Touch move illegal move difference between adult and child.

Running Chess Tournaments
1

There has been a debate on the touch move rule, and how to use it with children. My ideas on the touch move rule should be different between adults and children. Others on the other hand feel there is no difference among a 100 rated player and a Grand Master, or a pre-K and a senior citizen.

If the claimant is asking the director to make a judgment call on a touch piece or an illegal move. It would be a disagreement between White and Black on the touch move or an illegal move, needing the director to make a judgment. If White and Black are in disagreement without a witness on a touch move, would deny the claim – not knowing if its’ a false or accurate claim. If White and Black are in disagreement on an illegal move, would check if the board is illegal with scoresheet and position. If the claimants claim is approved, would give the claimant two extra minutes on the clock.

If the claimants notice a touch move before touching one of their own piece, or notice an illegal move made on the board. The claimant and the opponent in general will work out the problem on their own. With my own games or notice games of other people, the players settle the disagreement between each other – for touch move or illegal move. During all of 2004, only had to make a judgment on three games being of a touch move or illegal move. With both games, the players themselves settled the problem on the board, both players in agreement of the claim. The only judgment was to give the claimant two extra minutes on the clock.

Since children will make more touch move and illegal moves during a game then two adults, would find it a little harsh to punish the child the same way as an adult. Have noticed children making illegal moves more often then adults (leaving king in check, moving king into check, illegal castling). If an adult is paired with a child, notice illegal or touch moves being made. The adult would press the clock and inform the child of the illegal move or touch move. Since starting tournament chess back in 1980, never recall an adult making a touch move or illegal move claim against a child under the age of 10. In all the cases I can recall, the adult would let the child change the touch piece until the clock is pressed or informs the child after the move. If its’ an illegal move, the adult would inform the child and the illegal move is replaced with a legal move. Have never witness or made a judgment on a touch move or illegal move with an adult and a child under the age of 10.

There has been a debate in a different section of the forum about touch move with children. As a director, if someone is asking me to make a judgment on a touch move or illegal move – will grant two minutes to the claimant (adult on adult) if the claim is upheld. If its’ between an adult and a child under the age of 10, would reject the claim of the two minutes on the clock… With empirical and cultural models of adults working with a child on the board with touch move or illegal moves without asking for the two extra minutes. Would reject the touch move claim of the two extra minutes. If on the other hand if the child did touch a piece or make an illegal move, and the adult cannot convince the child of the issue. Will correct the board or force the child to make the move if both White and Black have full agreement of the touch move.

If its’ adult with adult on a touch move or illegal move, would enforce the two minutes on the clock. If the adult makes three touch moves or illegal moves on the board, (with the claimant makes the claims) would forfeit the player then expel the player from the tournament. If its’ with a child, would not enforce the touch move punishment at the same level as adults. There are two members of the forum in full disagreement with this judgment. As they say it does not matter on age, in my judgment children are not adults and should be treated different.

2

Add me to the list of people who disagree with you.

I would simply warn the child, or an adult beginner for that matter, on the first offense, and explain the rule(s) completely. After that, they’re all the same!

-Matt

3

Just as we (adults) try to teach them the rules of how the pieces move, we teach the rules of behavior. If you play a child that castles out of check, it’s your call whether or not to a point out the error. It would also be your call whether or not to point out that he/she is obligated to move the first piece touched in the castle attempt. I have no qualms about letting you make that decision but I don’t think that you are doing the kid a favor by leaving them with the impression that you can castle out of check or that you can change your mind after moving a piece. If the kid is going to play in a USCF rated event, they need to stick to the USCF rules. If they don’t know them beforehand, they can learn them during the game. Otherwise, they should play in non-rated events.

Tom

4

Do not think you read it well, I want to give a child a warning. There are a number of children with average or above average intelligence, there is no special need to correct a problem. As a director, I’m not able to pick or accept some people and reject the lot.

Did know a person during the early 1990’s, he was a nice fellow but he was also deaf and a mute. It did take a great deal of effert to play chess with him, as he could not hear me or able to talk with me. With a little help with notes we got along very well. We never did play with the clock, and he never join the federation. Since we had to pass notes, if we had to follow the rules in a innate fashion he would not be allowed to play.

There was a guy that came to the Jackson Chess Club during the mid 1980’s, he did have a mild mental retardation. He was fine with the game, not the best in any means but he did get around. For some strange reason he was great with numbers, he could have been a idiot savant. One time he did hold the record for understanding the numbers of pie, it was over 200 digits before he missed a number. He would be doing some stuff that would be annoying over the chessboard, but we accepted him.

