Game is being played. Player has a heart attack … His opponent pauses the clock and helps the player get to the ambulance that is called.
Opponent goes back to board, restarts his own clock, makes his move and starts the Absent player’s clock.
While looking at the board in the 25 minutes before the clock runs down, he notices the absent player had a mate-in-3.
Flag falls and he turns it in as a win at the scoretable.
Next round he sees his score is 1/2 point low and sees the TD scored it as a draw, which the TD stands behind and subsequently costs him 1st place (by 1/2 point) and $300.
First, if you were TD, how would have have handled this on site.
Personally, I could see this going several ways.
Opponent is upset because, though he has sympathy for the player, it is not his fault he had to abandon the game and he really did lose on time.
At this point, would have have any recourse?
If he were to appeal to the USCF and they were to reverse the score to a win, would the organizer have to pay him his prize?
What possible justification did the TD offer? I think it’s reasonable for the TD to accept a draw offer on behalf of the sick player, if the healthy player offers one, otherwise the game continues. I think that the healthy player would have even been within his rights to request the game to be adjudicated as a win for him, based on the sick player leaving the tournament hall for more than fifteen minutes, although the TD could say that the player told him where he was going. Bottom line is that there is no rule that requires good sportsmanship, and I think that the TD was out of line to try to impose his version of good sportsmanship on the healthy player, who did nothing wrong.
To answer your second question, yes, I think the healthy player has excellent grounds for appeal, although you could argue that he should have made his protest before the next round was paired, and I think that it is reasonable to make the organizer pay the prize to which the player is entitled.
Since you used the word “adjudicated”, is there a risk that if he claims that, the game and position actually gets adjudicated and the mate-in-3 is observed, so the healthy player loses? If so, we should not award him a win as if he had taken the risk of having the game “adjudicated”.
At any rate, it’s fair to act as if the sick player told the TD where he was going. He did nothing wrong either, and it was obvious where he was going.
The healthy player has little to complain about. He got 1/2 point, where (unless that mate-in-3 was very unusual) he would have gotten zero but for the opponent’s heart attack. Perhaps the sick player could have requested adjudication, and scored the full point, if he had not been too sick to do so. The TD did not “arbitrarily” swoop in and assess the position; something happened to cause it! From the facts given, I think the ruling is reasonable.
The TD definitely shouldn’t have claimed it a draw. I’ve seen players miss mates and later lose games. I even once offered a draw in a game where my opponent and I were B players and he had a mate in 3 that I hadn’t seen before my offer. Then while he was thinking about it I noticed that the mate…I can’t remember what it was for sure, but it was in a rook ending that was close to drawn if not for the mate. I sat there trying to look confident for 5 painful minutes, followed by him accepting my offer.
In one opening in a US Open (with each player still having over two hours to the time control) while playing against an A-player I made a brutal oversight and allowed a smothered mate in one (the mating move uncovering a pin that would prevent the capture of the mating piece). W: Qe2, Ne4, other. B: previously played d6 and just played g6 with the king hemmed in and f6 protected only by the e7 pawn.
After spending multiple minutes with a poker face, my opponent missed that and I went on to win it in a rook and pawns ending with my doubled pawns screening my advancing king that restricted his castled position.
It’s just like the trap in the Caro Kann: 1.e4, c6; 2. Nc3, d5; 3. Nf3, dxe4; 4. Nxe4; Nd7; 5. Qe2; Ngf6; 6. Nd6 mate. Works the same if White played 3. d4 also.
So is there a threshold at which the position on the board, with the game still underway, can affect the judgment here? Mate in 1? K+Q vs. K endgame?
No. It’s not mate until the player’s hand releases the piece on the square. If TD adjudication were allowed, I could dispose of an awful lot of games in the Scholastic section five minutes into the round.
That’s why we let the scholastic players play that badly. Because they’re not going to have heart attacks in the middle of their games, so John won’t be tempted.
If you are waiting five minutes then an awful lot of games don’t need to be disposed of because they are already done (you can make the pre-round announcements, tell them to start the clock, and be beaten out the door by players going to report their results).
Just remember a rule of thumb. On the lower boards in the K-3 sections, K+Q vs K is stalemate 50% of the time and K+Q+Q vs K is stalemate 90% of the time. Some players have learned this and know to increase their chances of winning by getting rid of that dangerous extra Q.
Rendered first aid / CPR to the player if nobody else could have. OK, you said he was already gone to hospital. :mrgreen:
Returned to the board, recorded the position and required the player to seal an adjourning move. If the player had in fact moved, that becomes the sealed adjournment move. (I can live with an adverse appeal result on those grounds that goes against my ruling to adjourn it.)
