Drop a piece lose the game

[Chris Rice]

Chris Rice >Would arbiters welcome the idea to make it standard that all digital clocks be fitted with a camera?<

Wouldn't that be costly? Having more arbiters might be cheaper. The video camera might well not record what happened because somebody's hand might get in the way. Incidents are rare in chess. That is why they are remembered when they occur. Avoiding them is the trick.
Electronic boards also help. They are particularly useful for the U8 and U9.
I suppose there could be a sensor in each piece that indicated when it was touched.

You could video them now for no extra cost using smartphones, as people already have done as is evident from this thread, but going forward it would seem a natural evolution to incorporate a camera into the digital clock design though I agree there could be an extra cost to bear.

Where an incident is not clear then an arbiter can ask for the play to continue, you get that in various incidents in cricket where the batsman is given the benefit of the doubt, but regardless the percentage increase in getting decisions right should increase significantly.

I guess the stats on how many incidents occur have never been collected but when the incidents do occur then you can get huge explosions where players feel they have been cheated. It reminds me of John McEnroe who used to go mental over faulty line calls but since Hawkeye was brought in these hardly ever happen anymore and players accept this arbitration as standard these days.

Finally extra arbiters may not necessarily solve the problem as the example Roger gives indicates and besides wouldn't be a good argument in economic terms as they rack up huge food bills.

[Tim Harding]

The arbiters at the British Championship Congress have adopted the pragmatic principle that the sensory boards are well deployed on the tournaments of the youngest age-groups.

Is that because the 8-year-olds' games are full of brilliant opening innovations and startling combinations more worthy of preservation for posterity than the efforts of their elders, or because the arbiters need the assistance of the DGT boards to resolve disputes?

[Stewart Reuben]

I spoke today to Geurt Gijssen in Holland about 7.4.
He unbidden agreeed with me that displacing piece in 7.4 refers to a piece that is not placed correctly on the board, e.g. pawn a2-a4.5. It does not refer to a piece lying on its side.
On the other hand, he does not feel that a piece knocked over accidentally should necessarily lead to loss of the game if not corrected in the offending player's time. Obviously the innocent player whose clock is going should get extra time. The standard is one minute.

Chris Rice >You could video them now for no extra cost using smartphones, as people already have done as is evident from this thread<
That would be transgressing the rules and, even if not, would be most unwise during a chess competition.

[Roger de Coverly]

because the arbiters need the assistance of the DGT boards to resolve disputes?

There was a dispute at Aberystwyth in a junior event in the 2014 Championships, the consequences of which went all the way to various FIDE bodies. The start of it appears to have been a disagreement about an illegal move. Had the moves of the game been recorded or reliably recorded, at least the facts could have been established.

[Roger de Coverly]

On the other hand, he does not feel that a piece knocked over accidentally should necessarily lead to loss of the game if not corrected in the offending player's time.

If a piece is knocked over when it isn't your turn to move, how do you correct it in your own time? Without an increment, you could just restart your own clock, but with an increment, you are just adding time to both yourself and your opponent,if you do this.

[NickFaulks]

On the other hand, he does not feel that a piece knocked over accidentally should necessarily lead to loss of the game if not corrected in the offending player's time.

If a piece is knocked over when it isn't your turn to move, how do you correct it in your own time? Without an increment, you could just restart your own clock, but with an increment, you are just adding time to both yourself and your opponent,if you do this.

That presumably explains the school of thought that increments require more draconian rules. I don't agree, but I see the point.

[David Shepherd]

I guess one solution would be to have an extra button on the clock which could be pressed when the opponent displaces a piece. This could then be used to restart the players clock but with no increment added, possibly also adding an increment to the player who hadn't knocked over the piece - (this function could be another button).

I remember one rapid play game where my opponent knocked over a piece about four or five times in the one game, but it wasn't his fault as he clearly had health issues. Any suggestion that he should have been penalised by the loss of the game would be nonsense.

