Obviously not legal, and its the responsibility of the person who displaced the piece to fix it on their own time before anything else is moved. But, what if White had accidentally knocked his own Rook off the board in a time scramble, and the opponent didn’t notice, and moves were played with that player thinking that it was not in the game. After an undetermined number of moves, white tried to replace the R on the square where ‘it should have been’. Witnesses agree that the piece was knocked off of the board accidentally, but it is impossible to determine exactly how many moves ago, or the position at the exact time that it happened. Ruling? Does the ruling change if that R delivers mate in one? I am definitely inclined to punish the white player, who made moves knowing that the position was incorrect.
Sounds like it could be handled like any other illegal move (as 11C, page 24 specifies). If it could be ascertained to be in the last 10 moves, then go back to there (11A). In this case, where it sounds like it cannot be determined to be within the last 10 moves, so the illegal move stands and the rook stays off of the board (11B).
I agree with Tom Martinak. Either the position goes back or the rook stays off.
If it is from an actual incident then I would say it only resembles chess. The OP is all ready to punish white. But I am highly suspicious of black “not noticing” a whole rook disappearing to his own benefit. Naturally black “noticed” when it reappeared.
Let me relate an incident I witnessed: Two GMs playing in a WBCA (5-minute) money tournament. White plays a long queen move Qg7. Black responds …Qxg7. White protests “I meant to play Qf7.” He points to the two squares to indicate that the queen just landed on the wrong square. So without saying anything black puts the white queen on f7, puts his own queen back where it was, and makes a different move. If all players were like this, TDs wouldn’t have much to do except update the wall charts.
By contrast, the shenanigans in this incident make me want to punish both players.
One year at the National Open in the WBCA blitz tournament, one of the players, in attempting to make a long horizontal move with his rook, accidentally let go of it and it flew into the aisle a couple of boards away. So he grabbed his other rook (which had been captured) and put it on the intended square. His opponent objected, claiming that the player should retrieve the original rook and use it. I ruled in favor of the first player, feeling that it was OK as long as the position ended up the same.
It seemed sort of analogous to awarding a triple occurrence draw when the two rooks have switched positions between two of the occurrences.
Bill Smythe
Time pressure, so was it in the last five minutes of Sudden Death? In which case, it is 2 moves. 11D1.
Sounds kind of like bug house.
Rob Jones
No, then they would have been replacing pieces of the opposite color. 