Waited until I learned what the heart attack player’s status was, at least until next round had to be paired, while:
Prepped by finding out what pairings this would affect in final round in all scoring possibilities, to see if final round could go ahead while working around the absent result problem.
At this point, it depends. Have I heard yet if the player is alive / etc? Might the player be returning to the venue? I could either:
Adjudicate the game. 18G, and I would definitely consider this an emergency situation. I’d get a stronger player than I to adjudicate if at all possible, and/or use computer assistance. (And I dislike intensely the old 14H, and also the notion of director adjudication, in general.)
Pair the odd player out, and bye out the heart attack victim, leaving that game’s result in adjournment.
Personally, I could see this going several ways:
I might withhold enough prize funds to pay out prizes dependent on the result of the adjourned game. I’d pay out on site all available funds, leaving the game in adjournment until the whole tournament - including the adjourned game - could be concluded or adjudicated, and then send out the remaining prize funds to the players based on that adjourned result, along with my explanation of it. That would be my first choice.
I might, in consultation with the organizer, see if he would be willing to pay out the $300 out of pocket.
I’m exceedingly generous, so I might try and make it up to the opponent out of my oh-so-generous directing fee.
No, opponent didn’t have sympathy for the player. If he had sympathy it wouldn’t matter worth a that he “lost” $300. He also wouldn’t really care about who won a fricking game in light of a player nearly losing his or her life at the board. Triply so if the opponent was facing a forced mate that may, or may not, have occurred - I think he should be grateful the position wasn’t adjudicated as a win for the player with the heart attack.
Opponent certainly could initiate an appeal. TD should point out the emergency situation that happened, and in light of said emergency, TD applied 18G under 1C2. (Note that this applies to the corrected result from the opponent’s scoresheet, also. And I’d stand by that, too, though I think time should have been taken to evaluate the “adjourned” position properly. Especially if I took time to analyze the game and find a forced mate. If anything, I’d appeal that the opponent should have it ruled an adjudicated loss.)
If it were overruled on appeal as a win to the other player, then I would assume that the organizer would be on the hook for the $300. (Though, technically, the organizer could try to collect that $300 from the shares of the other 1st-tied players — good luck! )
No matter how much sympathy you (or I) may have for the stricken player, what you’re suggesting is just wrong. The TD’s obligation is to enforce the rules evenhandedly, insuring fairness for all players. That includes the opponent of the ill player, who has done nothing wrong and is being penalized by your proposed course of action. At most, I might ask the player if he were willing to adjourn the game, or, after it became clear that the player was not returning, if he would agree to a draw. But he is under no obligation to do either, and while you are free to disapprove of his behavior, you (as a TD) are not free to place you personal feelings above enforcement of the rules.
I suppose in theory, if the TD’s ruling were overturned, the organizer might be on the hook for the extra prize money. But a) the chance of the USCF making such a ruling is very, very small, and b) how exactly would it be enforced? Who would the USCF suspend for noncompliance?
Does anyone else think this sounds like a scene from Chessman Comics?
Does ensuring fairness for all players really require that a player not be inconvenienced if his opponent has a heart attack? That’s one of those life situations that I think people expect to be inconvenienced by, when it happens to someone around them.
Taking out the charged language, what’s happening here is that the player fails to make the required moves. The reason why he does so is not the TD’s business. If you take the opposite position, where do you draw the line? Heart attack? Trip to the bathroom? Went outside to smoke (nicotine addiction)? Went to the bar (really needed a drink)? Went to his hotle room for a tryst? Answer: You can’t. TDs, like judges, should decide on the basis of law, not “empathy.”
It’s the situation that’s charged, not just the language. It’s a real heart attack.
I’m sure it doesn’t have to be and that what you describe is perfectly fine and legal. It avoids the need for judgment by interpreting the rule in a way that requires no judgment. I’m just not convinced that it’s required.
My answer: Yes I can: yes, no, no, no, no. Somehow I know that’s a reasonable place to draw the line. If I had answered any other choices with yes, it might have been unreasonable or at least inconsistent with my expectations from all the chess tournaments I’ve played in and the few I’ve directed. But a heart attack is different. Aren’t there other situations where the TD exercises judgment and is expected to make reasonable decisions that aren’t specified in the rulebook?
Maybe my attitude is a symptom of overexposure to the FOC. We find out that the rules (AUG) are more or less ambiguous with respect to the stuff we review, I’d say at least half the time. We have to answer the question “where do we draw the line” all the time.
