Generally in the event a tournament is interrupted by something like a fire alarm. Players should be instructed to stop the clocks and leave everything behind. In this particular case clocks were stopped but the instructions on leaving scoresheets behind were not transmitted. Since players had scoresheets and smart phones during the drill it provides an interesting question. For this tournament less than 5 minutes of a 55/5 time limit round had been played. What do your rule?
I’m not sure what we’re asked to be ruling on yet. Has someone made a claim?
I’ve had tournaments I was directing interrupted by a power outage and by a tornado alert, and I once played in a tournament that had part of the ceiling fall in due to a water leak. That one knocked several boards over.
This is not a question of rule; the Tournament Director obviously failed to communicate the intended directions to the players as a whole. Does the TD then punish all of the players for complying with the given direction? I understand you are asking whether the round should be restarted since there are only 5 minutes or so elapsed. However, the elapsed time is irrelevant; players would rightly be upset that their games be restarted simply because there is a possibility some of the players in the tournament were analyzing their games during the interruption in play. Making any sort of ruling after the fact would penalize the players who have the advantage in the current games. I do not see any rule to support the director making any blanket ruling in this situation. If an opponent made a valid claim of cheating that could be investigated, that should be taken on a case-by-case basis.
The question in this case is not what would we rule, but rather what was ruled at the time. You have only provided half of the situation, and none of the justification behind the ruling that was made.
This is why the adjournment rules are still in the rulebook, and why a TD should ideally have envelopes on hand, to seal the paper scoresheets he or she provided and required the use of, all in accordance with international standard best practices.
It is a bit difficult to have 150+ games each adjourn with an adjournment envelope while a fire alarm is ringing and people are supposed to exit immediately (rather than taking time to analyze their adjourning move). I’m glad I wasn’t there (though I did hear about it after the fact).
Yeah, if the fire alarm goes off, I’m getting out of the building NOW!
The time the tornado sirens went off, the room we were in was the designated tornado shelter, and it went from having 50-60 people in it to having several hundred people in it in a matter of minutes.
Does ANYONE think it is acceptable to take the scoresheet when leaving the board during the game?
Alex Relyea
There was one National Scholastic event held in Louisville, KY where the tornado sirens went off. A large group of ladies from the Mary Kay convention were ushered into the playing hall from next door, as the playing hall was the designated tornado shelter. We had an interruption in play with a large number of spectators in the room, and lots of conversation going on. I believe at one point the lights went dark for a few seconds/minutes.
How do you want to try to handle that one?
I acknowledge that envelopes and adjournments are probably overkill in a fire alarm or weather alert situation. They are not when you have minutes to react rather than seconds.
I agree with Mr. Relyea that it is never appropriate to remove the scoresheet from the board.
For the purpose of argument:
If a player were to leave the scoresheet within the playing hall during an interruption in play like a fire alarm, this would technically be in violation of 15A. The scoresheet is not visible to the opponent nor the TD during this time.
And yes, I understand that this is not the intent of the rule. I could see where some players may be concerned their scoresheet could be tampered with if left unattended. I could also see where a player might want to bring an expensive electronic notation device with them rather than risk it be destroyed or stolen in the event the playing hall was evacuated.
The scoresheet only needs to be visible to the opponent or TD when they are at the board, not when they are absent from the room. 
Special situations are when the rules need to be most flexible. What do people think about the suggestion that the TD should instruct players to take their scoresheets with them when evacuating the playing hall? If a player is good enough to be able to analyze the game while looking just at the scoresheet, he could probably do it without having the scoresheet to look at, too.
The problem is that if a player has his scoresheet with him, then he can whip out his smartphone and analyze with an engine. If the players have evacuated a playing hall it is very hard, if not impossible for the TD’s to watch all of them all the time.
If chess has devolved to the point where the TD cannot trust the players, and the players cannot trust each other to do the right thing when there is an emergency, then the organizer/TD probably will have to cancel the rest of the event and return the entry fees. No games will be rated. There used to be a degree of honor in chess, but that is fast disappearing due to technology and the quest for big money prizes.
On a couple of occasions the lights went during tournaments because of electrical storms. The players were told to stop their clocks, set everything aside and wait for the lights to go back on. One player complained that his opponent was getting extra time to think because the clocks were stopped. He was told he was allowed to think, too.
At our chess league a number of years ago, when the fire alarm went off, many of the players took all of their stuff outside with them. We resumed when the fire department said it was a false alarm. After more false alarms occurred, the players got tired of dragging their stuff outside and left it all in place, including the scoresheets.
Human nature has not changed. Players today are neither more nor less honorable than they were “back when”. They just have different options now. In 1561 Bishop Ruy Lopez de Segura wrote that you should try to position the chessboard so that your opponent has the sun in his eyes.
Most players that I know, including myself, wouldn’t need a scoresheet to remember the position on the board, so why does having the scoresheet or not matter? It’s not very hard to remember a specific position if you’ve been pondering over it for the whole game.
If this were a real true concern then simply have all the players bring their scoresheet with them. Then collect them once outside or whereever. Now if something major does occur you have the ability to recreate the games. Time might still be an issue. Maybe the players should note the clock times as they leave on their scoresheets.
At some point you have to trust the basic honesty of the players themselves. A dishonest player doesn’t need to be observed by the TD, but simply by the other players.
So how about:
- Tell the players to stop their clocks and write the time down on their scoresheet.
- Have the players take their scoresheets and collect them as the players exit the room.
I greatly respect Mr. Beatrez’ opinion on this matter, but please remember that he’s speaking from the perspective of an expert. Even the best class players have inaccuracies looking over their games without a scoresheet, and, as a majority of our tournament players are below 1200, I’d bet that almost none of our active tournament players can do this with a high degree of accuracy.
Alex Relyea
In general that may be true (though I’ve seen a lot of cases where sub-1000 players can recall a position). In the OP situation it was high school players in an HS state qualifier event in games that had just started, with board scores weighted in favor of the stronger players. I’d figure that well over half of those players would be able to recall the position without a scoresheet and they would be in games worth more than three fourths of the matches’ game points.