New FIDE Arbiters Manual

If you are looking for some light reading, or simply want to up your arbiting skills, then the new FIDE Arbiters Manual should be added to your 'lock down entertainment list'. Revised after the last FIDE Congress, it's 200 pages cover all the things you need to know for running FIDE rated and title events.
The document can be downloaded (as a pdf) at https://www.fide.com/docs/regulations/ARB%20Manual%202020.pdf and it is free to read and distribute.

Protect not punish

One of the concepts that new (or young) players have is that the laws of chess are as much about protecting them as it is about punishing their opponents. During a school coaching session yesterday there was a player who wanted to change their move on the grounds that their initial move was 'bad'. When I pointed out that they had taken their hand off the piece and that meant the move stood, they argued that it was a silly rule. My counter argument was that if she was allowed to ignore the rules, so was her opponent, and that her opponent could now checkmate her by simply playing two moves in a row. I'm not sure how convincing that argument was, as she then simply resigned and started a new game.
The concept of rules being a protection applies in other ways. One of the most common causes of disputes is 'touch move' where one player claims their opponent touches a piece, and the other denies it. In the absence of witnesses the normal practice is to accept the denial, unless the player concerned has 'form' in this area.  While some may argue that this is unfair to disbelieve a players claim, it does protect players from false or mistaken claims made by an opponent.
Of course this did not help in one case I read about recently. During an international junior event a player moved while the opponent was away from the board. Then before the opponent returned, they played a move for the opponent (with a rook), but returned the piece to the start square. When the opponent returned and played a different move, they claimed the opponent had touched the rook and had to move that instead, which lost in all cases. Normally this would be rejected by the arbiter, but as the games were being played on DGT boards, the 'fact' that the rook had been moved was registered, and the claim was upheld!

Surprising little rules

I'm off to run an Arbiters Seminar in the Solomon Islands this week, and have been going through old exam papers and lectures notes. While double checking the recent changes to the Laws of Chess, I was reminded of an old, but possibly overlooked rule. In the case of a capture, your move has not been 'made' until you release the captured piece from your hand. As a result, pressing your clock with a captured piece is actually illegal.

(** Update: As has been pointed out in the comments section my reading skills need some work, in that I read 'capturing' as 'captured'. So please ignore everything in this post)

Should officials help players?

A few days back there was some controversy at the US Open (Tennis, not chess), when the chair umpire came down to give Nick Kyrgios a pep talk during his 2nd round match. Kyrgios picked up his form, and went on to win the match. This sparked a discussion about whether the umpire's actions affected the outcome of the match, and whether it was the correct thing to do.
This question occasionally pops up in chess events as well, when arbiters are called upon to help players. At junior events this can often go as far as calming down upset children when they blunder, but it also happens in open events.
The most common case is making sure players follow the rules. An example from a number of years ago was when a player asked me what the correct procedure was for claiming a draw by repetition. If I refused to answer there was a chance that he would do it wrong and be penalised. If I did answer I could be helping him save a game that he otherwise may lose. So essentially my decision would affect the result one way or another.
I did explain the rules to the player (which the opponent had no problem with) and if I recall correctly, he realised his draw claim would be invalid under the circumstances, and played a move as normal. Since then the Laws of Chess have been updated to deal with this situation, in that players are now entitles to ask the arbiter to explain any rule (and I used this example in helping draft the new rule).
This is probably as far as I would go though. Certainly reminding a player to press their clock is a step to far, but there is still a bit of a grey area. If you saw a player touch one piece but then move another, would you wait until they pressed their clock to intervene, or say something straight away?

Default

Losing a game over the board is bad enough, but to lose it for other reasons can be especially painful. By now most experienced players are familiar with the dreaded mobile phone forfeit, but if you've played chess long enough, you eventually learn there are other ways to hand over a point.
Oversleeping is always a goody, and looking over Bill Egan's book on the Doeberl Cup, I see that a few players have fallen foul of this. IM Aleks Wohl did this on at least two occasions, missing out on playing GM Eduard Gufeld in 1988, while I was even guilty of this offence in my first Doeberl Cup in 1985 (In my defence I had worked a 10pm to 6am shift, and my mother ignored my instructions to wake me at 9am).
Flipping a chess board is a rarity, but I know of at least one incident (at a local club) where a player upended a table, and walked out before being defaulted. (It seems that the player had tangled his bag around the table leg, and in grabbing the bag, upset the table.)
Of course with the various "no draw before x moves" rules in play, it is now easier to be double forfeited. This has happened on occasion, but not in any tournaments I've directed. On the other hand, failure to report a result has resulted in me recording 0-0 in lots of tournament, usually in blitz, but also in at least one Doeberl Cup.
Fortunately the one object that has caused more forfeits during the game (the mobile phone), is probably responsible for less accidental forfeits by sleeping in. Whether it has been a net gain, I'm not totally sure.

