Persistent Infringements

[Reg Clucas]

Against non-movers there's always the danger that they will notice their clock is running, panic and make a second move.

I had the opposite experience in a recent rapidplay. After a long think, my opponent gave a start, and pressed his clock. I had to point out to him that he had not yet made his move!

Regarding descriptive notation, in the local league match that I watched last night, exactly half of the players were using it.

[Stewart Reuben]

Clive you and your opponent made the right decision. The Laws of Chess are written to assist players getting on with their own game, unlike the Bridge rules that require frequent intervention on the part of the director.

Richard, your finding E.02 shows that the FIDE Handbook often is not updated in a timely fashion. I see little value in E.2 (last amended in 2008) considering Appendix D of the Laws covers the same ground. The Rules Commission is not in charge of the Handbook.

[Martyn Harris]

I saw a dinsoaur in the London League very recently. I only noticed after the game that a middle-aged player was scoring in descriptive notation. That's against the laws. I thought all the people I had given special dispensation to were either retired from chess or had died.

In which case I suggest that you no not stray far from your south-east fastness. Elsewhere there are plenty of people who prefer to record in pounds, shillings and pence. Getting snooty about it would be a sure way of overstaying ones welcome.

[David Robertson]

The Rules Commission is not in charge of the Handbook.

That would be for the Handbook Commission, of course

[NickFaulks]

The Rules Commission is not in charge of the Handbook.

I had assumed that all of Section E would fall under the Rules Commission. Who else?

[Matt Mackenzie]

I saw a dinsoaur in the London League very recently. I only noticed after the game that a middle-aged player was scoring in descriptive notation. That's against the laws. I thought all the people I had given special dispensation to were either retired from chess or had died.

I expect most readers do not follow the Laws of Chess properly.
1. They fail to record the offer of a draw.
2. They don't ensure that both players sign both scoresheets at the end of the game.

There are still a few up here who use descriptive (middle aged, not just old) - in congresses as well

I still almost invariably fail to observe number 1 above, and indeed didn't even know it was a rule until a few years ago

[NickFaulks]

I still almost invariably fail to observe number 1 above, and indeed didn't even know it was a rule until a few years ago

It wasn't.

[Brian Towers]

It's quite frequent for local leagues to permit the continued use of descriptive notation and the ECF have raised no objection. A proposal referring to FIDE rules last year to remove from grading adjudicated games or games potentially subject to adjudication was rejected, so a proposal to outlaw descriptive would likely suffer a similar fate.

I'm not sure whether I could find it again, but when this issue has come up in the past, it was an opinion that descriptive could be permitted even in the Hastings Masters.

Ah yes, the difference between de re and de facto and the prerogative that national federations have to bend towards the realities of lower level chess.

I remember a while ago being the arbiter in the national 1/16 final championships (national rated but not FIFE rated, thank goodness). This is a format the ECF would do well to consider. Basically the 1/16 finals are played in the clubs and are open to all players who don't have a grading above 1800 (i.e. including ungraded players who saw an article in the newspaper and wandered in off the street). Played as a 9 round Swiss the top 20% finishers qualify for the 1/8 finals. You can enter as many as you like. That is to say if clubs A, B and C are running these on their club nights of Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday respectively then you are free to enter all of them. One successful top 20% finish will qualify you.

The 1/8 finals are the same again only FIDE rated and limited to qualifiers plus players in the range 1800 - 2200. As for 1/4 finals and above I'm afraid I've never got that far so I'm not sure.

During the first round I stopped to watch a game between a kiddie who looked about 9 and this old guy who looked to be the wrong side of 70. The kiddie was already a piece up and another looked to be about to drop, but no, the kiddie was going for a rook instead. The rook duly fell and a few moves later the piece as well. I noticed the old boy wasn't writing the moves down. Not a single one, not even a token attempt. The kiddie wasn't concerned and just played. I looked at the old boy's hands. They looked mangled. Maybe he couldn't write the moves down? I wandered back to the office to see if he had dispensation to not record.

