No kidding! I brought my own Chronos clock with me to Chicago Open but needed to use it just once because six of my seven opponents had a working Chronos clock. (Even the seventh had one, but one of the buttons had fallen off.) In the last round, most (all?) games in Open section used either Chronos or the FIDE clock while the top 12 boards in U2300 all used a Chronos.
The one area where analog clocks are still very common is scholastic chess. Most players in K-3 and K-6 sections tend to have standard analog clocks, except for some of the top rated kids. CalChess actually still has the rule that analog clocks are preferred over digital at its state scholastic championship in all elementary school sections, and the coaches at these schools feel strongly about this rules variant. Two big reasons for this rule: cost and that young kids get confused by the many ways to set the digital clocks, opening the door to cheating against an unsuspecting opponent.
I still have the analog clock I bought 10+ years ago. Until 5-second delay started to become the norm, I never had any reason to replace it – after all, it works perfectly well. So you’ll still see me carrying it around, although, thanks to the “delay clock preference” rule, I rarely get to use it in a tournament game anymore.
How does this rule (I know it’s current) NOT fly in the face of “the TD shall not consider the players’ ratings (a.k.a. strength, know-how, etc)”?
If we are not to consider the ratings (and I understand that we aren’t, according to the current rule), how are we allowed to confer with the players as to their plans?
Ken Sloan points out that it is irrelevant whether or not the player “knows how to draw”, since the standard is “Class C player vs. Master”, therefore, what purpose is it to consult with the players?
A strong player might be able to educate a weak TD. Note that the TD should only consult with the players IF THE TD IS UNSURE. If the TD understands the position, he does not need to know whether or not the players do. That’s the hint that the players’ abilities DO NOT MATTER.
Now, it’s true that a strong player might get a few more ILC calls because he can explain why it’s an ILC position (and a weaker player can’t). But, clearly (?) that’s a second-order consideration. This advantage only comes into play when the TD is “unsure”.
Again - note that if the TD knows that the position is an ILC position (or, if he knows that it’s not) then he is not supposed to ask the players how they plan on proceeding. He should only ask if he is unsure. Even then - he’s asking for advice on the position, and NOT judging if the player is competent.
A TD who knows how to draw the position has no business asking the player if the player also knows. It’s just not relevant.
Similarly, when consulting with a strong (third party) player, the TD should not ask if the strong player can draw - but rather whether a C player could hold the draw against a Master.
First, a summary: the argument for repealing or rewriting 14H is that a 5-second delay should be the standard, and in games where there is a 5 second delay draws do not need to be adjudicated by a director (the “class C player can hold the draw against the master” standard or “the director believes the claim is clearly correct” standard) because the delay will allow the players to reach the draw themselves on the board, without risk of flagging.
Have I got that right so far? If not, I trust you all will speak up.
Someone brought this issue up locally, with a different take. Delay clock was being used in a game between two A or greater players. Player X was in time trouble, but managed to reach a K+R vs. K+R position and offered a draw. Player Y had a comfortable amount of time and wanted to continue. Player X thought the ILC rules should allow an ILC draw claim, in spite of the fact the two players were using a five-second delay.
This was resolved by having a director count moves for Player X. All of this was by the book. Fairly soon the two players agreed to a draw.
Said X: “why should I be allowed to make this claim (and potentially get a draw from the director) if I’m using the non-preferred analog clock, but I can’t make the claim if I’m using the preferred delay clock?”
In a post-mortem, player Z said “A five second delay isn’t enough in these situations. It’s too easy to make a mistake with a five second delay, particularly when there are spectators watching your time scramble. Good chess shouldn’t be about speed.”
Are these points valid? If so, does the proposed new 14H solve these issues? Should a player with a five-second delay have the right to request a draw ruling? Is a five second delay enough to ensure a draw in any one of the many possible “dead drawn” positions? Is it desirable to ensure a draw in a dead drawn position?
A director who believes the claim is clearly correct should declare the game drawn. The exact drawing and non-losing chances of any position cannot be calculated, but a director wishing a more precise standard may consider the likely game outcome if a delay clock were placed on the game. See also 14I, Advice on claims of insufficient losing chances in sudden death under rule 14H and 14H3, Conferring with players.
BTW: I have submitted 3 ADMs regarding 14H: (1) Elimination, (2) Clock replacement only or continue the game with the same clock if a delay is not available, and (3) Clock replacement only or TD intervention if delay is not available.
I look forward to the comments and revisions that the Delegates and Rules Committee come up.
Not quite - there is only one “standard”. The two you cite above are the same standard.
Well, he was wrong. See 14H5.