Did Black move first?

While digging through some information concerning the "Immortal Game", I came across a piece of information I have never seen before. According to the July 1851 edition of "The Chess Player" by Horwitz and Kling, Anderssen actually played with the black pieces during the game. But before you think the result has been misreported for over 150 years, the game is given with Anderssen (as Black) still making the first move. It does not seem to be a typo in the magazine, as the notes attached refer to Black as the winner.
If this were the case Anderssen's play is even more impressive, as playing with white as black can be quite off putting. I've seen it done on occasion (usually after a quick loss at skittles and the players are too lazy to swap the pieces) but even then, the king and queen are often swapped, so that short castling is still to the right for 'Black'.
 

It's now two illegal moves for everything

Although the FIDE Laws of Chess are only supposed to be changed every 4 years, and only with the approval of a FIDE General Assembly, this rule seemed to go out the window a few years back, at least once the Presidential Board decided to have its less than timely say on these matters.
So it isn't a surprise that the Laws of Chess were amended at this years FIDE Congress, apparently to provide some clarity to the wording.
However at least one major change seems to have been made, concerning the handling of illegal moves. In the past the rate of play determined how many illegal moves lost a game (1 for blitz, 3 for standard). This was then altered to 2 for standard, and 1 for rapidplay and blitz. But there was always an underlying desire to make the Laws apply equally to all forms of competition chess, and this seems to have motivated the change.
Now 2 illegal moves lose across all forms of the game, including blitz (taking effect from 1 January 2018). For the first illegal move, the 'call the arbiter over' process applies, with a 2 minute time bonus being given to the non offending side. The 2nd illegal move loses (if claimed), subject to the usual caveats.
To be fair, I don't think this is a bad idea, although I can see arbiters being run off their feet at large blitz events. For rapidplay I think it is very sensible (and is actually the system I continue to use at Street Chess). If you want to check the minutes from the meeting where the decision was made, you can do so here.

When both players resign

"The game is won by the player whose opponent declares he resigns. This immediately ends the game." This is section 5.1.2 in the FIDE Laws of Chess. At some point in the past it was suggested that two players could scam the system by both resigning simultaneously, thereby earning each player a full point. The FIDE Rules Commission even discussed this (briefly), and IA Franca Dapiran made the sensible suggestion to only accept the resignation of the player who had the move.

Of course such a bizarre situation would not happen in practice now, would it? Well, not exactly.

At Street Chess today something awfully close to this did happen. The sequence of events seemed to go like this. The white player (who I shall call Scully) played a move, putting his opponent (who I shall call Mulder) in check. Now Mulder did not notice, and played a move putting Scully in check. At this point Scully simply stopped the clock but said nothing. Mulder, who thought he was winning, extended his hand, believing Scully was resigning. Scully accepted the offered hand, believing that Mulder realised he'd played an illegal move and was himself resigning. (NB At Street Chess we play second illegal move loses). Now I'm not sure which of the players realised something had gone awry, but at this point I was called over. Further confusion ensued as Scully was worried he'd done something illegal in stopping the clock (no, but he should have told his opponent why), and then decided to resign. Realising what had happened, I gave Scully 2 extra minutes, told him he wasn't to resign yet, and to continue the game. 

Unfortunately I had to return to the same game a few minutes later when another issue arose. By this stage both players were short of time, so after Scully moved, Mulder replied instantly (and before Scully had pressed his clock). Scully then pressed his clock, completing his last move ( which I encourage under these circumstances), and Mulder then pressed the clock (without moving of course), to complete his move. However this confused Scully, who thought that Mulder had not played a move (even though he witnessed it). About half way through me going over this issue with the players (and in the midst of a gathering crowd), Mulder offered Scully a draw, and rather than listen to me lecturing them, shook hands and split the point.

