Since Tournament Direction is so much more interesting than USCF Issues, here is a poser:
Player A plays a checkmating move and releases his hand from the piece. Then, not realizing he has achieved checkmate, and in fact believing he has blundered, he attempts to retract the move by putting his hand back on the piece, returning it to its original square, moving a different piece, and pressing his clock.
His opponent, player B, not wanting to be checkmated, lets player A get away with his take-back. The game continues, and in 10 more moves player B wins.
Both players report the result as a win for player B. Then, another player in the tournament points out that player A had completed a checkmating move. Player A then insists on his rights, claiming a win because the game was over at that point, and whatever happened after that is irrelevant.
Player B, of course, objects, and even points out that player A committed an illegality by retracting a determined move.
We had a similar situation in a tourney here (I presume your poser is hypothetical). In our case, A was mopping the board up with the much higher rated player B. But he carelessly made a stalemating move. B, not observing the stalemate, picked this inopportune moment to resign, and the result was marked as a win for A. 10 minutes later, another player who saw the stalemate but not the resignation informed the director that the result was incorrect. BTW, this was not a sandbagging thing, the players really were oblivious.
The TD ruled the game a draw, saying that anything that happened afterwards was irrelevant. Another player and frequent TD said he probably would have gone the other way, because this sort of thing happens in scholastic events all the time and is quite often detected later when they show the game. I don’t find that argument particularly compelling, especially since the result was corrected before the pairings were made.
I posed this question to Geurt Gijsen on ChessCafe.com, and he agreed it was a draw.
If the result was detected after the start of the next round, I would have let the win stand for tournament scoring but reported the result as a draw for ratings.
I would handle your hypothetical situation the same way. I should add that I am NOT a TD.
I’ll make a simplifying assumption: the players have scoresheets that are sufficiently complete to be able to reconstruct the game up to the move in question.
If the players agree that A made the move in question and released the piece, and if the move in question does cause checkmate, then I will clearly award the win to player A. Otherwise, if the witness is an independent witness, and if player A agrees that he made the move in question, I will award the win to player A. In both cases, player A is correct. Checkmate immediately ends the game as soon as the move is determined. Player B is incorrect; the game is no longer in progress, so player A could not have illegally taken back the move.
If I can’t reconstruct the game using both scoresheets up to the move in question, I will deny the claim. The witness may be incorrect about the checkmate.
Since this incident occurred 3 years ago, I thought when I saw your comment that maybe my memory was fading. I tracked it down, and it’s in his October 2003 column. Essentially, he said that 1) stalemate ends the game 2) you must send the correct result to FIDE 3) If discovered before the pairings in a swiss are made, it should be corrected 4) If discovered after the pairings you don’t change them, and whether you’d change the result for future rounds depends on other factors 5) In a rapid event, the “illegal” move of playing on what stand unless detected and the win for A (in my scenario) would stand.
I agree that if a checkmate or stalemate occurred, then the game is over. The rule book even says that if the TD observes it, he can go off and record the result even if the players keep going for a long time.
However, in this case, it all depends on what the players say and what their scoresheets say. Obviously no scoresheet would have the checkmating move.
If player B denies that the illegal move was made, then you have to award him the game. If player B admits that the checkmating move was made, but that A took the move back illegally, then you award A the game, and then deal with the illegal move issue. Personally, I would be tempted to throw them both out of the tournament. ‘A’ for intentionally cheating by knowingly taking back a move, and ‘B’ for intentionally cheating by allowing an illegal move to occur that benefited him.
(Maybe the right answer is to give both of them a forfeit loss for the game.)
How different tho are the attitudes about each player’s official scoresheet between chess and golf.
In golf, if a player makes any error on his signed scorecard, he forfeits. They are extremely strict about this at the pro level.
The golf attitude would not be quite right for chess, since most scoresheets have at least one error (at least they do at the Seattle Chess Club, and that is if we can even read them). But as regards the final outcome, I think a pair of signed scoresheets saying Black won should be utterly final, no matter how foolish. Simpler that way too.
I wonder whether chess scoresheets have more/less/same number of errors under Algebraic notation as they did back when many players still had not converted from Descriptive notation?
Since I personally went from standard algebraic to reversible algebraic, I have had only one game where I could not reconstruct all the moves despite errors (and that was for the last couple moves of a game I lost).
