When is it bad manners to play silly openings?

[Ben Hague]

I think that Stewart was right earlier on when he said something like I may not be able to define bringing the game into disrepute but I know it when I see it

For me this is the heart of the problem. Yes, you know it when you see it, I know it when I see it and Stewart knows it when he sees it but I'd be willing to bet that the three of us wouldn't agree in many (most?) cases. In the end if you have penalties for something you can't define then the arbiter is free to default anyone at any time with only public opinion to restrain him (apart from his sense of ethics of course). If it was up to me I'd say that only deliberate attempts to distract other players should count, which still leaves a bit of wiggle room but isn't as woolly.

[John Moore]

Distracting other players is one issue - surely the deliberately bit is too high a test, though. The idiots playing silly moves before agreeing a draw don't do it deliberately to distract other players - it's just an outcome and involves a crowd gathering round. I would certainly give them 0-0.

I also think that you need to provide a certain amount of protection for juniors - and I don't mean the under 8's where all sorts of moves - most of them better than mine - are played. But I think that there is a strong argument to stop the 2000 junior (say) taking the mickey out of a 1300. It is disrespectful and I don't remember it happening in the dim and distant past when I was a junior.

[E Michael White]

When Mr A Martin was defaulted in 77, the word on the street was that many arbiters believed, post Fischer-Spassky, that sponsors were queuing up to sponsor chess events and early draws by agreement would stop them sponsoring us. At that time Article 12.1 didn't exist as such and arbiters had to rely on words something like "within the moral objectives of the game". Later FIDE accepted that professionals would not always play to win each game as their objective might be to win the tournament or even a certain share of the prize money rather than gamble for higher stakes and risk losing all.

Its difficult to see how two young players messing about bring the whole game into disrepute, if early draws weren't frowned on they would probably play 1.e4 e5 = and then disappear to the bar.

John, Ok you know it when you see it but when were the last three occasions you personally saw the game being brought into disrepute ? Did it involve players, arbiters, organisers or other officials ( that is apart form all the drivel on other parts of this bulletin board at the moment).

[IM Jack Rudd]

Is this one of those puzzles where you have to relax the normally assumed criterion of "the player who is to move could legally be to move in this position, were it to occur in a real game"? I suspect the answer is yes, with the solution to the puzzle's being WKg6 or h6, BKh8, and white plays 1.Bg7#

[Matthew Turner]

f3 and h1 perhaps?

[IM Jack Rudd]

Here's one. There's a black king on e5. Place two white rooks and a white knight anywhere on the board, such that black is now in checkmate.

[Matthew Turner]

Re4 Re6 Ne3(or e7) is checkmate, but not legal

[IM Jack Rudd]

Yes, that's the answer.

[Nigel Wright]

Interesting... I might use that sometime cheers

And anyway, as I'm sure most of you already are aware of this, Ankush Khandelwal is a very strong youngster. If you've ever played against him, you'll know that he plays weird and wacky moves sometimes. Now I'm only grade 97 atm, but I never feel annoyed or anything when I play him, I'm just pleased that someone as good as him has taken the time to play a friendly or two with me. Thankfully we've never met in tournament play! And I know that a lot of the kids who had to play him at some of the tournaments we were at moaned about having to play him, but it never caused a problem and no-one complained about it when they inevitably lost to his eccentric playing style. Now if he was doing it out of spite to make the players who aren't as good as him feel bad, then I'd have a problem with it...

[E Michael White]

I dont actually know the answer to this but what is the ambiguity factor for a most visually ambiguous legal chess position ? I might work it out when I'm next bored.

By visually ambiguous I mean in how many different ways can the position be interpreted as in the 3 move repetition rule. eg:-

WK e1
WR h1
BK e8

has an ambiguity factor of 3 ( If its white to move he may be able to castle or not making 2 positions, if its black to move white cant castle making 3 positions in all)

[IM Jack Rudd]

I think the starting point is that all six castling-pieces are on their original squares, with no castling-impossibility proofs available. That way, you immediately get a factor of 16. Then there are the en passant positions...

How about this position:

r3k2r/8/8/pPpPpPpP/pPpPpPpP/8/8/R3K2R

Then, if it's white's move, he may be able to take en passant on a6, c6, e6, g6 or none of them. Similarly, if it's black's move, he may be able to take en passant on b3, d3, f3, h3 or none of them. Either way, it's a factor of 5. So that's 16*5*2 for 160 different positions that that can represent. Any advance on 160?

[Stewart Reuben]

Read the first sentence of the Preface to the Laws of Chess and you will realise it is recognised any idea, that the Laws can be written in such a way that all arbiters behave identically in all situations, is unrealistic. I did write that sentence in 1996.
Stewart Reuben

[E Michael White]

Forgive me Mr Reuben you did not write the first sentence of the preface to the 1997 rules; with a few words changed it was copied from the 1958 FIDE Rules Commission review notes. The most you did was recommend its inclusion. Not many people would dispute the first sentence of this preface. That was not one of my points. You are introducing an unrelated tangential point and shooting it down to give the illusion of my point appearing invalid to the unwary reader.