I’m not going to place on my flyers normal or above normal people only. I’m not going to place on the flyers only people that understand English. I’m not going to support rules in total blindness to the fact of the age, the mental of motor skills of the players.

It could be a culatural bias of the scholastic chess program, building the program for a select few, looking for the next Bobby Fisher. Then weed out the players that will grow up with a IQ of 80. Have been asking myself why we always lose scholastic players in large numbers, as we know they are going to grow up to be average people.

5

I’d like to get some clarification from Mr. Forsythe.

Do you have an issue with enforcing the touch move rule to the extent that the touched piece must be moved?

Or is your issue more with adding two minutes to the clock of the opponent of the person who did not move the first touched piece?

I feel that even children need to move the first touched piece (assuming it had a legal move), and have enforced it at the 100+ scholastic events that I’ve directed over the years.
When making any ruling with scholastic players the attitude of the TD can be very influential to the emotions of both players. I’ve approached it as a learning experience that teaches a player a rule that was not previously understood rather than treating it as enforcing a rule against a player that was trying to “get away with something”.
That keeps the player that asked for a ruling from getting upset that his opponent was “willfully cheating”, even when the ruling went in the favor of the player. It also keeps the opponent from getting upset that the player either accused the opponent of “willfully cheating” or tried to cheat by enforcing a non-existent rule even when the ruling went in favor of the opponent. I learned to do that a couple of decades ago when I ruled in favor of a player who was thus left a full queen up with no positional problems, but was so upset over thinking his opponent tried to cheat that he lost the game.

Adding two minutes to the clock is a suggestion that came in with the new rulebook. Since so many scholastic games are played without a clock, and since those are the games that are most likely to have a touch move issue, I haven’t added two minutes yet, but have only needed to enforce that the piece first touched be moved. Although there are some circumstances where adding time might be reasonable, I generally would not do so. It is a question I’ll bring up at the Supernationals next month.

Some scholastic players are good enough that they will first review the new move and decide if the first piece touched can make a better move before deciding whether or not to try to enforce touch move. I know I’ve let my opponents “get away with it” a couple of times over the decades for that very reason. That is a major difference between a touch move situation (leaving a legal position) and an illegal move situation.

6

It’s extremely biased to give children special considerations over adults, period.

How do you know a child will touch a piece more than an adult? Are you making the assumption that they do? Do you assume that all people with brown hair will hit the clock with the wrong hand over someone with red hair?

What’s the point in having rules if TD’s don’t enforce them?

Doug, your posts continue to be difficult to read. You should run your posts through a grammar check sometime to see how bad they really are.

7

Its’ the issue of adding two minutes to the clock, or in the case of a player making three touch moves or illegal moves being issued a forfeit and being expelled from the event.

If two masters making touch moves or illegal moves, having the director add two extra minutes to the clock is a just punishment. If the masters are at a level of a child making touch moves or illegal moves, the claimants time could have an extra 10 or 30 minutes added to the clock. If there are so many extra minutes added to the clock, it could effect the starting time of the next round, or the adjournment would effect the pairings for the next round. If being the last round, or a adjourned game being finnished after the last round, it would effect all the players effected by the prize award. Making the touch move or illegal moves not having an effect on the pairings or the awarding of the prize money – would forfeit the game and expell the player after the 3rd touch move or illegal move. This would be done between two adult players.

If this is done with a child learning the game of chess, it would be harsh to forfeit and expell a child because they are learning the touch move or illegal move rule. Do not see how a child would learn the game of chess, if making three touch moves or illegal moves in one game. It would upset the child and upset the parents, if the child is expelled during the first game.

If adding two extra minutes to scholastic players, in time two friends would find it being entertainment to make touch moves or illegal moves – just to add two extra minutes to their clocks. Just adding two extra minutes, would be fun for them and annoying to the director and players. The director would need to double forfeit both plays as they are not following the rules of chess.

If adding two extra minutes to an adult player, when the child is making touch move or illegal moves, would give the adult player added time on the clock. If the child is making touch move or illegal moves, in the number of 10 or 20 times in the game. It would give the adult player a added amount of time of 20 or 40 minutes. That much of extra time would effect the start of the next round or the ending of the last round, if the adult player use all the time on the clock. When a adult is paired with a child learning the game of chess, the game is won by the adult with only half or one quarter of the allowed time. Since my tournaments are G/60, the adult should win the game with 30 or 15 minutes used on the clock. If I give the adult player 40 extra minutes, it would not change the amount of time for the adult to win the game. If the child is making so many touch moves or illegal moves, the adult should not need more then the orginial time of 60 minutes to win.