Why do you say that? Checkmate ends the game. The issue is if player B admits to the retracted move. In the example, he does. Therefore, the game was won by player A, and the issue to be resolved is dealing with the intentional illegal move by A and the acceptance of the illegal move by B.
“Rule 13A: Checkmate. The player who checkmates the opponent’s king, providing the mating move is legal, wins the game. This immediately ends the game.”
“Rule 9E: Checkmate or stalemate. In case of a legal move which produces checkmate or stalemate, the move is determined with no possibility of change upon release…”
Looks pretty clear cut. Player A wins. The cheating must be dealt with separately.
<<<Player A plays a checkmating move and releases his hand from the piece. Then, not realizing he has achieved checkmate, and in fact believing he has blundered>>>
The game is between the two players. Checkmate ends the game if the player recongnizes it during the game. If the two players do not see the checkmate, party on!
The game is not between two players, and other players, and specators and coaches and parents and whoever else glances at the board or reads the scoresheet.
Player B wins.
My guess is that those that think Player A has any case have not directed a scholastic tournament.
I am on your side here. Mate ends the game! It even ends the game in scholastic events, many of which I have directed. Results reporting is a different set of rules.
If A checkmated B, then they somehow played on and reported a different result, the TD can regard the game as incorrectly reported. In that case, he can do just about whatever he wants. (As I recall, one option under “incorrectly reported results” is to correct the result. Another is not to. The TD is almighty.)
As Bill points out, the TD can almost always find a way to do what he thinks best. I have a different philosophy about this question than Tim. Consider the players who miss a mate and plays on. After the game he shows the game to a friend or used a chess playing program who points out the mate. I strongly feel that in cases where outside assistance- be it the TD or someone else, this is no longer a game between two players. It’s my opinion that the rule about mate ending the game was written with the expectation that the mate would be noted by the players and is designed to cover other problems such as the flag fall & mate or stalemate. I don’t feel it should depend upon the luck of a player if a TD sees the mate in order to get a win (or stalemate.) I believe that once both players have agreed on the result, it should stand unless there is cheating or unethical conduct involved. In this case, as the unethical conduct - taking back a move- was done by the losing player, I am even happier to rule against him.
A side issue - your opponent makes a touch move violation as in this game where the replacment move is in your favor. Are you morally obligated to enforce the touch move. I believe yes. If a TD sees a touch move violation, should he enforce the rule? Consider, you - the TD -see an illegal move. Do you enforce the illegal move rule? If yes, why not the touch move rule? What is the difference?
I totally disagree. The difference is that the rules do state that a TD can call illegal moves, there is no mention of a TD calling touch move violations. When acting as a TD on an illegal move claim I never tell the player that he must move the piece. Just as with most other claims, this claim is up to his opponent to make. And no, I don’t see the opponent as having a moral obligation to make a touch move claim.
The difference is that the Official Rules of Chess explicitly state that, except in a time pressure situation, a TD who observes an illegal move enforces the illegal move rule without a claim by the opponent. This is not true of the touch move rule.
The difference is that the Official Rules of Chess explicitly state that, except in a time pressure situation, a TD who observes an illegal move enforces the illegal move rule without a claim by the opponent. This is not true of the touch move rule.[/quote]
I don’t disagree with your interpretation of what the rules state. My question was desigend to get us to consider the justification behind the rule. What is there about illegal and touch move violati?ns that make a difference in how they are handled desirable? What is your opinion about the opponent’s options when a touch violation occurs. If I can purposfully ignore a touch move violation, can I ignore a touch move violation? I had a game at my club last night where a bishop was transferred from a white to a black square, creating 2 dark squared bishops for one player. Does the opponent have the option of accepting the illegal move?
Regards, Ernie
In my opinion, there is a fundamental difference between an illegal move (a violation of the rules of the game), and a touch-move infraction (a violation of the rules of play). The former should always be corrected if the TD observes it, since, aside from any questions of principle, failure to do so could lead to absurd consequences. (A kid captures his opponent’s King and they keep playing. Does that mean the player without a King cannot be checkmated?) The TD should not intervene in cases of the second type unless requested to do so by one of the players. Making such a claim is clearly the responsibility of the player, and by failing to do so he harms only himself.