My first point was that arbiters should try to act consistently. Consistently does not mean the same as identically as you suggest. I would hope that for very similar circumstances arbiters would come to very similar conclusions but that is not always the case.

My second point was that senior arbiters like yourself could try to ensure other arbiters converge to consistency by concentrating on what is important and occurs most often. In many places during the last 10 - 15 years FIDE rules have suffered in clarity due to among others merging of Standard Play, Rapid and Blitz rules all into one. Geurt Gijssen has his Chess Cafe notebook, which to some degree fills the void left by the FIDE Rules Commission review of special points. You could perhaps do the same on this bulletin board if you have the time but you would need to ensure consistency with Geurt.

Back to the points of silly moves and dress code.

Firstly silly moves. I believe you are tackling the symptoms in a heavy handed way and you would be better tackling the cause. I wont make the mistake others have of assuming that a vociferous 20-25 players on this bulletin board reflect general opinion but most seem to suggest stronger players should not be allowed to play silly moves against weaker players with a view to humiliation. I believe a better approach is to teach juniors that strong players may be playing bad moves, to invite you to overcommit and overstretch and that normally flexible development will pay in the long run. That way they will eventually win some of those games or they may feel good about reaching a strong position against a better player. If two players seems to have a prearranged draw via the silly move method the arbiter may be able to declare the game drawn early on after a warning by defaulting each player and determining the other players score as a half. Maybe you can say whether this is within the rules.

Secondly dress code. The last thing we want is a man in a shiny suit walking around telling people that for a 3 buttoned jacket the top two should be buttoned up or that the creases of their trousers should break over the front and heel of their shoes when walking. You also have to be wary of sex discrimination in dress code; if you disqualify a male for wearing flip-flops you should likewise disqualify all similarly attired females.

I hope you will do nothing to bring the British Championship into disrepute over these two points and suggest the most you can expect this year is for players to be wearing smartish holiday attire as the British is a holiday congress.

[Stewart Reuben]

Michael White. It was the amendments to the former version of the Preface that I wrote.
Geurt is Chairman of the Rules and Tournament Regulations Committee. His material on chesscafe is very useful. It should not have the property of being definitive. In order to represent itself as that, everything would have to be reviewed by the committee. That would be totally unworkable. People from all over the world contact me about different aspects of chess. Also, of course, I wrote 'The Chess Organiser's Handbook'. If Geurt and I had to present a united front, it would quadruple the work of responding to queries.

Dress code. I presume you were intending to make a joke. But there is the valid point that people should respect the dignity of St George's Hall. I have no problem personally with flip-flops, trainers or shorts for either sex. But what about bare feet or bare chests for men or offensive body odour? These matters are not the responsibility of the arbiters. It is the responsibility of the congress manager.

An arbiter could default one player and award the other a half. 13.4 covers this.

I happen not to agree with you about subsuming rapidplay and blitz into the Laws of Chess. That is not important. What is important is that the opportunity to express opinions about the Laws has been well-publicised and many people have done so. It would be tiresome to separate them, but certainly possible. David Welch wants games played without a cumulative mode to be transferred to an annex. I disagree with him completely on this, but will try to represent his view in Dresden if necessary. Look at the first sentence of the Laws. You will see they cover over-the-board play. That is there because John Roycroft did not want problems where more than 50 moves were necessary to win, to be rendered futile. I presented his case. We did not want to have a more than 50 move rule. So somebody had the idea the Laws should only be for over-the-board. That ameliorated John's problem.

I think we have exhausted the topic of silly moves. It will come up again when it happens again. It is hardly heavy-handed that I have defaulted only one player ever. He could have appealed.

Stewart Reuben

[E Michael White]

Jack Rudd

Yes 160 must be the right answer. Its not possible to introduce any more ambiguity as you have all the ep and castle options and your position is legal.

That one was obviously too easy so how about this problem which is find the smallest number which is provable bigger than the maximum number of chess positions.

eg 160 * (13^64) = 3.14 * (10^73) is an obvious first guess (x^n= x to the power n)

My best effort would be

a) legal 2 kings = 3612
b) 32 blanks out of 62 = 4.51 * 10^17
c) 30 remaining including additional blanks =11^30 =1.74*10^31
d) VAF = 160

product and lowest estimate= 4.55*10^54

This figure shows that chess has only a finite number of positions which leads to the disturbing conclusion that the game we all play has a predetermined result with best play and if computers or players were good enough all 2 game matches 1 with black and one with white would be 1-1 draws.

can you produce a lower figure than this ?