In virtually every sporting competition that I’ve ever heard of, when one competitor is unable to complete the event due to illness, his opponent is considered the winner. I think you’d have a real struggle to find a single example where this isn’t true.
The position on the board shouldn’t matter. As many have pointed out, even a mate in ONE can be missed by an opponent. What if the “healthy” player is the one that had a forced mate, would you still insist that he not get the full point for a win??? If not, if you don’t settle the result the exact same way, then you have a TD injecting himself into a game result. But if you DO rule that such a game is drawn, I think you’d be lucky not to be visiting the hospital yourself!
If it were just one game being played in isolation, it’s clear that the “nice” thing to do is to resign if you’re facing a quick mate and your opponent becomes so ill that play must be halted. However, in a TOURNAMENT, I’m not sure that’s the appropriate response. You’re part of a bigger competition in that case – giving a win to a player that’s not able to actually finish his game (or even giving him a draw) will affect the results of the tournament as a whole – I think in that case you should just play by the rules. Leaving aside the health of my opponent, I might play on to the “bitter end” if I’m playing for a large money prize – is it really fair to insist that I forfeit that right because of my opponent’s situation? I don’t think so.
A most excellent question, and I appreciate the perspective.
The differences, I would suggest, are these: The game interruption, in this case, is not the “fault” of either player. I suppose the point could be stretched that the heart attack may be the fault of the player who had it. (We could go absurdum with that, and inquire if the heart attack was a congenital defect or the result of too many Big Macs. But I digress.) In all the other examples you suggest, one could make an unconvincing case that the factors are beyond likewise beyond player control. I would disagree. A genuine medical emergency is different and uncontrollable.
And also I would view a heart attack as a genuine game interruption beyond player control under 16Q. Was the opponent told to resume the game / start the clock? I don’t think the USCF portion of the rulebook states who is responsible to start the clock. (At all?) But I would think a player should have some responsibility to clear restarting the clock with a TD in this class of medical emergency. I think 16Q also makes it clear that in the face of interruptions beyond player control, it is the TD’s responsibility to resolve the issue.
That is the line to me.
I’d also note the opponent did not follow procedure. He did not summon a TD to present the time claim and the heart attack precluded the player from consenting (13C5.) He simply turned in the score sheet to the scorers.
At any rate, for what reason can the TD not directly adjudicate the game? If heart attack isn’t a qualifying emergency, what else is besides the direct 18G1 example?
I suppose, to me, it comes down to if the game is actually “continuing” after a heart attack. Is the clock to run, or isn’t it? Equity, to me, suggests not - at least, not when the circumstances are indeed uncontrollable.
And beyond empathy or sympathy, it strikes me that the law could under director discretion call for an adjudicated result.
One of my good friends, though, did suggest tonight that beyond prize impacts, rating impacts should be considered as well. I hadn’t considered that at all.
Late Edit to Add: I’m more than willing, by the way, to be found wrong here. This way I learn what is right… so that I proceed correctly in an actual tournament. (Not feeling like I’m showing enough gratitude for the opposing responses, I suppose. )
One suggestion that someone had is that if you were going to use the emergency clause to adjudicate the game as a draw for rating purposes that the healthy player should get a win for prize purposes…
Score as a win and then after you have given out the money, you change it to a draw to rate.
Another suggestion was among NTDs there is the theory that a “meeting of the minds” constitutes a rated game. Under TD discretion he could declare that due to the ‘emergency’ the meeting of the minds did not fully occur and adjudicate it as a forfeit win for the healthy player. The Sick player is not penalized ratings points for his sickness, and the healthy player doesn’t get undeserved ratings points due to an unfortunate situation but still gets the prize win since the player couldn’t continue.
Why talk theoretical about a player having a heart attack?? This has happened at tournaments! I know of 1 instance and have heard of another. I believe that there was a player who had a heart attack at the National Open 1 year, although I do not know if it occurred during a game. I was present when in Toledo, OH at the Region VII championship [I may have the region number wrong, or it may have been for more than 1 region] a player next to me had a heart attack and was taken to the hospital. It did of course disrupt the games around the player. As I recall the player’s opponent was awarded a win, although I have no idea (or remembrance) as to what the position on the board was like. For that matter I do not even remember if clocks were stopped in order to move/remove the gentleman in question to the hospital. This was over 20 years ago, but I do not think that any rule changes have been made that would change how the outcome of the game was ruled.
OK, you said he was already gone to hospital. :mrgreen:
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