above or near the board and pieces. That would require at least 5 subsections to write a proper legislative proscription/remedy/penalty.

17

The tell is he is only thinking about his next move and has no idea what is in store for him.

18

Would Faye Dunaway in the movie “Bullit” have been guilty of “lingering” when she held the chess pieces in a sensual way in her game of chess with Steve McQueen? Who would call her on it?

19

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I see no reason why a TD would “might” have to “initiate” interference in a game due to lingering violations given that the TD currently does not have to initiate interference due to touch move violations, or for several other rule issues.

Most types of rule concerns need to be raised by the player first, or so I have heard (21D ?). In any case, the lingering rule is no different than a hundred other rules in this regard.

No we don’t. In life we deal with problems that do not have simple robotic answers.

The rule mainly clarifies a principle of pure chess play, and that clarification by itself has a good effect.

There are many semi-related dubious behaviors that my draft anti-lingering rule does not stretch and strain to legislate: respectfully, so what?
Your same criticism could be leveled at rule 14B5: so what?

Tom, as a TD how would you rule if a player asked you to warn the opponent who was “flagrantly” hovering his hand over the board? :question:

To be consistent with your post, your answer would have to be — “The rule book does not have the subsections necessary to specify exactly the number of seconds that the opponent can hover his hand over the board, so I must allow him to continue his behavior”.
Yet I doubt that such would be your answer.
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20

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These kinds of scenarios and questions are good at honing the issue. My short answer is that your scenario would not constitute ‘lingering’ by the letter of the definition in my draft rule.

No need to mess up a good narrow rule by stretching and straining it to cover too wide a variety of other related concerns.

That your scenario is probably contrary to the spirit and underlying principle of my draft lingering rule is not enough reason to bloat the draft rule further. If your scenario is worthy of address, then another rule could address it, like a 9A2. That is my perspective anyway.

It would help to know how the TDs on this forum would judge a claim of Annoyance by a player who complained that his opponent was repeating your scenario during the game (for longer than 4 seconds if necessary to push the issue).

If an Annoyance claim would be upheld by the TDs here, why would it be upheld? Maybe because:

  • The player performing the scenario is denying his opponent the right to study the official position on the live game board, by holding his piece off the board (in the air or where ever else) for a long time.

  • The player performing the scenario is partially blocking his opponent’s view of the board by maintaining his arm extended over the board for a long time.

I do not know exactly how long a “long time” is. Nobody knows.

How would our TDs judge and decide this annoyance claim? :question:
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