Accidentally displacing a piece

[John Cox]

> If your brain tells your hand to pick up a piece, and the hand picks up that piece, or another one, then that is deliberate by most definitions of that word.

You think that in ordinary parlance one would say that Kots 'deliberately' touched his rook? I don't.

In any case, this 'deliberate' touching of yours would also be 'accidental', I would suggest.

[Eric Gardiner]

Giulio, other people's sob stories are boring, and yours is showing all the classic signs as to why this is the case.

Personally I'm finding the thread quite interesting which is why I've contributed (although I too will be 'disappearing' soon) - in particular the differences in opinions on when chess pieces your hand comes into contact with have to be moved.

I'm also intrigued to know why some are advising Giulio to 'just forget about it and move on' if he perceives himself to be to be the victim of injustice or unsporting behaviour. I think he is right to speak out, although this forum isn't necessarily the most appropriate place. Judging from another recent thread on the forum, I assume that if Giulio had said that the incident had led him to depression or wanting to give up chess then reactions might have been more supportive?

[Paul McKeown]

I agree with all of what Martyn Harris says, except the last sentence, which may mean the advice won't be taken.

And I disagree with almost all of what Martyn Harris has said, which comes across as got-out-of-bed-the-wrong-side. The Laws are, as has been well demonstrated, interpreted differently in the same cases by different arbiters.

If someone knocks over a piece, requiring them to move it is simply daft. Perhaps the Laws should say that if you knock over a piece, you lose it! No, that was sarcasm.

[Kevin Thurlow]

"Now this is fundamentally wrong. I know it's what the rules say, (one of the many, many regards in which they need revising) but they shouldn't. As a basic matter of principle, chess is a game played between two people. If they are happy with what goes on, then the arbiter should interfere only if one player is being taken advantage of – by not noticing something for example."

This is a good point - I was watching a game once (I'm an arbiter that actually wanders around looking at games), and a player picked up a piece and then put it down again on the same square. So I loitered unobtrusively to see what would happen next. After I'd analysed a bit, I thought that the player had been about to make the best move. He then picked up a different piece and moved it, which was obviously a losing blunder. So do I insist on him moving the first piece touched, thus disadvantaging his opponent? It even gives the advantage to the offending player. (I'm assuming here that he hadn't touched something else before!) I loitered a bit more, but his opponent was not complaining, and duly made the winning move.

The difficulty with the Laws is that they can't cover everything, which is why they're a bit wishy-washy in places.

[Paul McKeown]

The difficulty with the Laws is that they can't cover everything, which is why they're a bit wishy-washy in places.

Have you seen the codex for Bridge?

[Alistair Campbell]

I find this tale interesting in a couple of respects.

One is with regard to the (un)reliability both of memory and of eyewitness reports. (In saying this I offer no opinion on the veracity or otherwise of Signor Simeone’s account).

How often are people mistaken in what they claim to have witnessed? Anyone who attends football regularly will be aware of the phenomenon whereby large numbers of people will swear blind that a particular incident happened, and similar numbers of people will be equally adamant that the incident did not take place. People often see what they want to see. I have frequently witnessed what appear to be clean tackles and blatant hand-balls which on later TV evidence are revealed to be anything but (and vice versa). Unless you are paying particular attention, it must be difficult to say with complete certainty that XYZ happened as opposed to XZY.

Similarly, how accurate is one’s memory of trivial events? I’ve just made a cup of coffee. Logically I must have put the cup out first, otherwise I would have poured hot water everywhere and I would have noticed that. I’m confident that then I put the coffee in as I nearly aIways do that. But what did I add next – hot water or milk? No idea – sometimes I do one, sometime the other, and if you told me which (other than wondering how you were able to see into my kitchen) I wouldn’t be able to contradict.

Turning to the particular incident, it seems to me that given the relative position of the king and the bishop (and their relative sizes) it is quite likely that the king would be brushed (or even knocked over) whilst attempting to move the bishop. The situation could be exacerbated by things like the height and size of the table, whether the player was left or right handed, the position of the clock and so on. This would be a relatively common event, and it may hence be difficult for the player to remember precisely what happened.