"Oh, that must be old Joe", the club secretary said. "He's a former boxer, used to be town champion, over 80. Just leave him. The game won't last long". Then it came back to me. During the pre-competition monologue there had been the usual "Sermon on the Mobile Phone", albeit a rather short one, followed by an interminable banging on about "playing all your games", "not entering if you think you'll pack in half way through", "not fair to the other players", "they've paid their entry fee because they want to play chess not have a bye". It all made sense. That had been aimed at Joe.

I wandered back into the playing area to see that Joe and the kiddie had already put the pieces back and Joe was kibitzing.

A couple of weeks' later I made the mistake of stopping by Joe's game again. This time he was playing a middle aged man. Joe's knight was pinned against his queen. Closer inspection showed that the knight wasn't long for this world, attacked from all sides. Just then Joe picked up the knight and looked for somewhere to put it. Then he spotted the bishop bearing down on his queen and put the knight back down, folded his arms and went into a long think. I looked at his opponent. Absolutely no reaction. I'm afraid I just watched. Thank goodness it wasn't FIDE rated.

A few moves later there was a mass of rather one sided exchanges and a few moves after that middle aged man delivered checkmate. Being a proper chess player with a grading and all he didn't announce checkmate and Joe looked rather bemused. He picked up his king looking for somewhere to put it. It was then as an arbiter that I stepped in and explained that it was checkmate.

Joe took it well. Middle aged man was rather pleased with his finishing combination. I headed back for the office, job well done, for a calming cup of tea.

[David Williams]

To return to the original question, the answer surely is to tell your captain, who tells the opposing captain, who tells your opponent. No doubt someone more versed in the rules will inform you what to do if your opponent is the opposing captain and takes not a blind bit of notice. I suppose he has been warned by an arbiter (your captain)? Could your captain then award the game to you?

[Brian Towers]

Could your captain then award the game to you?

I really doubt that very much. Arbiters don't take move writing infringements very seriously.

I recently posed the following question to two different AIs from different countries and got similar unsatisfactory answers.

You are playing in a country with a non-Latin alphabet. The laws explicitly state in several places that when writing the moves the Latin letters a-h must be used for the files. For pieces you may use the usual abbreviation in the local language. The laws even give helpful examples. In Holland you can use "L" (loiper) for bishop, in France "F" (fou).

Your opponent is writing the moves using the local language including illegally using the local alphabet for the files. You wait until about move 50 when you both have about a minute left on the clocks (with 30 second increment) before calling the arbiter over and asking him to enforce the laws and make your opponent write all the moves legally on his time. Neither arbiter gave the "correct" answer I'm afraid and another cunning wheeze had to be put on hold.

When I asked the local AI, a friend who has just got his last FA norm was listening in. I saw him again a couple of weeks later and he said "Brian, I checked and you're absolutely right. Half the players here are recording illegally!". "So, are you going to be checking for that and calling it?" I asked. "Of course not" he laughed.

[Andy Stoker]

I think Paul Trevillion has another topic to develop http://www.theguardian.com/football/ser ... re-the-ref

[David Robertson]

the answer surely is to tell your captain, who tells the opposing captain, who tells your opponent. No doubt someone more versed in the rules will inform you what to do if your opponent is the opposing captain and takes not a blind bit of notice. I suppose he has been warned by an arbiter (your captain)? Could your captain then award the game to you?

Ah yes [deep sigh]. And so we arrive at the incident against me (Sept 2008) which led to the Atticus 2 v. Widnes dispute. But we don't want to go there, do we

[Mike Truran]

If any topic could make this forum crash and burn, that would be it.

[Jonathan Bryant]

And so we arrive at the incident against me (Sept 2008) which led to the Atticus 2 v. Widnes dispute.

Just the seven years ago? Is that what you lot Up North call a feud? Pah.

[MartinCarpenter]

Oh we've got a few much longer running grudges than that