The meeting of the FIDE Rules and Tournament Regulations Commission is now into its second day (Don't worry, we were allowed a break to sleep yesterday). Yesterday had a lot of discussion about changes to the Laws of Chess, and we made one big, and somewhat surprising decision.
For the moment, the entire section 10 of the Laws of Chess (Quickplay finish) has been removed. This means that the difficult 10.2 rule is history. The upside of this is that Arbiters no longer have to involve themselves in the outcome of the game, but the downside is that players can now simply shuffle pieces to run their opponent out of time.
While I feel arguments for both sides are perfectly valid (having more time than your opponent is an advantage v winning a position that is drawn on the board), I was surprised it came up as an issue at all. It was a recent addition to the agenda (it only appeared in August), and I suspect the general public were not aware that this issue was up for discussion.
The vote was very close btw, and I think a modified version of the Law will be reintroduced (possibly later today) to deal with the fact that large number of events are still run using analogue clocks. Watch this space.
*** Update ***
After 2 days without regulations concerning Quickplay finishes, they are now to be put back in. The have been shifted to the appendices and will be titled 'Regulations for Quickplay Finishes' (or something similar). Don't be surprised if they look almost the same as the previous section 10.
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In England, tournaments and later leagues introduced rules for quick play finishes and rapidplay games from about 1975 onwards. It took FIDE until about 1990 to catch up when it abolished adjournments as a standard playing feature.
So the ECF would have to reintroduce its own rule set if 10.2 goes. If this were not permitted, the English chess scene would either have to give up playing chess or being members of FIDE.
If you have an absolutely fixed playing session, alternatives to playing to the death are limited, particularly with analogue clocks.
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