The second issue is over the laws and the distinction between “accidentally” picking up a piece, and "deliberately" picking up the wrong piece, a distinction I am having difficulty in appreciating. Taking a slight detour into the “is chess a sport” debate, I’ve long thought that the absence of any difference between concept and execution is key. In a sport, one may easily conceive of pinging a 40 yard cross-field pass, bowling just outside off-stump with a touch of away swing, hitting a drive 280 yards with a slight fade to avoid the fairway bunker, or even hitting 98 to leave a two-dart finish – the difficulty is in the execution. One of the merits of chess is that there is normally no difference between concept and execution – if you want to play Qh5?? then you can play it. This allows players of all abilities and of all disabilities to play on an equal basis. However, now we appear to have the idea that one has to be sufficiently dextrous to play the move you intended. Whilst there may be good reason for this (and presumably there are good reasons for “touch and move” and the law about your move standing when you take your hand of the piece) it does seem like a retrograde step. Certainly, if a player accidentally deliberately touched his/her king in the situation that Mr Cox described, then claimed it was an accident, I would have trouble disagreeing, particularly if they had played KxR, and there should be minimal need for any head-butting.

Hopefully such incidents as the one described continue to be exceptional, but I fear that Signor Simeone was khawajaed.

[Paul McKeown]

One thing that I have seen written here is that the arbiter must intervene, even if both players would rather (s)he buzz off. A reference to Ljubojevic and Speelman is given as an illustration. This must addressed - sometimes the arbiter really should NOT intervene.

Sometimes I have a come to the board at my first move, to find many pieces haphazardly misplaced. My solution has been to utter a humorous, "Multidoube!" to my opponent, and then to adjust all the displaced pieces without further ado. Everyone I have played has grinned, some have proceeded to adjust all their own pieces, too. Is there an arbiter here who will insist that I must move the second multidoubed piece, being the first without an explicit j'aboube?

[Paul McKeown]

khawajaed

"Given out, banjaxed by umpire"

[Paul McKeown]

j'aboube?

Hmmm, clearly I boobed there. J'aboubed!

[Giulio Simeone]

OK, I'll try not to lose my patience and answer to this ... I will skip some of the things you wrote, though, this meaning that the answer is obvious. I wonder if you have read all my posts.

Giulio, other people's sob stories are boring, and yours is showing all the classic signs as to why this is the case.

From all the answers I received, I doesn't seem to me that this is a "boring sob story"

He was a very unpleasant and unsporting person. (says who?)

You can't know him, but just yesterday I reported what happened to the President of the Regional Commitee, he replied me that recently there have been many problems with Albertini, that the arbiters in and around Rome know him well and they will know how to behave in case of further incidents. That's already a first good result.

I'm far too good a player to make that bad a move. (Amazing how often one sees this as an objection to a ruling.) ]

Oh my God, we are not talking of a complicated middle-game position like this (black to move)

2kr3r/ppq1n1p1/2B1p1p1/3pP2p/1b1B2PP/2NQ4/PPP2P2/2KR3R b KQkq - 0 1

in which you have to calculate many complicated variations in order to find the right piece that should retake the bishop - by the way, in a game I played some weeks ago, I did!

We are talking of an elementary endgame like this

8/1p2B3/p5p1/8/1P2k3/P3bpK1/8/8 b KQkq - 0 1

in which Black has to do nothing but push his two passed pawns.

Take succour from any sympathetic reply and refuse to accept the validity of any responses you don't like.

I extensively considered Flatt's, Kreuzer's and Hewitt's replies, and now I'm considering yours, it seems to me.

What you wrote next seems too resentful towards me, and I will not comment it. I want to tell you only another thing

If you believe that you have a disability that may prevent you from always acting within the letter of the laws let the arbiters know in advance so that they can be ready to take this into account. Don't simply use it as another thing to prop up your hard luck story.

Here you can't imagine how much you are wrong. Again, I wonder if you have read all my posts. In this thread I mentioned my disability only in three short sentences, and clearly stated that I don't want use it as an argument. In Italy, many chess players that know me commented "It's a real shame that Albertini took advantage of your disability" and I replied them "No, because also to an able-bodied player it can happen to accidentally hurt a piece". I better stop it here with you.

[Geoff Chandler]

Hi Eric.

