Is It Illegal For A Player To Blitz Moves On The Opponent's Time?

[ulmont]

Question for discussion: Is this a touch-move situation?

That seems to have been hotly debated 3 years ago.

Touch move by player who is not on move

I encountered a situation today that I had never seen before, and it didn’t appear to me that the rulebook gives a clear answer to it. The situation was that Black had just determined the move Qg5, but had not completed the move by hitting his clock button. White had pawns at h2, g2, and f2, guarded only by his king at g1 (which I assume had gotten there by White castling and then moving his rook off the f1 square). At this point, White picked up his g2 pawn with the intent of moving it to g3, but then noticed that his queen at c5 was attacking Black’s queen, and decided that Qxg5 would be a better move, since the pawn move would have left his unprotected queen open to Qxc5. So he set his pawn back down on the g2 square. At that point, Black realized that he had never completed his move by pushing his clock button, and quickly hit his clock button. Then, White tried to move Qxg5 (Black would have been able to capture back with a pawn, resulting in an even exchange, which was clearly better for White than simply losing his queen at c5). But Black accused him of a touch move violation. The players decided at that point that the fairest thing was for them to agree to a draw, which they did. But afterward, they wondered what the resolution would have been if they hadn’t. There’s no question that if Black had completed his move before White touched his g2 pawn, White would have been obligated to move it. But the only piece White touched after Black completed his move by hitting his clock button was the c5 queen. How would you have called this? Bob