Two-handled castling

Running Chess Tournaments
21

This is incorrect. Please kindly refer to US Chess blitz rule 15:

Completion of a legal move is not dependent upon the player pressing the clock. In other words, this allows the opponent to move after the player has released the piece but before the player has pressed the clock. Again, the player is always allowed to press the clock, so the sequence I offered in my previous post is legal under US Chess blitz rules.

Note, however, that an illegal move is not completed until the player presses the clock. That means that the opponent may not properly claim the win if a player makes an illegal move until after the player has pressed the clock. If the opponent tries to claim the win before the player presses the clock, the player does not lose the game but rather has the right to make a legal move with the touched piece, if possible, or to make any other legal move if it is not possible to move the touched piece legally.

You are correct that a player whose hand hovers over the clock is in violation of US Chess blitz rule 6e.

22

If an opponent has moved a piece and released his hand before I have completed my move and before I have released the piece on the square, that is a pretty sharp practice. He now has made two moves in a row while I have not completed my move. After I release the piece, he will be able to press the clock immediately just after I have pressed the clock with virtually no time intervening. That is a big advantage in zero delay blitz or during a time scramble of classical chess.

23

The opponent is not allowed to move in blitz before the player has completed his move by releasing the piece. I’m not convinced that the opponent moving before the player has completed his move qualifies as an illegal move, but the practice is not allowed and the arbiter/director may assess a penalty.

24

In blitz, making a move before you’ve completed your move by hitting the clock is allowed. Making a move before you’ve even determined your move by releasing the piece is not allowed.

One sharp practice you’ve referred to is being able to immediately hit the clock (call it gaining the initiative on the clock, particularly useful with a non-delay/non-increment time control).
white moves
black moves
white hits the clock
black immediately hits the clock
RESULT - almost no time runs off of black’s clock and white is a good candidate for flagging even if having ten times the number of seconds black has.

Another is to hit the clock slowly enough to do so after your opponent has already hit the clock in response
white moves
black moves
black hits the clock
white hits the clock
RESULT - white is on move with black’s clock running and can move calmly.

The second scenario generally occurs by chance (no intentional sharp practice) when black is overly fast. I’ve seen fast experts lose to slow C-players in such cases with neither player really understanding what just happened until I explained it to them after the game.

25

Interesting. In that video Nakamura mentions that he comes from the US where castling this way is legal. Someone may wish to inform that it is not legal in USCF blitz. However, there is no corollary in the regular rules as far as I know. Perhaps there should be. Seems like something that should be consistent between regular and blitz.

If he had properly made a claim immediately, what would the penalty have been? Loss of game seems harsh. A warning also seems too lenient. Since castling only happens once in a game, it’s literally impossible for him to do it again (at least during the same game). Give the standard penalty in blitz (1 minute) for either FIDE or USCF?

26

It’s legal under CCA rules, rule 20.

27

Another instance in which CCA institutes a variation that people presume to be a standard.

At least twice a tournament:

28

Not sure it’s a variant in USCF-rated Regular, Dual or Quick. It would be a variant in Blitz. I am an hour away from my copy of the 6th Edition, but can someone please confirm what I suspect: Castling with two hands is permitted under USCF rules, with the exception of Blitz?

As I recall, Mike Atkins or someone amended the Blitz rules when the Delegates adopted the Blitz system a few years ago, so that the requirement to use one hand only to make a move included castling. That was to bring USCF Blitz rules in line with FIDE’s as much as possible, as I recall, a la allowing the formerly forbidden G/3+2.

But as far as I know USCF rules for “real” rated games (note my lack of a Blitz rating) allow castling with both hands. Right?

29

I don’t think so. Rule 16C1 says “Each player must operate the clock with the same hand that moves the pieces.” That’s hand, singular. I don’t see an exception for castling. Rule 10I1 talks about what happens if the king and rook are touched simultaneously during castling in terms of the touch move rule but that doesn’t necessarily imply that castling with both hands is permissible.

30

I really dislike having to infer rules (such as having to infer that the player may only use one hand to move the pieces from the wording of 16C1). While I agree this is a reasonable inference, I greatly prefer explicit rules.

31

Agreed. Also, since I started to play USCF-rated chess in 1980, it has been taken for granted that use of two hands is allowed in castling or pawn promotion. I have seen that countless times and have never seen a complaint or appeal over it. And despite that…

I also cannot find a place in the 6th Edition that states this clearly. Now I am searching for my copy of the 5th Edition. (around here somewhere) I wonder if this is one of the things that got lost in the shuffle of getting the 6th Edition ready in time for a tight print deadline.

If not, was two-handed castling/promotion specifically banned at some point when I did not pay attention? Or is this a case where the rule was never spelled out clearly in the rulebook, but became so widely and generally accepted it became a ‘rule’ by default?

Interesting.

32

I too looked for it in the 6th edition and could not find any reference one way or the other. However, in the blitz section it is explicitly stated you can only use one hand including when castling.

In that case, it seems CCA does not have a variant. It just states it explicitly: two handed castling is allowed except when under FIDE rules.

This seems to be a needless inconsistency with FIDE rules.

33

The 6th edition blitz rules explicitly say that two-handed castling is not allowed:

Looking back at previous editions of the rulebook:

In the 2nd edition I can’t find anything about this in the regular rules, but rule 4 in the rules for five-minute lightning chess says “Each player must handle the clock with the same hand with which he handles the pieces. Exception: it is permitted to perform the castling move by using both hands.”

