Who is the victim of this “unfairness”? The player who made the illegal move? Why do you have to be “fair” to a player who made an illegal move? He made an illegal move. Anyway, chessplayers being paragons of sportsmanship, of course they want their illegal moves to be corrected. No chessplayer could ever want his or her illegal move to stand so that he wins an undeserved victory, could he? Surely you are not saying that it is unfair to the player to undo his or her illegal moves?
And what about the player on the other side of the illegal move? Surely it isn’t unfair to him to undo an illegal move by his opponent? So which player should be aggrieved by having an illegal move corrected?
What about the organizer of the tournament and the other players? Do they want the tournament prizes to be decided by an illegal move? Is it unfair to them to correct as many illegal moves as you can?
When you observe an illegal move and don’t undo it, that is one game which will may decided by an illegal move. Maybe that is one tournament decided by an illegal move. How can that be good or fair?
Where is there unfairness in correcting illegal moves? When you leave the illegal move uncorrected, that is a game that might be decided by an illegal move. How can that ever be “fair” ?
I once played a Russian Grandmaster who always wrote his move down first, then played it. He was in the USA just for a few tournaments and was not an immigrant. His FIDE federation still says RUS.
Guess what: Even in Europe, the FIDE Handbook is not the last word. And before anyone asks, yes, I have personally visited a couple of chess festivals in Europe.
I would wager there is more variation in countries that haven’t issued their own additions or interpretations to the rules. That’s what makes past Stewart Ruben books, Geurt Gijssen, and newer books like Commentary on the Laws of Chess so popular.
Thanks for the correction, Ken. I must say this is a big surprise to me.
As far as I can recall I have never seen a TD pro-actively intervene in a rated game to correct an illegal move. I know I have never done it as a TD. Nor do I recall ever hearing an announcement regarding illegal move policy, or seeing such an announcement posted.
Hmmmm…I think I might log off for a bit and re-visit the Rulebook. Lots of fun reading there.
In re the five minute boundary, here’s something I’ve wondered about: In a game with an increment time control of less than 30 seconds, is it not true that the five-minute mark that denotes the start of Sudden Death time pressure rules can ‘come and go’ several times?
So, have you called illegal moves in games you observed as a TD?
I have. It is what the TD is supposed to do, unless 11H1 is in effect. So far as I know, neither the MACA Scholastic Committee nor any of the Chief TD’s at our tournaments has ever announced that 11H1 is in use. But I must say, in my experience it is a rather rare occurrence to have an illegal move occur at precisely the moment you are eyeing a game, and when they do happen (usually a king being left in check), the opponent is quick to point it out before the TD would have to speak. So after an illegal move, usually you just end up watching so that you witness any touch-move issues.
In this case I agree with Brian, and I’ve done the same thing, pointing out illegal moves not noticed by the players. We don’t use 11H1 at MACA tournaments.
I had not thought of that possibility, but of course you’re right. With an increment time control, a player who has less than five minutes remaining could make several moves in succession rapidly enough to cross over the five minute threshold. Interesting …
There is a slight mistake in the rule book. The title of rule 11H is “Director corrects illegal move in non-sudden death”. However, the text of the rule starts with “Except in the last five minutes of any time control”, which would apply to both sudden death and non-sudden death controls. I think the intended title is “Director corrects illegal moves except in time pressure.”
Nope. As much effort as I have spent studying the rule book in detail, the idea that a director intervenes to correct an observed illegal move in the absence of a claim still seems to be an aberration. I believe that the rules requiring a player to make a claim for just about everything (flag down and touch move violation being probably the most common, and then draw claims) is a basic matter of fairness. When there are not sufficient directors to observe all games all the time, correction of illegal moves (and the attendant penalty in a sudden death time control) should not depend on the random luck of whether the director happens to be observing at the moment. Requiring claims leads to uniform conditions for all players, in my opinion.
I believe it is no more than two rounds per day for title-norm events, and no more than three rounds a day for FIDE-rated but non-title norm events. Maximum playing time for title-norm events is 12 hours per day, based on games going 60 moves. As far as I can see from the information linked below, there is no maximum playing time per-day for non-title norm events.
This info is available at the FIDE site, though it’s not easy to find with a quick search.
I am not 100% sure that 12 hours is not the maximum playing time even for non-title tournaments. Mr. Muradian likely knows the answer to that. IF there is a 12-hour maximum per day for all FIDE-rated events, the question is whether the organizer needs to deduct five minutes from the main clock time to compensate for time delay, to meet the FIDE standard. (Three rounds of G/2 equals 12 hours, not counting delay or increment.)
I agree—but to be super-picky, should this not be announced at the site? I found out a few hours ago that my understanding of the rule and variation here have been backwards for decades.
Regarding, rounds per day, FIDE has various regulations documents. The Laws of Chess cover the rules of play and apply to all games played within the territory of a member federation. A member federation can extend the rules or adopt variants provided they do not conflict with the Laws of Chess, and are not used in FIDE-rated games.