In my opinion, any rule that means a player immediately loses, if at any point they accidently knock over a piece, is undesirable. That is not the way I would want to win any game.

[NickFaulks]

I guess one solution would be to have an extra button on the clock which could be pressed when the opponent displaces a piece.

I wish I had kept a list of every facility that this forum has suggested could be added to a chess clock. The thing would have to be the timekeeping equivalent of a Swiss Army knife.

[LawrenceCooper]

I wish I had kept a list of every facility that this forum has suggested could be added to a chess clock. The thing would have to be the timekeeping equivalent of a Swiss Army knife.

[David Shepherd]

Nick - that may be the case but I personally have never as far as I can remember suggested any. A button to restart a clock with no increment added and one to add an increment - which could for example add 30 seconds each time it is pressed seem fairly useful to me and could be an easy means of adding a time penalty without interrupting the game significantly.

[NickFaulks]

Nick - that may be the case but I personally have never as far as I can remember suggested any.

That was in no way intended as a criticism of you, just a general comment.

The clock manufacturers do welcome ( or at least put up with ) suggested modifications. Personally, I don't think this one would warrant the very considerable development expense. On the odd occasion when it was needed the player, probably already in a state of mild panic, would quite probably forget the procedure and do something which messed up the clock even more.

[Stewart Reuben]

Roger >If a piece is knocked over when it isn't your turn to move, how do you correct it in your own time? Without an increment, you could just restart your own clock, but with an increment, you are just adding time to both yourself and your opponent,if you do this.<
Let me change that to >If you knock over when your clock isn't running, how do you correct it in your own time? Without an increment, you could just restart your own clock, but with an increment, you are just adding time to both yourself and your opponent,if you do this.<

You MUST be proactive.
1. Stop the clock.
2. Get the arbiter
3. Correct your error.
4. Then the arbiter can give your opponent an extra one minute and, when both players are ready, restart the clock.
If you just sit there like a lemon, then you are failing to correct your illegality. You deserve to lose.

[NickFaulks]

You MUST be proactive.
1. Stop the clock.
2. Get the arbiter
3. Correct your error.
4. Then the arbiter can give your opponent an extra one minute and, when both players are ready, restart the clock.

There will of course be occasions - you're very short of time in a complicated position, your opponent has lots - when this process will be greatly beneficial to you, whether you want it to be or not. Does your opponent have the right to say "just get on with the game"?

[Stewart Reuben]

Nick >There will of course be occasions - you're very short of time in a complicated position, your opponent has lots - when this process will be greatly beneficial to you, whether you want it to be or not. Does your opponent have the right to say "just get on with the game"?<

Presumably the clock is no longer running. Your opponent corrects the position of the piece that you have caused to fall over. He can then restart his own clock and continue. The arbiter wouldn't have to be involved. The opponent could even leave his own clock running while the mishap is corrected.

In March I had the opportunity to behave unethically in the 4NCL. I was very short of time. I could have pushed the pawn to the eighth rank and pressed the clock. Of course that is illegal. My opponent gets an extra 2 minutes and I would have got extra thinking time. Instead, I completed the promotion and, in due course, lost.

That is why 7.1 is there. If an irregularity occurs and the pieces have to be restored to a previous position, the arbiter shall use his best judgement to determine the times to be shown on the chessclock. This includes the right not to change the clock times.

[Alex Holowczak]

because the arbiters need the assistance of the DGT boards to resolve disputes?

There was a dispute at Aberystwyth in a junior event in the 2014 Championships, the consequences of which went all the way to various FIDE bodies. The start of it appears to have been a disagreement about an illegal move. Had the moves of the game been recorded or reliably recorded, at least the facts could have been established.

I think the UK is, to an extent, leading the way in using DGT liveboards to aid with things like draw claims. Matthew Carr and I have both used them on things like draw by repetition claims. I've seen overseas arbiters play through games manually for some reason, taking 5-10 minutes to make their mind up, when it can take seconds on a liveboard.