The 3rd edition has a separate chapter, chapter 4, for sudden death rules. Sudden death rule 9 says “Time trouble occurs when a player has less than five minutes to complete the game. A player in such a situation: A. must handle the clock with the same hand with which he handles the pieces…” Nothing is said here about being allowed to castle using both hands.

In the 4th edition, rule 16D is similar to sudden death rule 9 in the 3rd edition, except that if either player has less than five minutes remaining in a sudden death time control, the time pressure rules apply to both players. The same rule applies in the 4th edition blitz rules: “Each player in a Blitz game must handle the clock with the same hand that moves the pieces.”

In the 5th edition, the “same hand” rule applies at all times, not just during sudden death time pressure. Rule 16C1, “Each player must operate the clock with the same hand that moves the pieces.” The 5th edition blitz rule is the same as the 4th edition blitz rule.

Based on this, it looks like only the 2nd edition (and possibly earlier editions) said that players could castle using two hands.

34

The World Blitz Chess Association (WBCA) rules allowed two-handed castling:

35

There is history here that some may find surprising.

The rule about using the same hand for moving and pressing the clock was new with the 5th edition. Before that, the rule applied only in “sudden death time pressure”. (See 4th edition, 16D and 16D1.) It was also, I believe, part of the old WBCA blitz rules.

I was on the 5th edition revision committee. In fact, in his Acknowledgments, Tim Just referred to me (without my advance knowledge – but thank you, Tim!) as his “chief advisor”, perhaps because I had been one of the squeakiest wheels.

At one point, when the committee was discussing this rule, we debated whether the rule should apply not only in sudden death time pressure, but also in sudden death without time pressure, and/or in time pressure without sudden death. (Sudden death was defined as under 5 minutes.) Eventually, if memory serves me, it was I who finally suggested that it should apply in all situations. The rest of the committee swallowed this lump, so I guess now I’m immortal as the originator of a new rule.

Nowadays, especially with all the brouhaha about castling, it would be wise to begin 16C1 with the explicit requirement that all moves must be made with just one hand, and then to follow with the additional requirement that the clock must also be pressed with this same hand. It wouldn’t hurt to include a phrase like “including castling, captures, and promotion” somewhere in there too.

What about 10I1, which talks about touching the king and rook simultaneously? For people with normal-sized hands, simultaneous touching would seem to suggest using both hands. But I think the simultaneous-touch clause exists for a different reason – to anticipate the inevitable question, “Well, the rule says what happens if the king is touched first, and also what happens if the rook is touched first, but what happens if both are touched simultaneously?”

10I1, combined with an improved 16C1, would seem to say, in effect, “If you use both hands and touch king and rook simultaneously, then two things happen. First, you incur the same obligation (to move the king) as though you had touched the king first, and second, you may incur a penalty for using two hands.”

Bill Smythe

36

You could touch both king and rook simultaneously with different hands and still only use one hand to actually move them.
:slight_smile:

37

We know that in the Nakamura game no arbiter pointed out the violation. Nor did the player catch it at the time. One he made his move, it was too late to make the claim. Let’s say, though, that an arbiter did see the violation. Since, Nepomniachtchi moved so quickly, could the arbiter still point out the violation? And if so, how should it be handled?

  • Would he just add 1 minute to Nepomniachtchi’s clock and continue the game with Nakamura on move?[/]
    [    ]Would he have Nepomniachtchi take back his move and then adjust the clock?[/]
    [    ]Or is the penalty more severe and Namakura is forfeited?[/]
    [    ]Or was it simply too late to point it out now that Nakamura was back on move again (regardless of the penalty)?
38

Are we referring to a Blitz game, and if so, was it played under competition rules?

Alex Relyea

39

It was an Armageddon blitz game, an ultimate tiebreaker in a recent mini-match between two 2700+ rated GMs from the World Cup. Several arbiters watched the game, by all accounts. chess.com/news/world-cup-nak … worldcup15

As far as I know—though several posters here know far more about FIDE rules than I do—it is never permitted to castle with two hands in FIDE-rated play, no matter the time control.

Since there were more arbiters than players, I would imagine Competition Rules were in use. Even if the alternate rules for Blitz with not enough arbiters to watch each game were in use, I believe an arbiter who witnesses an infraction is still supposed to call it, with the exception of flag-fall.

So the question remains why no arbiter stepped in. I suspect it happened so fast they did not realize what they were seeing. (note the video is almost a blur)

I once set next to Hikaru at a G/10 event when he was not quite 11 and rated 22xx. We watched in shock and awe as he pounded an expert into oblivion, from a near-lost position with almost no time left, by slamming pieces instantly for dozens of moves—all of them good ones. Like a machine…It was unsettling. I won’t repeat what the expert told me after that.

And yet the Blitz goes on. If we are going to use Blitz and Blitz/Armageddon tiebreaks for championship-level events, strange things will happen. Blitz has rules of its own, even if they are not in the rulebook.

P.S. Google tells us that Hikaru also castled with two hands in Blitz against Carlsen a few years ago, which some did not like at the time. Interesting.

40

How is it irrelevant to the discussion at hand? The game in question was essentially played with blitz time controls.