In a tournament game last night a delay clock was used.
The time control stipulated by the tournament rules was Game/90 or if a delay clock was used,
then the clock had to be set for Game/85 with a 5-second delay.
As it was established the next day, through the acting TD who was observing this game,
the clock was actually set erroneously to Game/85 without delay.
At a certain point in time the player of the White pieces noticed that his opponent’s clock
was showing zero seconds and made a claim for a time forfeit win.
The player of the Black pieces contested this claim by asking “where are my 5 seconds?”
The clock owner and the person who set the clock was the player of the White pieces.
The acting TD at that point made a ruling that the forfeit claim was valid.
At the time of the claim, it was not clear to the acting TD that the absence of the delay
on the clock was an erroneous setting and not a mutually agreed upon setiing of the clock.
In the 5th edition of USCF rules, rule 16G states that
“If either 16Ga or 16Gb , occurs the director should deny the claim of a time forfeit and the game is continued, with a differnt clock, if possible. A later time forfeit claim in that control by either player is still allowed.”
My question: Is the 16G rule relevant in this case, and what is a proper way to resolve this?
The question is whether “incorrect setting” in 16Gb was intended to include not having the delay on. If it was, I suppose the TD would have no choice but to give the player whose flag had fallen a small amount of time, turn on the delay, and allow the game to continue. As matter of equity, I dislike this solution, since the fallen player had had nearly three hours to notice that the delay was off, and didn’t mention it until his flag was down.
Then I would add 5 seconds per move played, turn on the delay and continue the game. Since the clock was set at 85 minutes, Black had every reason to expect the delay and the clock was clearly set incorrectly. The only legal settings were 90 minutes without delay or 85 with.
Since the control was G/90 without delay or G/85 + 5 seconds, I would restore 5 minutes to each side and tell them to resume play. I do not believe that an improperly set clock should benefit the person who set it, even if it was unintentional. If that was the case, then some players would intentionally set the clock wrongly and then lie to win games.
Rule 16Bb says “Players are responsible for knowing how to set their own clocks”. I don’t like it when a player is rewarded for incompetence. To let white win this way would do exactly that and ignore his responsibility.
Rule 16P TD tip seems to favor my solution above.
I don’t think a rule about a premature flag fall applies here.
If they were playing with White’s clock, that suggests that the reason may have been that White had a delay clock and Black didn’t, in which case Black may not have been familiar with how delay clocks work, or that it’s possible for a delay clock to be set to have no delay. Black may not have paid any attention to the clock until he was running out of time, and at that point he may have been careful to make each of his moves in less than 5 seconds and then been puzzled as to why he ran out of time anyway.
That’s true, but I don’t consider it especially relevant. Ignorance is not an excuse. There are several plausible argument for continuing the game, but I don’t see this as one of them.
The fact is that the player that owned the clock did not set it properly. Whether he did this intentionally or not doesn’t matter as ignorance is no excuse for the law. Whether the player that did not own the clock knew any details or not of the clock does not matter because the setting of the clock is the responsibility of the clock owner.
In this case the player did set the main game time at 85 minutes instead of 90 indicating that it was his public intention to use the delay. The 5 minute reduction of the main time was to balance the addition of time using the delay. Therefore, the most accurate action of the TD would be to give both players the total time of 5 seconds per move played, added to their main time control and institute the delay from there on.
White’s ignorance is not an excuse because rule 16B says that players are responsible for knowing how to set their own clocks. But Black’s ignorance is an excuse, IMO, since rule 16B also says that a player whose clock is being used should explain the clock’s operation to their opponent.
Not having the delay on, especially in conjunction with the initial setting of 85 minutes instead of 90, certainly IS an example of an incorrectly set clock.
Trouble is, since the player of the black pieces pointed out the error only after the time expired, was the claim (of an error) pointed out during the game, or after? That interpretation could go either way.
It could be argued that there is no excuse for black not noticing, earlier in the game, that the delay was not set. That gets tricky, though. On some clocks it is almost impossible to tell. For example, what about an older-model Saitek that is set for Bronstein, and displays only hours and minutes (not seconds) until the main time goes below 5 minutes? In that case, if the opponent (or a TD) insists that black should have noticed the error earlier, he would seem to be on shaky ground, at best.
If the td rules that the flag fell prematurely (16G.b.) and denies the time forfeit claim, then it has been pointed out during the game since the game still isn’t over yet.
Hey, you’re right, that works. Somehow, I had overlooked that 16G (originally intended for situations where an analog clock still shows a white space between the hand and the minute mark) had been updated to include certain digital situations, including not having the delay set.
