Tournament Director Errors

Running Chess Tournaments
1

Rule 21H1, Right of Appeal, states that a player must appeal a TD decision before the player “resumes play”, or within half an hour. Thereafter, the player does not have the right of appeal. The implication is that TD decisions, including errors, are final once play resumes. (There is mention in 21H of play continuing under some circumstances “under protest”; that is, with the appeal rights of the player being reserved.)

But suppose the TD, or the Chief TD, realizes on their own that the TD decision was incorrect, even though there has been no appeal, or the appeal was made after it was too late under 21H1. Play has resumed and moves have been made. Perhaps the game has even finished.

Do the rules (1) permit, (2) require, (3) or prohibit the TD to amend his ruling and order the game resumed from the point where the TD made the erroneous ruling, with the ruling undone and the correct ruling put into effect? Is there a point where a game result is definitive and cannot be resumed, or the scores adjusted, despite TD errors? What is that point?

2

I had a situation where an assistant TD made an incorrect ruling on a “touch move” situation involving a first time tournament player. The new player assumed that the decision of the assistant TD was final. Thereafter, a round was played and completed.

Meanwhile the friends of the new player had informed him that he could appeal the decision to the chief TD. When he appealed, I overruled my assistant TD and ordered the game replayed from the “touch move” incident. His experienced opponent(who knew that he had violated rules by clearly touching his piece with intent to move) bitterly complained and refused to resume play.

It’s a gray area. This was a medium size tournament and there was time to consider “justice.” Making the same decision at a large scholastic or a CCA money tournament (in which both of them you must have ‘certainty of result’ and you have to continue moving forward) would be a nightmare leading to endless appeals many of which would be marginal or fraudulent.

So it becomes to some practical sense a ‘situational ethics’ decision which may not be your Cup of Tea.

YMMV, Best.

3

Even if an umpire in a major league baseball game makes a bad ruling, the game must go on. Except for some very limited appeals, there’s only so much that a player can do to get a bad ruling corrected. Likewise, in a chess game in a large tournament.

Things might be different in a sand-lot game where one of the players doubles as umpire. Likewise, things might be different in a small chess tournament.

It’s not so hard to understand.

4

I’m not so much talking about what players can do to get bad rulings reversed. The rules are pretty clear about making appeals and how long you have to do it.

I am more asking what the TD’s should do, if one of them, or the Chief TD, realizes that that there was a wrong TD ruling after play has already resumed, or maybe even after a game has been finished and the result reported. Is the TD obliged to correct it? Is he allowed to correct it? Is it unacceptable to correct it. seki’s input seems to be that it is at the discretion of the TD, and may be guided by practical considerations like when the next round needs to start, how much furor it will create, etc.

5

Is this a topic for general discussion or do you have specific incident(s) in mind?

6

Well, I was sort of wondering about Franc Guadalupe’s decision at one of the 2010 National Scholastics, as recounted by Elizabeth Vicary on her blog.

Apparently, there was an illegal move, and the opponent called it and added time to his own clock. But he neglected to call the touch-move, which would have obliged the player who made the illegal move to make a move that would lose the game. After some moves, the opponent realized his mistake, and called the touch move violation. The TD ruled in the opponent’s favor, and the game was resumed from the illegal move position, with the player compelled to move the touched piece, thereby losing the game.

I’m not interested in this situation, because this was just an error by the floor TD, since you can’t call touch-move once you have moved (or even just touched a piece). So the touch-move claim was too late, and should have been denied. Wrong TD calls happen, of course.

I am more interested in what happened next. The game ended fairly quickly, with the player who was required to move the touched piece losing, as expected. The losing player was prompted by his friends on nearby boards to appeal the touch-move ruling. Now the appeal was technically too late, since the rules say that an appeal may only be made before “play resumes”. However, the Chief TD ordered the game result to be voided and the game to be resumed from the position after the illegal move, without any
obligation to move the touched piece.

Now, I’m glad I wasn’t the Chief TD having to rule in this situation. (This is why National TD’s get paid the big bucks.) But I’m wondering about this ruling.

By the way, not that it is relevant, but the second time around, the outcome of the game was different. This time the player who made the illegal move won the game. (He was about 300 points higher rated and expected to win.)

There was somewhat of a furor about the Chief TD’s decision, because it was a last-round high-board game. In the end, the player who won the second time was given the win, but the player who won the first time was given a draw. I don’t know how it was reported for rating purposes. This win-plus-draw result seems a bit odd, too, but that is another discussion.

7

Rule 21H1 also allows for “unless additional time is granted by the director”. It does not say when the director has to grant the additional time, just that he/she can grant additional time.

So, in theory, a Chief TD can hear an appeal past the one-half hour mark (and after the player resumes play), by simply “granting additional time.”

8

Posts which contain more than three factual errors require advance approval by Sam Sloan before they can be posted.

