From a local scholastic tournament I was directing this weekend, in a 1000-1300 section with kids mostly in 2nd-5th grade:
Young player raises hand, calls me over, asks me, “Am I allowed to capture en passant here?” I answer, I believe correctly, that I can’t tell her what moves are legal in a current position. She then makes the en passant capture, and stops the clock and calls me over to ask if her move was legal. I ask her opponent if he thinks the move was legal, and he says no, so I have a dispute to arbitrate. The move was not in fact legal; the previous legal position was restored, and she made another move.
Now, the question: As her opponent did not claim touch move, is it my duty to crush this little girl in the name of the rules by telling her that she is required to move the pawn? I didn’t, as her opponent did not raise the issue and we weren’t generally intervening absent a dispute. Plus, I expect I would have had a very upset player and parent on my hands if I insisted on enforcing that touch move after refusing to answer whether the move was legal in the first place!
I do not think that you would have had a very upset player if you had enforced the touch move rule, as not all children are taught the odious principle of denying your responsibility and forcing others to make you submit to it after hearings and such.
In fact, children generally have an innate sense of justice, and this includes accepting consequences for their actions. It is adults who train this out of them in all too many cases.
I believe it would have been correct for you to remind her of the touch move rule when advising her that you could not answer her question as to the legality of a prospective move.
I also believe that it is incumbent on a TD to enforce the rules, and that undoing a move due to it being illegal per force means that the touch move rule is in play and must be applied.
This is a learning opportunity for all involved - yourself, the young player, and any advocates for her, as well as everyone else on the scene or in this discussion. Thank you for bringing it here.
Answering whether a particular prospective move on a board is legal strikes me as improper intervention, since an illegal move is penalized with a time penalty and, well, enforcement of touch move. Perhaps I could have explained when en passant is legal generally, but stopping the game to explain that particular complicated rule seemed likely to backfire, and is different from a question like, “May I castle such that my rook moves through check?,” which is easy enough to answer with a “Yes.”
I think the difference is between asking about what the rule is and how the rule prospectively will apply to a particular game in progress based on a player’s future action. I’d be reluctant to answer the question, “If I move Nf6, will it be a draw by repetition?” by trying to arbitrate the answer before the player moves, though I might say, “You claim a draw by repetition by calling me over before making the move, telling me that if you make the move it will cause the third repetition of a position in this game. Are you making such a claim?”
In a famous anecdote analogous to yours, either Boris Spassky or Viktor Korchnoi, is said to have asked an arbiter whether it was legal to castle kingside once, in a situation in which his king’s rook was under attack diagonally. The arbiter succeeded in advising him whether he could castle, which he then did.
Depending on the age level, explaining en passant generally takes 10 to 30 seconds. Even kindergarteners can usually have it explained within 30 seconds.
And then there’s the additional monkey wrench of coaches who run K-3 tournaments which “don’t use” the en passant rule. You weren’t inadvertently directing one of those, were you?
It isn’t proper for a TD to answer a question like “can I do ___ in this situation.” But it is correct, and part of a TD’s job, to clarify in general terms what the rules are.
I really can’t imagine why you’d think it was okay to explain, without being asked by either player, how the touch-move rule works but wouldn’t think it was okay to explain, in response to a poorly worded question by one player, how the en passant rule works.
I believe your assessment concerning the initial question was incorrect. There is a difference between telling a player “what moves are legal in a current position” and answering a specific question about whether a specific move would be legal. In the former situation, you are enumerating the legal moves and possibly giving the player advice if the player would not have recognized a possible move that you enumerate. In the latter case, you are asked a specific question that admits an answer of a single word: either “yes” or “no.” You are not telling the player of a move that the player has not already considered; nor are you in any way commenting on the advisability of the move. You yourself mention the example of answering the question “may I castle when the rook has to move through ‘check’?”, which also allows a single word answer of either “yes” or “no.” You believe that you are allowed to answer that question. Assuming that question arises in a game where the player is indeed considering castling queenside where the b1 or b8 square is attacked, I can not see why you should be able to answer one of these questions but not the other.
(A friend who teaches young children told me that there’s an interesting developmental step involved with pieces moving backwards. Young enough children won’t get the concept that a piece [especially a knight] can move backwards.)
Contrary to other suggestions in the replies, I would not engage the player in an explanation of the en passant rule when asked this question. That is volunteering too much information, in my opinion. (I would certainly explain the rule to the player after the game, if time allows.)
Unless you are using variant 11H1, you do not need the opponent to make a claim of an illegal move if you have witnessed the illegal move (unless one or both players have less than five minutes left in the time control).