The curse of the upside down rook

The 2017 Canadian Championship seems to have ended with some controversy after the final playoff game saw an all to familiar issue involving promotion. IM Nikolay Noritsyn and GM Bator Sambuev had tied for first place, and were even after 5 playoff games. In a 5m+3 blitz game Noritsyn promoted a pawn, but not being able to find a queen went for the old blitz standby of an upside down rook. At this point the chief arbiter stopped the clock and ensured that the piece on the board was a correctly placed rook. Sambuev then promoted (to a queen) and went on to win.
Despite the rules concerning promotion being quite clear for a number of years, players still manage to get this wrong. The key point is that if the piece you wish to promote to is not available you can stop the clock and request the arbiter fetch you a piece. In this case Noritsyn could not find the queen in among the already captured pieces, and there is a suggestion that Sambuev had the piece in his hand. (NB This is not against the rules, and indeed should make the case for stopping the clock even more obvious).
Personally I have little sympathy for players who get this wrong. While it may be argued that it is hard to think straight with seconds left on the clock, this is one of the few situations where you are legally allowed to 'steal' thinking time. If you recognise that promotion is likely to occur and you are short of time, the smarter thing to do is to remind yourself to stop the clock if necessary 30 seconds out, rather than kicking yourself after the game is over.
BTW I must commend the chief arbiter IA Pierre Denommee for handling the situation this way. The alternative would have been to say nothing (assuming Sambuev did not complain) and then default Noritsyn if he moved the rook diagonally.

50 moves and counting

A bit of a first for me tonight, as I finally had a 75 move draw ruling to make. In a topsy turvy game, the two players involved took turns at gaining and then losing the advantage until a Rook v Bishop ending was reached. As there were no pawns left, the player with the bishop headed straight to the corner, correctly choosing the one his bishop did not control. This allowed him to block any annoying checks, and set up some stalemate situations. The stronger side kept pushing (as is his right), but to no avail. Once they reached move 50 (around move 140 in the actual game), I wondered if a claim would be made (by the player with the bishop most likely), but none was forthcoming. As the players were moving quite quickly I did not mind, and soon enough move 75 was reached, at which point I stopped the clocks.
I've had longer games, and indeed I once was an arbiter where the players played at least 80 moves after the last pan move or capture, but this was before the 75 move rule was on the books.
 

Maybe I should have said nothing

I had an interesting game on Saturday. The first few moves were 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4.d4 exd 5.e5 Ne4 then after a longish think, my opponent found the novelty 6.dxe5! For a moment I thought I had missed something, but quickly realised what had happened. I pointed out to my opponent that he had moved one of my pawns, and he apologised, laughed, and we corrected the mistake.
But two pawns is two pawns, and if I play 6. ... Nf6 instead of 6. ... Bc5 (which runs into 7.Qd5) I should be OK. Silence maybe golden!

FIDE Laws of Chess - Proposed changes

FIDE have published the proposed changes to the Laws of Chess, which you can find here. Most changes are to do with language, some with reorganising the document (numbering etc), and a few major changes.
Probably the most worrying is the return of the 'zero-default' rule, which had been removed a few years back. This rule has been the most unpopular rule in tournament chess ever since I had been involved, and it was a good thing that it was removed. So I'm not sure what the politics is behind bringing it back (and yes with FIDE it is always backroom politics), and I would hope that this proposal is rejected.
There are also changes to handling illegal moves, with players now only having to make a claim within 10 moves of the occurrence of an illegal move. This is to deal with the theoretical case of a player noticing an illegal move, deciding not to claim, and then waiting until much later in the game to make a claim, rewinding the game back to the legal position. The claim is that players could game the system by seeing if they are winning or losing before making a delayed claim, but I have never seen (or heard of it) in practice.
The only other change that jumps out at me is the handling of draw claims. The 5 times repetition rule has removed the requirement that the position occur via consecutive moves (which matches the three times repetition rule). Also it is now the players responsibility to check for three times repetition or a 50 move draw 'under the supervision of the arbiter' and that players now must assist in the reconstruction of games. I find this change odd, but possibly tacit recognition that too many arbiters are getting this part of their duties wrong.
Sadly, the changes signify a further move away from the ethos that chess players are relied upon to play fairly. Assuming players do not plan to cheat every time they sit down at the board makes for a simpler, more understandable set of rules, and by moving away from this, the rules are starting to become filled with 'corner cases' and 'what if's'

You be the Arbiter

Based on a question put to me by Miles Patterson, how would you rule on the following scenarios

• Player A is trying to checkmate Player B with only 3 moves left before Player B can claim a draw under the 50 move rule. Player B however loses on time and Player A claims the game. Player B then claims it should be a draw as Player A does not have a forced mate in 3 (which is true) and he would then claim a draw. What do you rule?
• Same situation as above but in this case Player A has K+N and Player B has K+B. What do you rule now?
• Same situation as the second case but neither player has claimed a draw under the 50 move rule and it is now 72 moves since the last pawn move or capture. Does your previous decisions change?

