FIDE Rule 10.2 misconceptions

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IM Jack Rudd
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Re: FIDE Rule 10.2 misconceptions

Post by IM Jack Rudd » Tue Sep 15, 2009 9:23 pm

John Anderson wrote: I am reminded of an incident at the kidlington Congress a few years ago. I was playing an FM (212/215ish in old money) who was well known for getting into time -trouble. I was pressing hard for the win and, with maybe 7 or 8 moves to the time control, my opponent seemed deep in thought. When he stopped the clocks with 2 minutes to spare I assumed he was resigning but in fact he had simply let his clock run down from around 20 minutes down to 2 in order to summon the arbiter to claim a draw.
Hang on a second - 7 or 8 moves to the time control? Not in a quickplay finish; 10.2 claim should be immediately rejected as inapplicable to the situation.

(And letting your clock run down should be an immediate rejection anyway; if you've got 20 minutes, you have time to actually play your drawing line.)

Ola Winfridsson
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Re: FIDE Rule 10.2 misconceptions

Post by Ola Winfridsson » Wed Sep 16, 2009 9:48 am

Roger de Coverly wrote:
Ola Winfridsson wrote:I how one can claim that the other player is more or less obliged to agree to a draw
Offer the draw, say in a position with R+2 v R+1 (no passed pawns), opponent declines - his only winning try is on time. Award draw by 10.2

Or Q+R+N v P + B but next to no time - offer draw again if opponent declines then claim draw under 10.2.


I don't buy that watching the play for "progress" isn't a form of adjudication as well. First because it's not unknown to pursue a plan, realise it doesn't work and then go back to an earlier position to try again. So the arbiter is judging the competence of the play. Secondly the arbiter has to be of a sufficient playing standard to identify which moves are subtle ploys to improve the position and which are just moving for the sake of it.

As a benchmark as to an immediate award, consider what would happen if the draw offer had been made in the same position but with equal time and an increment.

Personally I think the arbiting community should build up a library of positions where 10.2 claims had either been granted or not granted. Perhaps players should do it for them by quoting positions where a draw was agreed that they would have claimed or thought their opponents could claim. Here's one for a starter

White has pawns on b4,c3,e4,g3,h4
Black has pawns on b5,c4,e5,g4,h5

White has bishops on e1 and c2
Black has bishops on e3 and c6

White king is on g2
Black King is on g7

Black to move - earlier there had been a rook each so Black with much more time was looking for a win - perhaps by forcing dark square bishops off with Bd2. White was able to force off the rooks and then offered/claimed the draw. Black saw no reason to dispute this.
I see what you mean, but these are very specific cases, and not quite what I understood from your initial posting where I got the impression (please accept my apologies if I misinterpreted it) that you were talking in general terms about clearly superior positions for the side with less than 2 minutes left. