I have no general opinion. It could be “Have a nice day”. If the player assumes it is related to the game, then yes, it behooves the player to attempt to find out the intent of the opponent. Should we make a rule that sticking your hand out over the board means something specific? What? Why?
Alex Relyea
Could you please explain to me what rules you are referring to that allow communication with the opponent during the game, as you portray? When I am playing a US Chess rated game, and someone comes up to wish me a nice day, I find that distracting at best. And if it is my opponent saying, “Have a nice day,” either verbally or physically with a handshake, I would be inclined to stop the clock and call the TD. You are a TD are you not, Mr. Relyea?
But consider, Ron, that the discussion is pretty much about kids, who are the only ones who exhibit this behavior with any frequency. They will neither behave as adults nor respond to such behavior as adults.
Since Mr. Suarez has only directed 15 events, it is just barely possible that he hasn’t experienced something that many more experienced TDs have. Players don’t always know, never mind follow, all the rules. I think your solution is a good one, and, incidentally, would help solve the problem of what is meant by a hand hanging over the board.
FWIW, whenever there is a disturbance I hobble over to the board in question to a) quiet the room, and b) ascertain what is going on.
Alex Relyea
This is only the iceberg of tactics used. Rule invention is right up there to.
Such as:
A. you checked me three times, so automatic draw
B. The newly promoted queen cannot be taken for two turns.
C. the time period for the draw I offered expires after I move.
D. The move is legally en passant if I say it is.
E. You must make the move you wrote down, even if no pieces have been touched.
Have often been heard by this TD
Also I have seen kids go up to their opponent before the game, look at their opponents rating and laugh.
Some of these bad behaviors are taught by what I believe to be bad coaches for teaching such nonsense.
Rob Jones
It seems to me that offering your hand is not proper during the play of the game. So the offer would imply that the game has somehow ended. If your opponent has just offered or claimed a draw, then you would be accepting that draw. If that has not happened then you are resigning.
Why wouldn’t it be your opponent who is resigning? In fact, if my opponent silently extended his hand I would assume he was resigning, although I would ask him a confirmatory question.
In point of fact when I resign I usually stop the clock and extend my hand. The position on the board is always such that there is not any real doubt as to my intent, though a few players have asked that confirmatory question. I suppose I really ought to tip my king but I tend not to. That’s just me. Since I only extend my hand when I am resigning or when there has been a clear draw offer and acceptance, I’ve never had a problem.
That’s what I said. If your opponent offered a draw, then extending your hand was an acceptance of the draw. If your opponent hadn’t done anything, then extending your hand would be a resignation.
Mr. Relyea needs to look into my MSA deeper, where no one can.
I have helped at many scholastic events as a floor walker TD. I really never have cared and do not care about the “record” or credit of being a TD on paper or file.
So, I have had experience with the children not necessarily knowing the rules, let alone following them.
And the point that a good number of kids do not know the rules makes the problem of what we shall call, “the extended hand of swindling” even more significant. If the child sticking out the hand is losing and does this, he is trying to swindle his opponent out of that opponent’s win.
For if the child that is the receiver of “the extended hand of swindling” and does not know the rules, he very well might be blustered into shaking that hand and then walking away to the results table with his opponent, tacitly agreeing with what his opponent reports.
I have seen this happen a good number of times. The kid that was winning the game comes and tells the parent or coach, way too late, that he really was winning and just shook his opponent’s hand. This usually doesn’t come to light until one or more following rounds have finished.
I’m sorry, Mr. Relyea, but if you direct any scholastic or other tournaments with kids, you should be aware of this rude and forcing behavior.
I have considered such things in the past, but when I read Tom’s suggestion of paddles, I thought of an index card.
Index cards are cheap and easy to quickly write, “Draw?” on one side.
They will lie flat on the table for the complete duration of most games, unused.
When a Draw is offered, then the card can be used as described earlier.
When the event is over, the player or TD can either throw the card away or put it in with his Chess things for future use.
Yes, some index cards could even be printed up with some stylish lettering, but that’s not necessary.
This is what I used to do as well. Then, one time, in what I thought was a clear losing position, I extended my hand (in resignation), and my opponent (an experienced player and TD – not a kid) was genuinely confused as to whether I was offering a draw or resigning. I have never done that again. Now I either tip the King over, or say “I resign” – and only then extend my hand.
As others have said, you may know perfectly well what you mean by offering a handshake, but it is not a universally agreed-upon thing, so your opponent may or may not know what you mean by it. Tipping the King is pretty universal.
You can’t even trust the guy who tips his king. He may later say he was adjusting it. There is so little honor in chess anymore that the international standard of circling the result on your score sheet and having the other player sign the sheet is better at limiting disputes over the result at the end of the game.