According to the FIDE Laws of Chess themselves, the USCF rules violate the Laws of Chess in a number of areas, and compatibly extend or vary them in others. This is a problem, because the USCF is the FIDE member federation in the United States. Moreover, even the compatible extensions and variations shouldn’t be used at all in FIDE-rated events.
Other FIDE regulations cover such things as the conduct of tournaments, title norms, Swiss pairing rules, etc. These apply only to FIDE-rated tournaments.
The rule regarding the number of rounds per day in a tournament are not part of the Laws of Chess, so it is not necessarily applicable to all games. To what tournaments is it applicable?
Any other rules that you are quietly nullifying because you don’t believe in them, Ken? I wouldn’t have thought that director discretion extended as far as rule nullification, even for NTD’s.
It seems that the non-interventionist idea is so endemic that TD’s are finding it as a basic principle in the rules even when, inconveniently, the rules actually require intervention. The rules couldn’t possibly really mean to be saying this, these TD’s seem to be saying, because that would conflict with my understanding of the rules; so we’ll just pretend this rule isn’t there. In fact, we’ll pretend that the opposite of this rule is there.
Chess isn’t poker. Bluffing (i.e. sneaking by an illegal move here and there) is not part of the game.
So it is not a question of “fairness”, because there is no unfairness involved in correcting illegal moves. Players don’t make illegal moves deliberately. (If they do, it is cheating and merits penalties. See 11J. ) Undoing an illegal move is not undoing a deliberate player action. All players have an interest in playing a “good game” and in having an illegal move corrected, including the one who made it. No penalty is applied. It isn’t as if the player is trying to “get away with” a illegal move and players should all have the same chance of getting “caught”. Both players (indeed all players in the tournament, and the organizers) have an interest in the outcome of the game and the tournament being determined by the skill and form of the players on the day, not by irregularities. Is this not the basic premise of good sportsmanship?
Even on the view that players should have an equal ability to get away with illegal moves, a view I find corrupt, that can be achieved without every game being watched all the time by a TD. As long as every illegal move has more or less the same chance of being observed and corrected, even this Bizarro World “fairness” requirement is met.
Apparently Ken has been using a variation (11H1) without announcing it. That isn’t the same as “nullifying” a rule that he disagrees with. Although strictly speaking the use of 11H1 should be posted and/or announced like any other variation, this particular variation isn’t one of much interest to the players. Perhaps in the next rules revision there could be a statement that the use of 11H1 doesn’t have to be posted or announced as long as it’s used consistently.
Actually, as Ken pointed out, in sudden death there is a two minute penalty. That’s part of why Ken considers 11H to be an “aberration”, because in other penalty situations like touch move and running out of time it’s up to the player to make the claim. There is also the argument that chess is a game between two players and the director should intervene as little as possible.
I think an argument in favor of 11H being an exception to the non-intervention principle is that it’s easier to correct an illegal move when it’s first made than it is several moves later.
No more than 3 rounds per day for non-title norm events and the time cannot exceed 12 hours total for a single playing day.
No more than 2 rounds per day for title norm events and the time cannot exceed 12 hours total for a single playing day.
There are minimum time controls for non-title norm events based on the rating of players. As an example - if there is a someone rated 2200+ (FIDE) then a minimum think time of 120 minutes is required, so you can use a time control of G/90 + 30/sec increment.
It’s all contained in the above links that Ken provided above.
To answer Eric’s question re: deducting time to meet the requirement - the organizer is required to do make the time control conform with the rules. G/120 w/5-sec delay does not conform if 3 rounds per day are held.
On this 11H versus 11H1 situation, the FIDE rules have it right. People going on about how “unfair” 11H is should keep in mind that all international events are supposed to be played under a rule similar to 11H. Indeed, those games are also supposed to be played under various other “interventionist” rules considered beyond the pale by some of the TD’s here, such as arbiters calling flag falls. 11H1, which apparently is quietly in force even when unannounced, puts the USCF in violation of the FIDE Laws of Chess.
How “unfair” can 11H be, when World Championships and the Olympiads are played under a rule similar to 11H, without controversy? A rule which is good enough for Kamsky, Anand, and Carlsen is too unfair to be used in games between American amateurs, especially little kids in the K-3 Nationals. Does that make sense?
Well, it was not only unannounced; apparently he didn’t mention it to the other TD’s. So the other TD’s were using 11H, or else each TD was deciding for himself which rule to follow. This “consistency” argument is looking a little thin.
As for the argument, that “chess is a game between two players”, that is a nonsensical argument.
Singles Tennis is a game between two players, also, but in formal tennis competitions, the Line Umpires call faults. Football and basketball are games between “two teams”, but the officials call fouls, and all sorts of other rules infractions – and they do it without waiting for a dispute to arise between the sides.
Nothing about the role of the officials in sports contests can be inferred from the statement that a game is between two players or teams.