9

If there are factual errors, they are in the report of the incident on the USCF’s web site by Elizabeth Vicary: main.uschess.org/content/view/8378/446/

10

So your interpretation of the extension of time mentioned in 21H1 is that the Chief TD has discretion to accept any appeal made at any time no matter how much time has elapsed or whether the game has resumed, or even been finished?

I wouldn’t have thought 21H1 said that. Here is 21H1:

The way I read this is that for an appeal to be timely, two conditions must both be satisfied: (1) less than half an hour must have elapsed; and (2) the player must not have resumed play.

But there is the problem of the “unless additional time” clause, separated from the conjuction of the two basic conditions by a comma. The way I read this is that as regards the half-hour time limit, the director can extend the time beyond half an hour by granting additional time. My reading of the rule is that the extension of time has to be given by the director before the half-hour elapses, but since the rule does not explicitly state that, I suppose it is possible the director can extend the time after the fact, merely by accepting an appeal beyond half an hour, as you suggest. Even so, extending the time does not remove the other condition, which is that the player not have resumed play.

You are reading 21H1 as saying that an appeal is timely if (A) the appeal is made (1) within half an hour; and (2) before the player resumes play; or (B) the TD extends the time (in which case play can have resumed). I admit that the way the clauses are ordered is a bit confusing, but I think your theory that resumption of play is not a factor if the TD extends the time is a stretch.

11

Brian,

Before you go on “quoting” CLO articles or reports of events, you may want to check all the “facts.” You neglected to check the comments made to that article. Heck, you neglected to read the article! After I made my comment, she made a correction (in italics). This took place in 2008 – Must be a slow day…

12

Franc, it isn’t a slow news day, and I am not trying to dredge up old history, or criticize any TD’s. I am interested in the proper interpretation of the appeal rules. It seems to me that the rulebook states that appeals can only be lodged before the resumption of play, and in this case we have a situation where apparently a Chief TD, a National TD, entertained an appeal after a game had resumed, and undid lower-level TD ruling to the extent of resuming a completed game in such a way that it ended with a different outcome the second time.

It is true that I didn’t read the CLO article thoroughly. I was more going by Elizabeth Vicary’s description on her blog. When I posted the URL, I just scanned the article to verify that it was the incident she described, and the comments, to see if there was any discussion related to the rules issues. I wasn’t interested in “accusing” anybody of anything, but rather in discussing the rules. So I was not in “fact-checking” mode regarding the names of people involved. I didn’t even mention any names until someone asked me whether I had a concrete incident in mind.

I take it that you do not wish to be associated with the decision of the Chief TD in this case. Fine. Please accept my apologies for perpetuating the association of your name with this incident. However, that association did not start with me but with Vicary.

Care to comment on the rules issues? Those are, after all, what this thread is supposed to be about.

13

Brian,

I took exception to your comment “Well, I was sort of wondering about Franc Guadalupe’s decision” because, as explained in the article, I was not involved in the case. It is not that I do not wish to be associated with the decision of the Chief TD (which I was not – Walter Brown was), it is that I was not involved in the decision at all.

Clearly, the TD who handled this case made a mistake, and this was discussed at length three years ago…

14

As to the original question: What should a TD do if he or she realizes they’ve made a mistake but the time for appeals has passed? (If my paraphrasing is incorrect, please feel free to para-paraphrase).

I think the baseball umpire analogy is a good one. There have been several instances where umps have admitted after a game that they made an incorrect ruling, but the game hasn’t been replayed from that point on. I think the same applies here; it’s too late. The decision stands. The TD may, or may not, admit the mistake, but the result can’t change.

There’s lots of precedent in the rules for players calling infractions, not TDs. I’d apply that to the appeals process as well; it’s up to the player to initiate an appeal.

But then, it’s easy for me to say all this; I don’t make mistakes :slight_smile:

-Matt Phelps

15

I thought I made a mistake once but it was an error.

16

Actually, if my history is correct, I can think of at least two instances where the final results have been changed after tough TD rulings. (Someone correct me if I have the details wrong on either of these, please; I’m working off memory.)

At the US Open in 1987(?), chief TD Ira Lee Riddle paired GM Walter Browne with his third consecutive Black in the 12th and final round. He lost the game, and appealed the pairing after the result was posted. Riddle didn’t have a completely legal pairing available, and it turned out that giving Browne 3 straight Blacks, while in violation of pairing rules at the time, the best pairing he could make. The appeals committee ended up awarding him 3/4 of a point, which moved him into second place. IIRC, that incident spawned the wording of Rule 29E5f.

At the 2008 National K-12, the last-round game between Warren Harper and Adam Weser featured a couple of rules-related errors, including the chief of the Championship section incorrectly applying the touch-move rule when Weser claimed a violation two moves after it actually occurred. Harper appealed the result after resigning the game. The tournament chief (Walter Brown?) reversed the ruling, and the players were brought back to the tournament hall to finish the game, which Harper eventually won. Weser was awarded a half-point after the game, based on an appeal from his parent.