There is a difference how a child and a adult should be treated with touch move or illegal move.

8

Just to make you happy, if you are paired up with a K-3 child. If the child makes 3 touch moves or illegal moves in the game, will forfeit and expel the child from the tournament. It will be the same reward you would get if you were paired up with a master. If it makes you happy to win a game against a child by a forfeit win, it sounds so sad but thats’ your idea of happiness.

9

Hey Doug,
If by the third time the kid hasn’t learned that what he’s doing is illegal after being told the right way, do you honestly think the kid needs to be playing in a chess tournament? I don’t.

You are advocating letting someone get away with violating the rules of chess just because of age. We ask that anyone coming to a tournament understand how to play the game. If they consistently show they don’t know the rules, shoudl we let them play anyway? What kind of a tournament are you willing to run if you let your players break the rules???

Radishes

10

At least your grammar is getting better, but your skewed view of reality still hasn’t set in yet.

I guess you’d let a criminal keep getting chances over and over again.

Yes, if I played against a 2nd grader and he kept breaking the rules, yes, he shouldn’t be playing. We’re not playing Chutes and Ladders here.

11

Dear Radishes and Thunderchicken:

Since you’re both directors in you’re own right, you have given a rational reason for a parent of a scholastic age child not to renewal or join. Wounder if Mike Nolan can place you’re statement in the flyer of the Super National III, it sure will change the scholastic membership sales.

There is a reason why scholastic chess players never break into non-scholastic chess tournaments, they are not accepted with ever player or director. The average age of the mix between scholastic and non-scholastic, has been the teenage years. Only the scholastic players with the higher ratings ever break out, leaving a pool of expired ID’s at the 100 to 700 range.

If Radishes and Thunderchicken are right, why have scholastic tournaments? Why have scholastic tournaments for the K-3 section, since kidergarders do not read or have the reading level to read the Official Rules of Chess, or understand the chess clock, or the scoresheet.

12

Gee I don’t know. Maybe because of SKILL level. Kids want to play with Kids. It has nothing to do with what we’re talking about. Once again, you’re skewing everything into something that doesn’t pertain to the subject.

Playing in different classes, Grades, gender has nothing to do with people not following the rules.

The reason why kids don’t rejoin is because they grow out of it and they have other interests. How do I know this? Because I’ve gone through it, probably more recent than anyone here. I’ve seen it with the kids I’ve coached.

As you asked, kids are going to drop out. You’re not going to change it. I’ve calculated here in this state almost a 95% drop out rate prior to graduating from high school. What can you do? Basically nothing. While you’re rambling off in your poor english saying it’s because you should let a kid do “touch move”, kids are enjoying their lives without chess.

Good luck figuring that one out.

13

Well, if the object of scholastic chess is to pad membership sales, maybe we ought to look at how many chess players will not renew because the tournaments get overrun by people who grew up playing by their own rules and everybody was OK with that.

I think that the object of scholastic chess is to teach kids to play chess and to teach them the things about life that can be learned from playing chess. (I feel a rant coming on…) I coach on the elementary and middle school level and deal with kids that are just learning the moves (some of whom will never advance much beyond that level) to some rated in the low teens that may have a Master hidden inside them. The touch move rule is, in my book at least, the foundation of chess as well as the foundation of everything they’re going to do in life… You look at the the situatuation, examine your options, consider them with reason, education, and experience, and then make your decision. Life does NOT give you second chances. You might get another chance at something similar but the conditions aren’t going to be exactly the same.

A kid acting on bad decisions can be corrected. In chess or in life. Allowing a kid to act without thinking things through, and then attempt to take the action back, isn’t doing the kid any favors. It’s not doing the chess community any favors by trying to swell membership numbers with those who can’t or won’t play by the rules.

Tom

14

The question of the touch move or illegal move Thunderchicken is the punishment, not the act. If the punishment is to be equal to an adult, there are degrees of punishment. If two adults at the master level demand the director settles the punishment, for a touch move or illegal move. If they are in agreement, willing to give the two extra minutes to the clock for the claimant. If on the 3rd time, will forfeit the player and expel the person from the tournament.

