On the USCF Issues forum there was a discussion about the situation where a player in a scholastic tournament asks the tournament director whether he or she is in checkmate. Many or most tournament directors won’t help the player by giving a straight answer but will score the game as a loss for a player who thinks he or she has been checkmated and concedes defeat, even if the position is not a checkmate. Brian Mottershead disagrees with this, and wrote:
In my opinion the rulebook isn’t very clear about this situation, and should provide more guidance to the TD about how much help to give to a player who mistakenly believes that he or she has been checkmated. Brian’s interpretation of the rules is one possibility but I believe it goes against the practice of most other TDs. Our goal should be uniformity and consistency.
Rule 21D discusses the situations where a director can intervene in a game. 21D1 is “Answering rules and procedural questions.” If the question is “Am I in checkmate?”, is that a question about the rules and procedures or is it a request for help in evaluating a position? As I see it, it’s a request for help in evaluating the position and it’s an implied question about the rules governing checkmate. The director shouldn’t help the player by saying “Yes, it’s checkmate” or “No, it isn’t checkmate” but should explain the checkmate rule and make sure the player has time to study the position and isn’t being pressured into conceding defeat.
Rule 13B isn’t an exhaustive list of every way to resign a game. Many players resign by stopping the clock and shaking the opponent’s hand. What rule 13B says about this is “Stopping both clocks does not necessarily indicate a resignation. Since a player may be making a claim or seeing a director, the opponent should not assume a player a player who stops both clocks has resigned without further evidence. Likewise, the offer of a handshake is not necessarily a resignation. On occasion, one player believes the handshake agrees to a draw while the other interprets it as a resignation.”
As I see it, in doubtful cases it’s up to the TD to determine whether stopping the clocks or shaking the opponent’s hand constitutes a resignation. A player who stops the clocks, shakes the opponent’s hand, fills out a result slip indicating a loss, or leaves the board with the intention of conceding defeat has resigned. It’s not necessary for the player to say “I resign” or to tip over his or her king.
I agree with the second part of this. I don’t agree with the first part, telling the player “No, it is not checkmate”, because that means the director is giving advice about the position to the player. The answer should be the same regardless of whether the player is in checkmate.
I have taken this as an opportunity to educate the player(s). I am repeating the rules of Chess to them, therefore making those rules clear. I do not make an evaluation for the player(s) either.
When asked if it is Checkmate, my response is, “Is the King in Check?” If the answer is yes, then I say, “There are three ways to get out of Check. If you cannot get out of Check in one of those three ways, it is Checkmate. The first way is to move the King out of Check. Can he move the King out of Check?” If the answer is no, then I say, “The second way is to interpose, or put another piece in between the checking piece and the King, if the piece giving check is not a Knight. Can you interpose, or put a piece between the piece giving check and the King?” If the answer is no, then I say, " The third and final way to get out of Check is to take the piece giving check. Can the piece giving Check be taken and thus taking away the Check?" If the answer is no I then say something like, “Alright those are the three ways to get out of Check. Can this King get out of Check? If not then what must it be?” Actually they hear the script on the three ways to get out of Check even if one of the first two mentioned are occurring.
This doesn’t take long and both the players will learn if it is Checkmate or not. They will also hear the ways to get out of Check and if that’s not possible, then it is Checkmate.
I have done this with players of all ages, including novice adults. It works great. It fosters good sportsmanship and the players do get better from the experience.
I recall many years ago visiting a National scholastic tournament. In one of the rounds a pair of Kindergarden kids played a game which ended in a stalemate position. The TD of the section saw this position. When the result was reported it was given as a win! The TD having seen the ending position of the game changed the result to a draw. I learned of this from the TD after the fact, and did not see any of the game in question, nor was I involved as a TD at the time.
So, I am asking those who would avoid any interferrence if they would let stand the result of a win for a player in what was actually a stalemate?
-Larry S. Cohen
What do you do if the player asking whether the position is checkmate does not see the move that gets the king out of check?
Well, when I ask him the questions of if something can get him out of check, his answers are what he makes his decision with. Of course, if he says that the Checking piece cannot be taken, when it really can, then he would make the wrong decision that it was checkmate. Once he says that it was Checkmate and accepts his loss, I then show him that there was a move to get out of Checkmate. Since he missed the move to get out, it is the same as a blunder as far as I’m concerned.
You see, I don’t make the choices for him. I simply repeat the rules of how to get out of Check and state those, one by one, in question form for him to learn if it’s really Checkmate or just Check. After all isn’t that what it’s all about?
I would definitely NOT reccommend this method to define checkmate to the player. The order that you explain the three ways to escape checkmate can be significant to what move the player decides to use.
I would highly reccommend to ALWAYS use the exact order that the rulebook presents on page 27: capturing, interposing, moving the king. This protects the TD from being accused of suggesting a particular type of move. (As a player, I would use that order to determine my own move.)
All the best, Joe Lux NTD, TDCC
I see this as being no different than whether a TD sees an illegal move being made. The TD must always be consistent in his interpretation of the rule: always point it out, or never point it out, whenever directing.
At a national scholastic tournament, rules interpretation are set by the Scholastic Council. Where these regulations are listed, I don’t know. They should be somewhere on this website. Can anyone advise?
As I remember the interpretation, first used at the first Supernationals in Knoxville, the TD would have made a mistake.
All the best, Joe Lux NTD
Maybe Ron Suarez chose that order for the same reason I would: the mnemonic device “ABC” (avoid, block, capture).
I think “Is this checkmate?” is a question of simple application of the rules.