The points are valid - but at a meta-level. Also, these are different points, not addressed at all by the history of 14H. In other words - they may be worth considering, but they have nothing to do with 14H.
Remember the history. In the beginning, there was slow chess and there was Blitz chess. In slow chess, the clock was used to keep the game moving along - but was not intended to be part of the game. It was not intended (as, say, escalating blinds in poker) to force a conclusion to the game when the players wanted to play on. In Blitz, the clock was a first-class element of the game and it was considered proper to play on in a hopeless position that was nevertheless many moves from checkmate - forcing the opponent to mate you in the very limited amount of time left.
Enter sudden death and Allegro. The Allegro time control (G/30) was longer than Blitz, but it soon became obvious that players were adopting the Blitz-mentality to Allegro games. The games were not simply faster overall - they were a bit faster in the opening and middle-game, but became Blitz games at the end. This was considered bad.
One fix was the Allegro clock (time delay). When Allegro clocks are used everywhere, the Blitz component is greatly reduced.
But, not everyone had an Allegro clock. So…14H - which says “Thou shalt not treat Allegro like Blitz. Clearly drawn positions will be declared drawn by the TD.” 14H is limited to very clearly drawn positions, and note that it only allows you to get a draw - there are no “clearly won” position rules.
So, 14H is clearly aimed at solving the problem of Blitz mentality in Allegro games, where the other fix for this, the Allegro clock, is not available.
Your other points may be worthy of discussion (I think they go too far towards adjudication - which is used in other places) but the discussion should probably not start with 14H. 14H is an obvious Band-Aid, which should be torn off and discarded when it is no longer needed.
I think that time is now. “Repeal 14H”…and be done with it.
Yes, these points are very valid, but maybe not in the example you give.
Consider K+R+P vs K+R. This is a theoretical draw once Philidor’s Position is reached, and the defending K is in front of the pawn, but can still go wrong in a time scramble. It’s an even trickier position BEFORE Philidor’s Position, and a 5 second delay (for THIS player) is not always enough, though if I had more time, I would NOT lose OTB. With less than a minute, and only a 5-sec. delay, I could flag.
This was actually proven to me in a tournament, where I, as an assistant floor TD, upheld the claim, but my Chief TD (who, BTW, was a Local level TD, while I was a Senior) overturned it. Both players, it turned out, were A players, though I didn’t consider that during the claim phase. The defender mucked up in the time scramble, and allowed the opponent to promote the pawn.
My Chief, in his August manner, said "see? not a draw!). BS, I said to myself. Afterwards, the players proceeded to post-mortem, and the defending player showed that he could, in fact, draw that position.
I still say that was a bad ruling on the chief’s part, but oh well, he, at a local level, outranked me in that section. But that’s another topic.
No, they’re not. Tournament chess involves proper management of one’s time. This argument really reduces to “I should have as much time as I need.” That’s been tried. It didn’t work well. (C.f. Paulsen-Morphy.)
And, once you start making the “if I had more time” argument, where do you stop? Many positions with Rook plus f- and h-pawn versus Rook should be drawn. Likewise some positions with Rook, a- and h-pawn versus Rook. Could you draw them with five seconds per move? I doubt I could – and if I’d used up all my time, I wouldn’t deserve to.
What I think we have here is a fundamental misunderstanding of the purpose of the five-second delay. It’s not to insure a “just” result in every game. That’s never going to happen. The point it to prevent a player from losing only because it is physically impossible to make enough moves. To put it bluntly: If you can’t hold the position with five seconds per move, you will lose and you should lose.
I agree with your chief’s ruling - but not with his reasoning.
a) it does not matter that the position is a theoretical draw.
b) it does not matter that a particular game ended in a win
Both theoretical analysis and results-oriented thinking are inappropriate to an ILC claim. Any TD who justifies his decision to let a game continue by the actual result in that game is making bad rulings.
In this kind of position, I would generally not grant an ILC claim by the weaker side. R+P endings are notoriously (theoretically) drawn, but I don’t know any Master who wouldn’t give draw odds against a C player. The TD Tip suggests a 90% chance that a C player would hold the draw, given sufficient time, against a Master. I’ll take all the action I can get at 9-1 odds. Masters will easily win half the time.
Alas, if you make the correct ruling (“no ILC draw”) in these positions, you will get long, detailed, loud instructive lectures from Experts on up as to how this is a “theoretical draw”. But, you see, the words “theoretical draw” do not appear anywhere in 14H. It simply does…not…matter.
Note that I’m not even considering whether the position has reached a Philidor-type position.