Not a big fan of the handshakes either. The little fish grips that some players offer are creepy. The best resignation I have ever seen was made by a player who said to his opponent, “Splendid game, sir. Huzzah!” Then he applauded the other guy. It was the last game of a round. All who were watching cracked up and applauded the both of them.
That happened to me several months ago. My 7-year-old opponent had only one legal move, after which I would immediately checkmate him. He extended his hand, and I accepted what I assumed was his resignation.
Then he said, “I wasn’t resigning, I was offering a draw.”
At this point I blew my top, and let him know “I was most certainly not accepting a draw.” We had already begun to take the pieces down and return them to the bag. I then restored the already-taken-down pieces (about 3 of them) to their positions on the board, and angrily told him “It’s your move.” Had my opponent continued his nonsense, requiring TD intervention, the TD obviously would have ruled that the handshake did not represent a meeting of the minds, and that the game must continue. Fortunately, he gave up the ghost at this point and played his only legal move.
I decided then and there that from now on, if an opponent appeared to be resigning by extending his hand, I would explicitly ask “Are you resigning?” But that didn’t work out too well, either. A week later in a different tournament, my (adult) opponent extended his hand and said “Well played”. When I asked if he was resigning, he became a bit indignant and replied “Of course I’m resigning.” Apparently he felt I was insulting his intelligence by asking.
Sometimes you just can’t win.
In view of my experience, I would not regard that resignation as anywhere near the best I had ever seen. The opponent should tip his king or say “I resign.”
Bill Smythe
The custom, and it is only a custom, I learned from older players when I was a teenager was that when you resigned you were to lay your king down on the board, say “I resign”, and then offer your hand to your opponent. Those three steps had to be done and were the clear indications of the end of the game. Anything else was considered rude. In a draw offer you were expected to say, “I offer a draw” after you made your move and then pressed the clock button. Mumbling, gestures, saying “Draw”, and/or merely offering your hand were insufficient. These customs went way back and the older players were put out when younger opponents did not follow them. They expected players to respect the game and those who played it. Times change and we need rules and officials to determine results because players are not taught or refuse to follow chess etiquette. The quest for rating points, titles, trophies, and money leads to all sorts of bad behavior.
Well, we can take a page from the FIDE rules: 9.1b2 “The offer of a draw shall be noted by each player on his scoresheet with the symbol (=).”
So, make your move, write it down with an equal sign, turn it around to your opponent halfway across the table, and press your clock.
To accept the draw, he circles DRAW on both scoresheets and signs them.
There have been various ideas offered in this thread, but one thing that hasn’t been offered is what to do if somebody doesn’t follow the proper protocol. Noting that inexperienced scholastic players are among the likeliest people to either violate the protocol or have an opponent violating the protocol, what penalties (if any) should there be for violating the protocol?
That question is one that often derails any call for a standard protocol.
The inexperienced player may not know such a protocol exists, so drastic penalties would seem too Draconian (even a 25% time reduction may seem too extreme for unknowingly violating protocol by doing something that is seen even in movies like “Searching for Bobby Fischer” - the nuance that it really was Josh’s move would be lost on many new players).
The experienced player that is losing anyway may see any penalties short of ejection as being minor compared to potentially avoiding an otherwise certain loss (in an obviously lost game where the opponent has demonstrated the skill to win, a loss of game penalty would seem to be a minor penalty in exchange for even a measly 5% chance of getting a draw).
Until the penalty issue is resolved this thread would seem to be more suited to simply vent frustrations. In case you want to ask, I do not have a viable idea for a penalty.
PS Many knowledgeable people know the Waitzkin scene was artistic license and never actually occurred, but the average person would not realize that.
Ten minute penalty at the start of the offending player’s next game?
Including if it was the player’s first tournament and the player was simply mimicking what was seen in the “Searching” movie?
Such a player may even think the position was a draw (I know that as an expert playing an IM in the US Open I was in a position that I was certain was a draw, and it wasn’t until the post mortem that I discovered that I was wrong for about ten moves until the over-tired IM/delegate blew the tempo that really did make it a draw). If an expert can make an error like that then a novice certainly can as well. Even if a ten-minute penalty (or the lesser of 10 minutes or 20 percent) is seen as feasible, the scholastic tournament I did last Saturday had a very small percentage of games that even had clocks in the K-1 and 2-3 sections (about 6%).
For interfering in a game between two other players I have entertained the idea of simply giving the interfering player a zero-point bye for the next round (it turned out to not be deliberate, the interfering player had not said that his game was still going on and his clock was running and the two players thought the interference was pretty much obvious/irrelevant, so the loss of time during the dispute was seen as a reasonable penalty after the potential loss of round penalty was mentioned). I would see the loss of the next round as too severe for a novice.
I do not think there should be a definitive answer to that question.
Every situation is different. I honestly do trust every TD I know to do the best he can in any situation.
Hmmm… gives his next opponent an unfair advantage, which in turn is not fair to his competitors.