17

I was chief assistant director at that US Open. I wish to make a few corrections and additions. The pairings were for round 11. The score group had 4 players. GM Lev Alburt had played 2 of them leaving only Browne as a possible opponent within the score group. Both Lev and Walter had black in rounds 9 & 10. Ira felt that the pairing rule requiring score groups to be paired was of greater priority than the prohibition against getting the same color in 3 consecutive rounds. Rule II4B in the 1987 rule book states: “Players with equal scores are paired whenever possible”. Ira’s way everyone was paired in score group the other way 4 players would not be as 2 would drop to the next group. Browne was awarded an extra 1/4 point but not by an appeals committee. It was done somewhat later (weeks after the tournament was over) by the rules committee and a portion of the prize fund was withheld pending that ruling.

You are correct about 29E5f. I was one of 5 delegates who independently submitted similar ADMs at the 1988 delegates’ meeting to change the rule due to our dissatisfaction with the committee’s ruling about pairing priorities. The others were Ira, Bill Goichberg, Steve Immittt, and Warren Pinches. Bill’s wording was agreed upon and eventually passed despite heavy opposition from the committee chair/1987 rule book editor.

18

Good show (at the 1988 delegates’ meeting). The moral of the story: Never write a rule beginning with the words “under no circumstance”. Such wording paints TDs into a corner too much. The 3rd (1987) edition of the rulebook said:

The new wording (4th and 5th editions) is greatly improved:

I’m curious, though (and, unfortunately, crosstables before 1991 don’t appear on MSA):

  1. Was that score group (Browne, Alburt, and 2 others) the top score group?

  2. If not, was there an odd number of players in the score group(s) above? In other words, did the Browne-Alburt group originally have 5 players, but with one of them having been pulled to play in a higher group?

  3. Or, similarly, did this group originally have 5 players, but with one player pulled to play in the next group below?

  4. Or both 2. and 3. – did the group originally have 6 players, but with two players pulled, one playing up and one down?

If the answer to any of 2., 3., 4. is yes, there may have been a better solution staring the TD’s in the face: pair up a player other than the highest-rated, and/or pair down a player other than the lowest-rated.

Even if the answers to 2., 3., 4. are all no, I still wonder how this mess came about in the first place. How is it that two of the four players in a very high score group had just been assigned two blacks in a row? Maybe there wasn’t sufficient attention given to colors in the previous (round 10) pairings.

Or, maybe it was just bad luck. For example, there could have been two upsets, both involving wins by black, in a high score group in round 10.

Any thoughts (or information) on this?

Bill Smythe

19

I can answer in part. Browne and Alburt were tied for the lead going into the last round; Harold S. says there were two other players in the top group, which I’m sure is true, since he was there. (Though one point confuses me. I am all but certain this issue arose in the last round—that’s why the 5th Edition rulebook makes “three colors in a row” an option ONLY in the last round—but Harold says it was round 11?)

Alburt had played the other two players in the top score group, thus he either had to play Browne or else the score group had to be ‘fudged’ for the last round with the US Open title at stake. Alburt and Browne both had two straight Blacks going into the last round.

I once tried to ask Ira about this issue in person, but sensed that he was not eager to chat about it. I use this specific case to illustrate the point when non-TD club members and players ask me what’s so hard about directing chess tournaments, and/or when someone complains about two straight Blacks…

…and for those who show real interest, I explain how things are different in Europe—or so I hear. In the USA, score is king when it comes to Swiss pairings. It takes near-absolute priority over color, which leads to rare but highly problematic situations like Alburt-Browne. In Europe, no player would ever get three Blacks in a row, at least not in the last round of a major event, since color equalization is deemed much more important (than it is here).

If their eyes don’t glaze over by that point, I lobby them to sign on as a TD. Slim pickings, thus far, but we try.

P.S. As a wild guess, not knowing Tim Redman apart from a few emails years ago and never having played in an event he directed: Perhaps his European/international experience colors his view on this topic. I believe the “FIDE” variation in WinTD and other pairing programs sets no rating cap or limit on transpositions to maintain color equalization, for instance.

20

It was most definitely round 11 in which the pairings were controversial. The 4 (Bisguier and Fishbein were the other 2) all had 8.5 going in. Alburt had a short draw with Rachels in round 12 which guaranteed Alburt at least a tie for first.

There was no inattention to colors in previous rounds. I don’t remember all of the specifics but top board pairings were checked and rechecked in the second half of the tournament. If I recall correctly, all 4 top players had 5 of each color going into the 11th round.

Personally, I didn’t think Ira made a pairing error at the time and still don’t. I told Ira as much during the event. I believe the error was a poorly worded rule which contradicted another.

In my opinion the priority of pairings are:

  1. having previously played
  2. score group
  3. colors

The 1987 rulebook wording would have one think that having 3 of the same color in a row (“under no circumstances”) was worse than having playing someone twice (“may not be paired”). I know of no director that agrees with that. The wording for score groups was “whenever possible”.