Note the language in rule 11A that states: “The game shall then continue by applying Rule 10, The Touched Piece, to the move replacing the illegal move.” A member of the rules committee has argued that this means there does not have to be a claim of a violation of rule 10 when dealing with correction of an illegal move. Therefore, you are required to tell the player that she must move the pawn if it is possible to do so. If it is not possible to move the pawn but it is possible to capture the opponent’s pawn with a different piece, then the player must do so. Otherwise, the player is free to make any legal move.
(Actually, there is a slightly tricky aspect of this answer. The correct answer really depends on the order in which the player touched her pawn and the opponent’s pawn. If she touched the opponent’s pawn first, she is obligated to capture the pawn if possible. Otherwise, she is obligated to move her pawn if possible. If neither is possible, she may make any legal move. If it is not possible to determine which piece was touched first, the presumption is that the player touched her own piece first.)
When TD’s think they can’t even answer questions concerning the rules, this non-intervention thing has gone way too far.
As others have said, when the kid asked whether the en passant capture was legal, the TD should have answered “No”. The player was asking a rules question, which it was the TD’s role to answer. It is not “intervening” in the game to answer a rules question. There was no need to explain en passant in general, since that was not asked. “Yes” or “no” would have sufficed.
Next, the player makes the illegal en passant capture, calls the TD over and asks the TD a second time whether the move was legal. Still not answering, this time the supposedly non-intervening TD gets the other played involved by asking what he “thinks”. Why is a non-interventionist TD stirring up disputes between players? Why not take the same line as before? Namely, I can’t answer your questions. Prompted by the TD, the other player says he thinks the move is illegal. So now the TD finally has a “dispute” which he can resolve. The TD undoes the illegal move, but forgets about touch/move. Good thing the other player didn’t call that, because the TD would then have to enforce touch/move and the hapless player would have to move the pawn – all because the TD wouldn’t answer a rules question.
It seems to me that if you are going to cleave to the non-interventionist line so rigidly as to create nonsensical situations like this, you at least ought to be consistent and not stir up disputes between players to “resolve”.
This is an important part of this story, in my opinion. The level and nature of the tournament often dictates the level to which I will actively intervene in a game. In a local scholastic tournament, I will often point out rules violations (and potential rules violations) whether I’m asked to or not. The reason is that I view such tournaments as preparation for open events and national/state scholastic events, and I would much rather make sure the players involved are aware of the rules issues in advance of those events.
I believe a director should never tell a player whether a move is legal in an active game when said player is on move, so I agree with you here. What you can always do, though, is explain for both players what a legal en passant move entails - and looks like, if you have an empty board nearby or an analysis set on hand.
If the pawn formation in the game in question allows, you can even illustrate it on the game board (though, I’d prefer not using the exact pawn the player wants to move).
What a difference a minute makes. If a rules violation is brought to a director’s attention, said director is required to resolve it and apply any necessary penalties. It doesn’t matter if the offender or the offended is the party to bring it to the TD.
To directly answer your question, I believe it was your duty to completely enforce the touch-move rule. If you are made aware of a rules violation, you have to apply the correct remedy. If that remedy includes a penalty, so be it.
As for the upset player/parent: if you run a lot of scholastic events, you’ll run into those. (Some, you will find, are only upset on days ending in “-y”.) All you can do is resolve a raised rules violation correctly, and then explain the rules clearly to all interested parties.
There is a certain art to handling situations where your ruling upsets someone. My general tack is to (1) walk any dispute away from the playing area, (2) ensure my voice stays low and even, (3) be sympathetic but firm, (4) provide a layman’s explanation of what rule was broken and what penalty applies, (5) keep a copy of the rulebook handy in case someone asks to see it for themselves, and (6) keep the discussion short. I probably would spend no more than 3 minutes or so discussing the matter. The player needs to get back to the game, and you can’t have that game hold up the round when the ruling is clear.
This involved Korchnoi, during his 1974 match with Karpov. And there was one distinction about Korchnoi’s question to the arbiter that I believe constitutes a big difference with the situation under discussion in this thread. What Korchnoi asked the arbiter was, “Can I castle if my rook is attacked?” The arbiter (the late Alberic O’Kelly) answered in the affirmative.
I think this story is related in The Even More Complete Chess Addict, by Fox and James.
I would have simply answered yes or no. In my opinion, they are asking a rules question. By answering, I am not giving advice. It could be a great move; it could be a horrible move. My answer only addresses if it’s a legal move.
I find that once players know the story of how castling and how en passant came to be, they rarely - even if young - get confused in the future. Had Korchnoi known the story, he would have known he could castle.
If a rules violation is brought to a director’s attention, said director is required to resolve it and apply any necessary penalties. It doesn’t matter if the offender or the offended is the party to bring it to the TD.