My answers in a couple of days, but for now, help yourselves.

Korchnoi's complaint

A number of years ago I heard a story about Viktor Korchnoi having to ask an arbiter if he could castle when his rook was attacked. It was one of the 'ha ha Grandmasters don't know the rules' stories that you hear every now and then, without knowing whether it is actually true or not.
It turns out there is some doubt about the story, and I have seen a few different versions told. There is less doubt a similar story concerning Yuri Averbakh, who when playing CJS Purdy, thought that Purdy had castled illegally queenside as his rook passed over an attacked square (b8 in this case).
Amazingly, I saw examples of both of these situations in the one game that was played at Street Chess today. On move 13, Alana Chibnall castled kingside while her rook on h1 was attacked by the bishop on c6, and then 9 moves later Miles Patterson castled queenside, with the rook passing over the b8 square that was attacked by the bishop on f4.
When I pointed this out after the games both players simply shrugged, as while unusual, they both knew that castling was perfectly legal in both cases.


Chibnall,Alana - Patterson,Miles [C00]
Street Chess (4.1), 07.11.2015

Chess rule of the day

9.2 - Threefold repetition (of position)

2015 World Cup - Nepomniachtchi dudded

Round 3 of the 2015 FIDE World Cup ended in controversy, after Hikaru Nakamura beat  Ian Nepomniachtchi in an 'Armageddon' game. Early in the game Nakamura castled with two hands, in direct contravention to Article 4.1 of the FIDE Laws of Chess. As the game was played in the presence of an arbiter, the first thing that should have happened was that the arbiter should have immediately intervened. Although the game was a blitz game (in terms of time), Article B.3 of the Laws of Chess specify that the game is played under Competition (ie standard) Rules, as it is being observed by an arbiter, and recorded by electronic means.
However the arbiter(s) did nothing and the game continued. After the game, which Nakamura won, Nepomniachtchi filed a protest which was handled by the appeals committee. The appeals committee allowed the result to stand, which only compounded the mistake made by the arbiter. The argument from the appeals committee was that Nepomniachtchi was at fault because he failed to stop the clock and inform the arbiter that an illegal move had occurred.
I have a couple of problems with this reasoning. Firstly, the job an arbiter does is not dependant upon the players playing the game. If you are tasked with ensuring the Laws of Chess are strictly observed (Article 12.1) then that's what you do. And this should have been the starting point for the Appeals Committee. Once it is established that the officials failed to do their job correctly, then the Appeals Committee should have at least ordered the game to be replayed (IMO). (Note: In at least two occasions where actions of the officials in contravention to the laws of chess have affected a games result, I have recommended the replay of the game).
The other issue is that FIDE itself have been pushing for a more interventionist role for arbiters. While a member of the FIDE Rules Commission (from 2008 to 2014), there was a clear directive from members of the FIDE Presidential Board that all competition chess should follow the same set of rules, wherever possible. This resulted in changes to the laws regarding blitz chess, where arbiters now *must* flag players, rather than leaving it up to players to notice. Personally I was opposed to these changes, but once a FIDE VP lobs into your meeting and tells you what the new rules will be, there is little room for argument.
So the notion pushed by the appeals committee that it was only up to the player to make sure the rules were enforced is somewhat contradictory. Of course, having been the subject of a disciplinary process by FIDE, having contradictory outcomes depending on the people involved is not unknown, so such inconsistencies  are not that surprising.
Small comfort for Nepomniachtchi, but at least he was refunded his $500 appeal bond.

