Adjudication: an appeal to holders of congress votes at ECF

[Angus French]

While Alex consulted widely

As a Director, I asked Alex to consult the leagues his proposal would affect and he declined. In advance of the submission of his proposal, he only consulted the four people with the most votes on Council.

... as one of his staff I was involved in the "Board" proposal (note the Board did not have a collective position on the issue).

To be clear: it wasn't a Board proposal. It was a proposal from Alex, using his position as Home Director of Chess. I think more Board members were against the proposal than for.

What concerns me, Brian, is that you and Alex were officers of a membership organisation and you promoted a divisive proposal which, if passed, could have led to organisations disaffiliating and loss of individual membership.

[Roger de Coverly]

Perhaps you mean the standard practice of adding a certain amount of time, perhaps 15 minutes, after the arbiter and players agree the time control has been reached. I don't see why you think that is against the FIDE Laws.

Some arbiters seem to believe that time should only be added after a flag is seen to fall, thereby ending the first time period. They cite the wording about establishing whether the correct number of moves have been played only after the flag fall.

For reference it's 6.4 in the current Laws which says

6.4 Immediately after a flag falls, the requirements of Article 6.3 a. must be checked.

and 6.3 a says

When using a chessclock, each player must complete a minimum number of moves or all moves in an allotted period of time and/or may be allocated an additional amount of time with each move. All these must be specified in advance.

Someone must have told the DGT programmers twenty years ago to design a clock that would add more time on completion of the first time period rather than when an "add time" button was pressed or when a counter hit a predetermined value.

[David Pardoe]

Lets be quite clear...although adjudications and adjurnments arent perfect ways to finish games, they definately have a place as valid options..
The alternative, which is popular because players then get it over in one session, is the speed chess shootout, producing the most unpredictable results, with errors bound to creep in as players hit the clock at break neck speed to avoid death by timeout. How can anyone class this as anything other than a lottery where luck, quick fingers, and time advantages can be exploited to produce a result that cannot in any way be described as `good chess`..
The real question..if anything, is should this `lottery chess` be counted for grading purposes...

So, both are tolerated to try to get our chess encounters done and dusted..
I`ve suggested one possible comprimise..ie, a truncated shootout..
This is where the normal time limits apply, but are followed, not by a sudden death shootout, but by a shorter speed session of say 20 moves (min) in 20 mins per player, taking the game to over 50 moves....followed by adjudication..or adjournment..
This would at least guarantee a first session of significant moves, from which a good chance of playing into an endgame was possible..and which should see the conclusion of at least 90% of games, before an adjudication/adjournment kicks in...

[Brian Valentine]

While Alex consulted widely

As a Director, I asked Alex to consult the leagues his proposal would affect and he declined. In advance of the submission of his proposal, he only consulted the four people with the most votes on Council.

... as one of his staff I was involved in the "Board" proposal (note the Board did not have a collective position on the issue).

To be clear: it wasn't a Board proposal. It was a proposal from Alex, using his position as Home Director of Chess. I think more Board members were against the proposal than for.

What concerns me, Brian, is that you and Alex were officers of a membership organisation and you promoted a divisive proposal which, if passed, could have led to organisations disaffiliating and loss of individual membership.

Angus,

Alex may speak for himself, but I know that other people were consulted. I accept your amplification of the Board position, I'm not on the Board and have not seen the relevant minutes,

On your second point, I look at things differently. I'm an officer of a member organisation that has an inconsistency in what it says it does (in the grading eligibility) and what in fact it does (on my interpretation of FIDE laws). My opinion is that the authority for deciding such matters in our case is in Council and that is where it was decided. The issue only became divisive, as strongly as I interpret you mean it, because some organisations threatened "pressing the nuclear button".

Council has decided and life will go on. It was the only agenda item that got close to "agenda items addressing medium- or long-term future of chess" in David Robertson's commentary of the AGM and it will be interesting to see how Council and the Board fit the decision into the future of chess.

[Roger de Coverly]

How can anyone class this as anything other than a lottery where luck, quick fingers, and time advantages can be exploited to produce a result that cannot in any way be described as `good chess`..

You might be talking about five minute chess, but I don't consider that a valid description of evening league chess. It's simple to avoid the game become randomised, just play at a faster tempo. So if it's a time control of x in 75 minutes + 15, aim to complete the x moves with fifteen minutes in hand. That way there's no pressure at the first time control and it's another twenty five minutes before shortage of time becomes relevant.

[Roger de Coverly]

The issue only became divisive, as strongly as I interpret you mean it, because some organisations threatened "pressing the nuclear button".

Did you give them a choice? Surely you know how resistant the diehards are to any suggestions that they should play a bit faster so as to complete an entire game in an evening session.