For the masters, for the 3rd offense forfeit and expel from the tournament is a just punishment. For the child in kindergarten, for the 3rd offense forfeit and expel from the tournament is not a just punishment. There are degrees of punishment Thunderchicken, not all crimes are punished equally in society.

Thunderchicken, how you punish you’re scholastic players in the K-3 age group and how you punish masters for the same offense are up to you. My punishment for a master making the 3rd offense of a touch move or illegal move would be forfeit and expel from the event. The older a person becomes, or the skills learned in life, needs a higher level of punishment. Having two children in kindergarten, forfeit and expel the child from the tournament is not ethical.

15

I’m making the assumption you don’t have any kids Doug.

You keep making comparisons to Masters. Geez, come on man, Masters don’t do this stuff.

Try again.

If kids want to play in competition, they need to follow the same rules as everyone else. I don’t see basketball tournaments being advertised at “Traveling is OK if you do it less than three times.”

Give me a break.

16

As a director, with a tournament as an open without a reserve or booster section, have to accept everyone in the same section. Let me give you a list of registered players for the Thunderchicken Open. The roster has 20 players and the director is a playing director. The roster has 2 Masters, 1 Expert, 1 Class A, the playing director, 5 adults as UNR, and 10 scholastic players in the K-5 age group. With the scholastic players, its’ there first time and they do not have a scholastic chess coach. The five scholastic players are from the same family, mom and dad are there, with their video camera to record the wonderful day for their kids. Dad has been teaching his kids all by himself. Dad did not know of the USCF or any tournaments until reading the newspaper. The kids are there full of candy and sweets and soda pop. The five adults UNR’s, they came from Johns Coffee House, they do not have any clocks. You start to think of breaking the open into sections, the masters tell you if you do, they would withdraw as they came for the prize money and nothing else.

When you have a tournament, you never know who will show.

17

aaaaannnnndddddd what’s your point? More useless rambling that means nothing to prove anything.

Do you give a kid a driver’s license and tell him he’s excluded from some of the rules?

18

Most adults are Masters, so what statement do you support?

Thunderchicken:

If two Masters do make a touch move or illegal move three times, needing the director to correct the clocks would forfeit and expel the Master. If you want that same standard as the adults or Masters, you will have it for you’re team. Since you have made it clear you want you’re students and team be treated at the same level as a adult you will have it.

If you’re student makes a illegal move, will give the claimant two extra minutes. If the student makes 3 illegal moves in the game, will forfeit and expel the child from the tournament. If its not your student, if the child makes a illegal move would give a warning.

If you’re students are in the K-3 section, they will use the clock and the scoresheet. If they are not you’re students, will not use the clock or the scoresheet.

If you’re student makes a touch move violation, will correct the board if it has not been done, then give the claimant two extra minutes. If you’re student makes a touch move violation the 3rd time, will forfeit and expel you’re student. If its’ not you’re student, will correct the board only and give a warning for each and every time.

If you’re student is doing any horse play in or outside the tournament room, will expel you’re student. Adults do not do horse play in the tournament room our outside the room, as its looks like fighting not horse play. If its’ not you’re student, would inform the parent or the coach and let them deal with the problem.

If you’re student is doing any actions not accepted behavior for a adult, would forfeit and expel you’re student. If its’ not you’re student, would inform the parent and the coach, and let them deal with the problem.

Since you want you’re students to be adults, with the accepted behavior as adults, you’re students will be treated as such. For the other children, I would let them be children and inform the parents of bad behavior. For you’re students, since you demand them to be treated this way, I will follow your wants.

Was at a tournament were the bathroom was just fixed. The reason it cost $70 to get fixed, as the week before the scholastic players shoved kings and pawns and any chess set they could into the toilet. The managment let it go as they are children, and so would anyone else. If that was done by adults, someone would be going to jail. If its’ you’re students, I would be happy to call 911.

19

Aside from your continued poor english, here’s a quick 2nd grade english lesson:

You’re = You Are

Anyway, we’re not talking about horseplay here, we’re talking about following the rules. If an adult was horsing around, I’d tell him to stop or I’d ask him to leave. Same with a kid, if they don’t get the hint, then I’ll take it to the next level.

If a master was horsing around, I’d treat them the same as a child.

You continue to make absolutely no sense. Please learn to correct your grammar.

20

If a Master makes a touch move or illegal move three times, needing the director to correct the clocks would forfeit and expel the Master. If a child makes a touch move or illegal move three times, would you forfeit and expel the child. Why do you find that being fair?