How is it any different “Is this an illegal move?” Do they give the players a lecture on the legal movement of the piece in question (including rules about check), and then say, “it is up to you to decide whether the move is legal”. Why not?
It requires practically no chess ability for a TD to determine whether a position is checkmate. It is simply a question as to the application of the rules. The TD can mechanically enumerate all the possible moves to see if any is legal (that is, relieves the check).
If one such move is found, of course the position is not checkmate and the TD can state that it is not checkmate. In that case, the consequence of an error by the TD is that the player thinks it is not checkmate when it is, and wastes time looking for the move the TD thought he saw, which does not exist. Eventually, the player will have to give up looking. The worst, and unlikely, case is that the TD makes a mistake and declares a position not to be checkmate, when it is. The consequence of the TD saying nothing is that the player may be cowed into agreeing to a false claim of checkmate. If the TD says “No it is not checkmate” and the player cannot find the saving move seen by the TD (or some other saving move), then he runs out of time.
As for the converse case, I handle it the way I do because the possibility of the TD not finding the saving move is greater than the possibility of erroneously thinking a move is saving. The downside is that the game will be considered decisive and will be over on the basis of a TD mistake, when the position is not in fact checkmate. In that situation, I would prefer to have the player make one last search for a legal move. My role in that situation is to get the opponent to sit down, to stop breathing down the player’s neck, and give the player “space” to find a saving move if there is one.
But I think it would be also fine to say something like: I do not see a move that gets the king out of check, so I think it is checkmate, but there might be a move I do not see, and it is your game. So, please sit down and see if you can find a move that gets your king out of check, etc. I don’t do it this way, since I am dealing with kids, and I don’t want to be in a position of discouraging the kid or seeming to pressure him to accept that the position is checkmate. But, I wouldn’t fault a TD who did it this way.
I don’t agree with the, “its checkmate if you agree its checkmate” approach. Checkmate is a fact, and it is important for the kids to learn that facts are not determined by what people agree, and that just because someone claims it is checkmate, and is more insistent than you, does not mean that it is checkmate.
By the way, the “ABC” speech that Ron uses does seem like coaching the player on move, and I wouldn’t do that. The sentence about parrying a check on page 27 is not actually part of the definition of check and really should not be in the rules at all. It is redundant. What a little heuristic for finding parrying moves is doing in the rulebook beats me. Since, unfortunately, that sentence is there, I think you can can quote exactly what is in the rulebook to the players. But coaching the players, posing the series of questions, as Ron does seems even more intrusive than my approach.
It may require a valid scoresheet to determine - as the position on the board may not be adequate.
The questions are very different - it’s comparable to “What are all of the legal moves?” not to a question about a single move.
“Is it checkmate?” is equivalent to a combination of two other questions: (1) is the King in check? and (2) Is the number of legal moves equal to zero? So, yes, checkmate is a more complicated situation than the legality of one move, because it involves evaluating whether the king is in check and enumerating possible moves in order to determine whether they are legal and the number of them which are legal is zero.
But that is still all just application of the rules related to check and legality of moves. It involves no positional or tactical judgement, planning, etc, whatsoever, any more than the singular “Is this (one move) a legal move” question. Whether a position is checkmate or not is a fact, and a TD is not obliged to ignore facts, or to adopt the view that facts are subject to agreement by the players.
Application of the rules is a skill.
All the best, Joe
PS: Read my opinion to Mr. Cohen’s question.
Yes it is, but the TD’s role in the contest is to have that skill and either to apply the rules or to see that the rules are applied. Otherwise, the TD’s should just sit outside the playing room with their pairing computers, send the players into the playing room, close the doors, and see who comes out claiming victory.
Where a TD gets involved in a game is a separate, complicated question. Unfortunately, many TDs would like to “close the doors”.
My statement above, as I thought you meant, refers to the player.
All the best, Joe
Only in extremely unusual positions.
The difference is between answering a question about a single move and enumerating all legal moves. Enumerating all legal moves is a skill that players of all levels occasionally are unable to perform. Even master level players will miss a mate in one occasionally (mea culpa). If a player asked you to enumerate all of the legal moves would you do that? If you wouldn’t, why not? As doesn’t that also “involve no positional or tactical judgment, planning, etc, whatsoever”?
If a player asked me apropos of nothing to list the legal moves in the position, of course I would not do so. Why would I? Giving a player information about a position when there is no material rules question at stake is not my role.
As for the situation where one player has claimed a checkmate (usually rather insistently with a lot of triumphant show), and the other player, doubting it, calls me over to rule on whether the position is in fact checkmate, there wouldn’t be any other way to resolve the dispute than enumerating moves (i.e. searching) and finding one that saves the King from check. If the position is not checkmate, it requires the existence of only one legal move for the position not to be checkmate (or stalemate, for that matter), and this generally can be seen at a glance.
Whether a position is checkmate is not a mate in one problem, by the way; it is a mate in zero problem, and I doubt there are many adult players who cannot solve mate in zero problems, especially if they are directly asked “Is this checkmate?” (Which is why these questions probably only ever arise in tournaments with kids.)
Coming back to enumerating the moves, I might have to do it to answer the question, But I don’t have to tell the player any more than “No, it is not checkmate”, or “It is checkmate unless you can find a move that gets your king out of check.”
These two answers are very different. The first provides information to the player about the position, the second does not. I don’t think anyone would have a problem with “It is checkmate unless you can find a move that gets your king out of check”, but wouldn’t that essentially be the same as the checkmate by agreement with which you disagree?