White is plaing in his first tournament ever and has a bishop on b2. Black (much more experienced) has a queen on e5. White removes the queen from the board and places his bishop on d4.
Needless to say, Black immediately called me. After ascertaining that both players agreed on what happened, I said that since White had touched the queen, he had to take it, placed his bishop on e5 and gave black two extra minutes for the illegal move.
My assistant TD (an ANTD) backed me up, not that there was an appeal, though Black was understandably unhappy.
Well black did call you over, because white did touch both the white bishop and the black queen. White did make the error to place the bishop on d4 than on e5. Black wanted that extra two minutes, lost the queen for two extra minutes. If black wanted to do a trick, would have told white he did not capture the queen because white moved to Bd4 than the capture of the queen on e5. Black could have talked white into the replacement of the queen back on e5, than left the white bishop on d4. The reason why black was upset, as black after thinking it over could have had a chance to save the queen.
You could also arrive at the same ruling by a different route. Since white touched both the bishop and the queen, he was required to capture the queen with the bishop. (10C)
It depends on the exact sequence of actions by the player. This may be impossible to determine after the fact. I would assume that the second player would have prefered to have this determined to be a move of the bishop to d4 and to have his queen replaced on e5. That would be correct only if the sequence were like this: 1. player picks up bishop from b2, 2. player places bishop on d4 (and removes hand from bishop), 3. subsequently player removes opponent’s queen from e5. In this sequence the removal of the queen from e5 is irrelevant in determining the move since the move has been completely determined once the hand is removed from the bishop. If the player hadn’t already removed his hand from the bishop before touching the queen, then the rulling that was made (that the bishop must be placed on e5 and the queen removed) is the only correct rulling.
I only point this out because many people do not describe event sequences precisely unless closely questioned. The opponent may say “he removed my queen from e5 and placed his bishop on d4” without meaning that particular sequence of events (instead, he might just mean that both events happened, not necessarily in that order). On subsequent questioning, he could easily clarify his statement by saying that the bishop was moved before the queen was removed.
Placing the capturing piece on the wrong square is likley to only happen when the player removes the captured piece first. With the queen still on e5, it’s pretty tough to forget that you’re not capturing a piece on d4. So not only was the ruling correct in this instance, it still would have been correct had the sequence of events been unclear.
That’s certainly true for more experienced players. For beginners, I wouldn’t make such a sweeping statement. I’ve seen beginners with some pretty strange ideas of how the pieces move show up at scholastic tournaments.
I do agree with you (that removing the queen first is more likely) – I’m just saying that I would try to get further, clear information. Since the exact sequence of events does make a difference, you should try to get the complete information. Then you don’t have to guess what happened.
I’ve seen several beginning chess players make a move like this by:
Picking up the bishop on b2,
Setting the bishop down near the queen on e5 (possibly more on the d4 square than the e5 square),
Removing the queen from e5, and
Finally, putting the bishop in middle of the e5 square.
This mostly happens with younger players. After they are a little older, they master the technique of replacing the queen with the bishop in one uninterrupted motion.
I’ve seen something like this often enough that I wouldn’t just assume that a beginning player wasn’t interupted or distracted between steps 3 and 4. And, legally, once the player releases the bishop then the move is complete (at least that’s my understanding).