It's not as if some in the Leagues in question haven't been fighting for abolition or at least options for years. Take a look at the Forum of the Mid-Sussex League for example.

http://www.midsussexchess.org.uk/forum/qpf.htm

[Michael Farthing]

Someone must have told the DGT programmers twenty years ago to design a clock that would add more time on completion of the first time period rather than when an "add time" button was pressed or when a counter hit a predetermined value.

They probably had the sense to realise that counting the number of clock presses was inviting problems from accidental presses.

Quite frankly this whole issue of how a clock is adjusted is considerably more trivial than worrying about how many angels can be placed on a pinhead.* De minimus non curat lex. All chess lawyers should be forced to memorise the preamble to the rules which very sensibly tell people to do sensible things when they face unusual situations.

*In fact, this question was never hotly fought at all. It was an exercise question asked of students with a clear answer. Angels were outside space and time so God could put as many on the pinhead as he felt like.

[Roger de Coverly]

They probably had the sense to realise that counting the number of clock presses was inviting problems from accidental presses.

Given that potential problem, why then did they not make it simple to validate that the clock and the player score-sheets were in synch?

[Michael Farthing]

They probably had the sense to realise that counting the number of clock presses was inviting problems from accidental presses.

Given that potential problem, why then did they not make it simple to validate that the clock and the player score-sheets were in synch?

Well that sounds quite a bit of extra manufacturing expense to me in adding extra buttons (which is expensive) or going for contorted use of existing buttons (which is beyond the reach of many users). Frankly, it addresses a problem that does not exist. It takes at most 10 seconds to tell a new user that time is added when the first flag falls. I've met players at congresses who didn't understand this at the game start. I've never met one who had the slightest difficulty in understanding the concept nor one who felt the arrangement unsatisfactory. It's not the job of the clock to count moves and never has been.

[Roger de Coverly]

It's not the job of the clock to count moves and never has been.

There I disagree with you. It's one of the changes that Digital Clocks potentially introduce, namely a smarter clock and more sophisticated time controls, for example ones that only introduce increments towards the end of a game.

[Alex McFarlane]

I am in favour of adjudications not being graded.

However, at the meeting I voted against the proposal. This was because I feared that the consequences of a FOR vote would have adversely affected the ECF's relationship with a large number of members.

Had the proposal simply been to not grade games (as opposed to the entire league) where games could have been decided by adjudication then I would have been in favour for two reasons. The obvious reason being that only games decided by the players would then be graded. The other reason being that it might have shown whether players who like adjudications would have continued to prefer that over having their games graded. A drop-off in adjudicated games would have indicated that it was not as strongly supported as appears at the moment.

[David Pardoe]

How can anyone class this as anything other than a lottery where luck, quick fingers, and time advantages can be exploited to produce a result that cannot in any way be described as `good chess`..

You might be talking about five minute chess, but I don't consider that a valid description of evening league chess. It's simple to avoid the game become randomised, just play at a faster tempo. So if it's a time control of x in 75 minutes + 15, aim to complete the x moves with fifteen minutes in hand. That way there's no pressure at the first time control and it's another twenty five minutes before shortage of time becomes relevant.

I`ve witnessed many of these so called QPF games, with all remaining moves in say 15 mins per player...many descending into a farcical blitz finish, with the player on `clock advantage` often coming out on top, due to errors made under time pressure, in otherwise quite viable positions...and players quite typically simply playing on a clock advantage hoping for an error from the opponent...in an otherwise fairly level looking game..

[Roger de Coverly]

I am in favour of adjudications not being graded.

I don't think there is any suggestion that adjourned or potentially adjourned games not be graded.

Apart from the sealed move, what then is the difference between a game where the result is agreed by the players/match captains themselves with recourse to an outside party if they disagree (adjudication) and where the players/match captains agree a result without resumption (possible adjournment outcome).

If you wanted to reform adjudication, insisting on a sealed move might be a way to go about it. That would be a measure that could partly thwart those players aware that a position can be won or drawn, but who don't have a clue as to how to do it. Still with most leagues now run paperless, a sealed move envelope having to be handed to an adjudicator would be problematic.

[Michael Farthing]

Errrrr... What is this sealed move supposed to achieve? Sealed moves are designed so that neither player has an advantage of being able to plan their next move - how does this transfer to adjudication? If players are submitting a 'case' to the adjudicator then that if anything leaves an advantage to the person sealing. Not only that, but a person wanting to adjourn can then use all remaining time on his clock planning his sealed move and knowing that the clock time will not matter - basically theft of time from the opponent.

[Roger de Coverly]

Errrrr... What is this sealed move supposed to achieve? Sealed moves are designed so that neither player has an advantage of being able to plan their next move - how does this transfer to adjudication?

One of the most hated aspects of adjudication is where an opponent doesn't know how to continue and just sits out the remaining time hoping for rescue. Being forced to make a move at least potentially reduces the rewards of the practice.