I propose an experiment. Let’s find 100 Masters and 100 C players with no hint of what’s to come. Set up the Philidor position and let the players play out the position. I’ll bet $1000 that the Masters will win more than 10% of the games. (no fair using the same C player for every game…I’ll allow as how he might learn the position eventually - although he’ll probably forget it by next month).
And, that’s all it takes to deny an ILC claim. More than 10% wins by Masters over C players.
Essentially, granting an ILC claim is equivalent to citing the opponent for unsportsmanlike conduct. Or ignorance. Or stupidity.
go back and read all the reports we’ve seen here that end with “…fortunately, his opponent accepted the draw at this point and I didn’t have to rule on the position”.
I’ll bet that 75% of all positions where the opponent does not accept the draw offer should be ruled as “clearly incorrect”. Except, perhaps, in New York.
It’s not clear from what you write exactly what the ruling was and what the alternatives were. Was there a delay clock available? Was it put in the game? That would be the correct ruling. Adjudicating the game would be a very bad idea. Of course, if there wasn’t a delay clock available, it gets more complicated.
I might mention that I was present for what may have been the first occasion that the “add a delay clock” rule was used, by Bill Goichberg. In a game between two IMs, a claim was made in a position of Rook and pawn versus Rook. Of course the position was a theoretical draw, but so what? So was Geller-Fischer from the Palma Interzonal. Bill put in the clock and I got to stand there and count 50 moves.
“Physically impossible”? So, only in cases where my hands are tied behind my back may I claim ILC? We’re not talking move controls here. We’re talking Sudden-Death. Of course, I think I understand that you meant to say it may be impossible to make 50 moves with a 5-second delay, and to that I agree, and say that that is part of the reason for 14H.
Again, I say your reasoning is wrong. It most certainly IS about having “more” time. A player should not lose on time with a position he’s not likely to lose over-the-board, and with ample time, as rule 14H2c states. Placing a delay clock on the game, giving the player less than 1 minute with 5 sec delay is not enough in some cases.
Don’t Kill it, understand it. The objective of a game of chess is to win by checkmate. 14H should remain as is!
Let me try again. In sudden death, with no delay and a few seconds left, it is going to be physically impossible to make, say, 50 moves if the opponent refuses to agree to a draw. That is the kind of thing 14H is intended to avoid. If you use up all your time in the earlier part of the game and don’t have enough left to find the right moves in the endgame, [i]you fully deserve to lose.[i] That has always been the case, at least since we started timing games back in the 19th century.
As for “a player should not lose on time with a position he’s not likely to lose over-the-board, and with ample time” – do you realize what you’re saying? Take one of my earlier examples, Rook, f- and h-pawn versus Rook. Could I draw that from the general case? Yes. Could I do it with five seconds a move? Almost certainly not. Does that mean I ought to be able to ask for as much time as I need? Get serious.
What you are suggesting was never the intent of the rule, or of time-delay in general. It represents a desire for a change in the system, reducing or eliminating the chance of losing because of insufficient time. It’s a legitimate wish (though in my opinion a foolish one). But it’s a wish, not a statement of fact. If you want things done that way, you are going to have to come up with a new set of rules and get them approved. Stretching the existing ones like sillly putty won’t do.
That is not what 14H2c says. 14H2c proposes a test involving a C player and a Master “with both players having ample time.” It says nothing about the probable result of the game played by the two specific players at the board. It is not about predicting the result of the current game, ample time or not.
There is no suggestion anywhere in 14H that the intent is to allow players more time in order to reach the proper result. Placing a time delay clock on the game is the third choice, after a) declaring the game drawn and b) declaring the ILC claim to be clearly incorrect.
Now, I understand that you think that “a player should not lose on time with a position he’s not likely to lose over-the-board, and with ample time” - but that’s not what the rule says.
Feel free to propose a new rule that says that - but I’m not sure how you will be able to word it. Consider a player who needs 5 minutes per move to play his best game. Should he get 5 minutes per move on his clock, even when the tournament is being played at G/30? Why not? Assume he has a position that he can win - if given 5 minutes per move. Should he be awarded the win? Should he be given 5 minutes per move to prove it? I don’t see how you are going to guarantee that “a player should not lose on time with a position he’s not likely to lose over-the-board, and with ample time”.
14H is intended to mitigate the effect of a short sudden death time control - but not to make the clock completely irrelevant.
Despite the promises made in the song, sometimes “You can’t really get what you need”.
overturned it. Both players, it turned out, were A players, though I didn’t consider that during the claim phase. The defender mucked up in the time scramble, and allowed the opponent to promote the pawn.