And I thought I had a bad day

Last night at Belconnen Chess Club I had the mortifying experience of blundering an advantageous position when I played the second move of my calculation, rather than the first. At first glance I thought I had tossed a rook (I had planned to play a check while a rook was en pris but moved my queen one square too far), but was able to at least win back the rook with the check I intended to play straight away. Unfortunately this gave my tenacious opponent an extra move in the position and it was all he needed to head into an endgame that was winning for him,
So I was feeling a bit sorry for myself (and annoyed as well), when I heard about Magnus Carlsen's first round game at the 2015 Norway Chess tournament. Having ground down Veselin Topalov he reached move 60 and relaxed a bit, expecting some extra time to be added to his clock. What he failed to remember/realise was that the event was using a new time control (the third new control in 3 years!) and  while he had received extra time at move 40, there was nothing added at move 60. As a result his think over move 61 took too long and he lost on time.
As usual he took his defeat in his stride, acknowledging that it was his responsibility to know the tournament conditions. On the other hand the time control was new, and possibly unique at this level, with the players getting 120 minutes for the first 40 moves, then an extra hour added after that, with the 30 second increment also starting after move 40.
To be honest I am not keen on the shift back to sudden death time controls at the top level (ie no increment before the first time control). I understand it is about making chess more dramatic (who doesn't love a time scramble), but I think it can detract from the overall result and quality of the game.

The royal couple

It has been a while since I have blogged about the weird and wonderful "rules" that players believe are proper chess rules. The most recent addition to my list came from a schools event I ran last week. One poor player, playing in their first proper chess event, was most upset when he was told he had been checkmated. Wile he accepted that yes, he was in check, and yes, there was no way to get out of check, it still didn't count as he still had his queen on the board. "You can't get checkmated while you still have a queen" was his claim, a claim I had to explain to him, was incorrect.
Nonetheless this "rule" may make a interesting chess variant. Even if you are checkmated with queens on the board, you can still play on, as long as your queen survives. The game might then turn into a battle between the enemy pieces and the queen, while the defending side could be torn between using the queen to lift the mate, or hiding her as far away as possible.
I suspect the overall result would be longer games, but on the other hand, players would be less inclined to swap queens in the opening.

Who decides the result of a game?

Last year during a meeting of the FIDE Rules Commission one discussion turned to the topic of who actually decides the result of  a chess game. I had simply assumed the game was decided by the players by actually playing the game (with a few minor exceptions) and if I remember correctly made this point. I was a little surprised that there was a strong argument that in fact it is the arbiter who decides the result, which was put forward by some of my colleagues. There position was that as the arbiter is required to ensure that the Laws of Chess are followed, they have the final say, as there are situations where the Laws may not be followed (eg outside assistance, intimidating the opponent) or simple situations like losing on time or claiming repetitions.
While I realise that we may be splitting hairs on this topic (it would be a shortly unemployed arbiter who just changed results based on a whim), it still may be a distinction worth making.
Round 9 of the current FIDE Grand Prix event saw an incident which is related to this topic. There was a repetition claim in the game between Karjakin and Caruana, and after checking the arbiter declared it a draw. Then the arbiter realised a mistake had been made (due to misreading the scoresheet) and the claim was incorrect. Although both players signed the scoresheets (with a draw recorded as the result) they were asked to recommence the game, which they did (It was still drawn somewhat later). In this case the arbiter was correct in fixing up the mistake, which supports the argument that the arbiter decides the result. Of course if the players had been happy with a draw at that point they could have agreed to one, which then supports my argument!

(As an aside, I am no longer a member of any FIDE Commissions. Short reason: Elections have consequences. Long reason: The subject of a future blog post)

Good tie-breaks

Lets start with the idea that there is no perfect tie-break system. Some are probably better than others, but not all tie-breaks work the same way in different situations. Having been involved in various technical discussions about tie-breaks over the years, what I have mainly learned is that tie-breaks are often a matter of preference, and depend on how you weight the pros and cons.
For example, head-to-head seems to be a fair system. And yet some people object on the grounds that you don't know which games are important and which are not, until towards the end of the tournament. Others like systems like Sum of Progressive Scores, which do not depend on the results of other players, while just as many prefer SOS (Buccholz), on the grounds that you need to measure a players performance using the rest of the field.
One tie-break that I have been utilising recently is APRO - Average Performance Rating of Opponents. This was drawn to my attention by Roberto Ricca (Secretary of the FIDE Pairings Commission), as part of his work for the FIDE Rules Commission. You simply calculate the Performance Rating of each player, and then take the average of everyone that a player has played. On the upside it seems to work ok, even with unrateds (although not too many), as they will also have a TPR, even if it is based on a few games. It also happily deals with bye/forfeits/missing games as it is an averaging system. On the other hand it is difficult to work out on the fly, meaning that players find it difficult to calculate their own tie breaks (NB some organisers think this is a positive).
Whether it catches on probably depends on which arbiters push it. If it turns up in a high profile event, like the European Championships, and solves the tie-break problems that have occurred in the past, then I can see it becoming more popular. Otherwise it may just float around in the background, used for small events, but nothing too crucial.