I advised he just let it go. It obviously got to him and he should learn from that.
Even after the arbiter instructed him to move the King he has a walk in the park win.

1...Kd3 2.Kxf3 b5

8/4B3/p5p1/1p6/1P6/P2kbK2/8/8 w - - 0 1

The whole incident screwed him up and he blew it.
Next time an incident happens he can relate to this matter and recall how it affected his play.
It's called learning through experience.

I believe him 100% when he says he accidently touched the King.
However he could post this grievance in a 100 forums on the net and it will not get him his ½ point back.

The more he goes on about it, the more chance a future opponent will see it
and try an off-putting stunt knowing this lad's thinking goes haywire if a dispute arises.

The tactics of his opponent in this matter are sadly not uncommon. (again only seeing Giulio's side.)
We all know of players who use, let's call it 'gamesmanship' every now and then.
There is a danger that when Giulio meets one of these wide-eyed boys he will
end up in a duspute every time he gets a won position.

Learn from it as you would any dropped ½ point or loss, let it go and move on.

--------

If you knock over a piece you have not picked it up and placed it on another square.
You simply say 'oops, sorry, accident," carry on playing your move and then correct
the knocked over piece, press the clock.
I have never seen anybody claim touch move on that one.

Look out for the King on g1 accidental knock over and it being replaced on h1 especially if the f-apwn has been moved.
There are few documented cases of that happening, or in similiar positions.
Kc1 being replaced on b1 a few moves after 0-0-0 is another.
Most are accidental but some.....

[John Cox]

On the theme of Mr Albertini and his future conduct (or something like that) here is another interesting case with a few parallels to this, and some not so parallel aspects

http://www.thechessmind.net/blog/2011/9 ... r-not.html

The link in the comments to Moiseenko's earlier performance at the Isle of Man is instructive.

[Eric Gardiner]

Hi Geoff
I think we'll have to agree to disagree about what he should be doing now that the game is over as I can't think of anything else to add to what I've said before. Agreed he still had a winning position after the f3 pawn goes but that doesn't make the incident (again with emphasis) if it happened as described by Giulio acceptable.

[Paolo Casaschi]

Giulio, after so many posts I'm not sure anymore what you want to achieve with this discussion.

Let me explain myself.

I assume that you are telling the truth when you declare that you did not have the intention to move the King and you only accidentally touched the King while reaching out for the Bishop. You did that in good faith and you told clearly the arbiter in the discussion immediately after the event. I believe you. This is not for debate.
At this point, following the discussion on this thread, I wonder: are you asking here that we agree with you that the arbiter made the wrong decision because the decision did not correspond to what we (you and I) agreed it happened? Then yes, I agree, the arbiter sanctioned you with a penalty that you did not deserve. There might be various possible explanations for this to happen (the arbiter did not see the action clearly, the arbiter did not know the rule, the arbiter trusted your opponent more than you... it does not matter for now), but in fact the decision penalized you disregarding what actually happened.

However, other people are replying to you in a different perspective, trying to assess whether you can certainly claim the arbiter made the wrong decision based on the laws of chess and based on his perception of what actually happened.
For example, let's assume the arbiter saw the scene and got the following perception of the events: you are moving your hand towards the cluster of pieces, he does not see clearly what's happened, but definitely saw you at the end grabbing the King and releasing it back on his original square. It's possible to assume that from his point of view he honestly believe you grabbed the King with the intention of moving it, so he forced you to play that piece. If that is how he perceived the action, there's no argument you can use to change that perspective: it does not matter the King moves are blunders or any other justification.
So, if the question is: did the arbiter *certainly* made the wrong decision based on his perception of the events? Then the answer is no, we cannot be sure he took the wrong decision based on his perception of the event. He could have perceived the events in a way that justifies his choice. And since you claimed something happened, and your opponent claimed something else happened, what else should have the arbiter trusted if not his own perception of the event?

In summary, did the arbiter make the right decision? Well... yes and no...

[John Hodgson]

Giulio, other people's sob stories are boring, and yours is showing all the classic signs as to why this is the case.

And - in the realms of mere emotion - I find your whole post tedious too.

Why? Because the discussion has thrown up uncertainty about the rules, and the uncertainty is still there.

So, Giulio, continue if you wish to do so.