That happened to me fairly recently. It was a GAME/60, and one of the players offered a draw in a nearly equal position with about 30 seconds left on his opponents clock. The opponent thought for about 25 seconds before accepting, at which point the player decided that he didn’t want a draw anymore. Fortunately, an assistant TD and I were both there and we informed him that he couldn’t take back his offer.
Alex Relyea
One of the funniest objections to a 3-fold claim came when the player claimed that while his opponent’s position had occurred 3 times, his had only occurred twice. As TD, I responded: “You’re playing the same position, aren’t you?”
You might guess that this claim was made by a child, but it wasn’t. He was probably in his 50s.
I made a 3-fold repetition claim against an Expert at the US Open. The TD took us to another board to play through the game from my (perfect!) scoresheet. When the position I was about to create appeared on the board for the first time, he said “one”. When it occurred again, he said “two”. When he reached the final position, he picked up the piece to make the move I had written on the scoresheet before calling him, and before he could say “three”, my opponent blurted out a single word. It has 12 letters, and is often used to express general displeasure; it’s one of the “7 words you can’t say on TV”. He then stormed from the room. The TD and I took this to be acceptance of the draw.
What made this interesting was that it was not the typical 3-fold repetition, where the game has clearly stalled. He had a strong position, and there was nothing I could do except play defense. He tried Plan A. When Plan A didn’t work out, he reset and tried Plan B. When Plan B didn’t work, he reset again (no doubt he had a Plan C ready). “one”…“two”…“three” “Mxxxxxxxxxxx!”
Only 2 plans to a customer.
There were perhaps as many as 10 moves from the first occurrence to the 3rd, and NONE of the intervening moves (or positions) were duplicates. ONLY the repeated position recurred.
And, of course, I was dead lost.
At the Eastern Open this past week, we used the standard rule of not deducting 5 minutes for the delay. I had at least 10 players come up to me asking why we weren’t using delay. Unfortunately, they have been trained to take off the 5 minutes without thought.
Regards, Ernie
So, when are you going to post that mxxxxxxxxx-ing game?
I heard of an even weirder game between GMs where the repititions included one player’s two rooks switching with each other, but being on the same squares both times (i.e. rook1 an a1 and rook2 on h1, then rook1 on h1 and rook2 on a1). The TD agreed it was a repitition.
I was also standing over a game that involved two of the rules: watching my son claim a three fold repitition only to have his opponent claim it didn’t count because it wasn’t three consecutive moves, and then having him turn to me to plead his case against his older opponent. Not wanting to be accused of helping him in any way, but unable to ignore him at the same time, I could only say to him “You can’t ask me for help.” Unfortunately he didn’t ask the TD for help, either, he hit his clock and lost his chance for a draw.
That was rather a creative interpretation by the opponent, since it would be impossible to have the same position on three consecutive moves.
Good point. Unless the local rules allowed “pass.”
Why should I post that one when I still have this one to show off:
http://www.cis.uab.edu/sloan/ChessGames/SloanVsSloan
OK…maybe it’s one of these?:
http://www.cis.uab.edu/sloan/ChessGames/ReaSloan/base.htm
http://www.cis.uab.edu/sloan/ChessGames/SloanBarker/base.htm
http://www.cis.uab.edu/sloan/ChessGames/SloanGatica/base.htm
No? Well, I guess I’ll have to go and find it…
But those aren’t as exciting as the triple occurrence you described!
Ah well…the search continues. I’m actually quite fond of the Sloan Vs. Sloan game. It has at least two moves where my thought process was “I could make this perfectly good move…but this other move is just so cool” Usually, when I get that feeling, I end up going home early. Not this time.
So according to USCF 1B1 and 1B2, ANY rule can be changed/added/modified/removed as long as it’s advertised in pre-event publicity? Does that mean we can allow pawns to move 3 squares on the first move? Or never allowing en passant? And consider this a rated game?
The purpose of a rating system is to set up a quantifiable measurement system amongst a group of players. This system needs to be done in a consistent manner. All rated games must be run with the same (or at the very least very similar) rule set. By allowing rated games with ‘major’ rule variations, it becomes an ‘apple-to-orange’ comparison with other games, and reduces the accuracy of the system. The question becomes at what point is a rule change ‘major’ enough to consider not allowing it at rated events?
And a TD allowing players to not keep score at all? Is he into self-mutiliation? :mrgreen:
If memory serves me correctly, a rate-able game must have the standard moves of the pieces, the standard starting position (no piece-odds games or Fischer-Random), and an equal amount of time for each player (no time-odds games). I think that even BAP is rateable (Black Added Point where a black win is worth three points in the tournament standing, a white win is worth two, a draw is worth one for black and zero for white - though the tournament result in MSA would only show the normal 1-0, 0.5-0.5 and 0-1 results).
Although I’m not sure where it is stated, I believe the general feeling is that as long as the fundamental rules of chess strategy (ie, how the pieces move) aren’t changed or one player given a significant advantage during the game (other than the advantage White gets by moving first), the games should be ratable under the rating system(s) applicable to the time control used.
BAP is a pairing algorithm. When rating an event we don’t care why or how the players were paired against each other, so BAP is USCF ratable, as would be the Schiller system (discussed with a FIDE context in another recent thread), ladders, random pairing, etc. I think we’ve even rated some simuls.
The rating of piece and time odds games raises a different set of issues, as does Chess 960. I would not see a problem with the rating of Chess 960 under the USCF rating system, personally, though others might.
I don’t know if the ratings committee has ever looked at rating time odds games.
There have been some playoffs run under a time/draw odds format, I don’t know if any of them have been submitted for rating.
The problem with rating either time odds or piece odds games is that they may result in a change in the expected performance assumptions. (In fact, isn’t that the POINT of time or piece odds, to give the weaker player a better chance of winning?)
IMHO, ‘stalemate is not a draw’ WOULD change the fundamental rules of chess strategy, so I would not be in favor of rating games played under that rule change.
Matches are a separate issue. There are restrictions on who can be in rated matches and how many points someone can gain or lose through matches because of concerns over using matches to manipulate ratings.
I thought BAP was used for prizes. I’ve seen something similar described as a tournament scoring system.
BAP (as a scoring system) changes the incentives in a game a bit in terms of the tournament standings. White is indifferent between a draw and a loss, since he gets zero points for either. So White will play only for the win. Black will also tend to play for a win, since a win is worth three draws, but he may choose to exploit White’s even greater desperation to win by playing quietly. These are the incentives, if tournament scoring is all that matters, not rating.
Players will be facing a choice. Does White play only for a win because of tournament scoring, or give some value to a draw because it’s better for his rating for a loss?
Does this create enough distortion of incentives so that we would not rate the result, keeping in mind that our rating system is based on standard scoring? Apparently we decided to allow it to be rated. Maybe we have extended the principle that prizes and tournament scoring are ignored when it comes to rating, to say that prizes and tournament scoring are also ignored in deciding what is ratable.
Rules are funny…
Certainly the awarding of cash prizes has to be a sensitive issue. In much of Europe, tiebreakers are used to award prizes when scores are tied. Try that in an American tournament 
All the best, Joe Lux
Personally, my goal is to win one game during a touranment. If I do that, I consider it a ‘success’. Tiebreak/playoff rules woudln’t even apply to me, as I’m too weak to even perform 50-50.
Does BAP affect pairings or not? I thought it did.
It still makes no difference to the rating system why ‘A’ played ‘B’, as long as the game is an honest contest and not an arranged result.
However, if BAP affects the outcome of the game by incentivising certain results over others, how is that different from high rated players taking a quick draw in the last round to ensure them of first place?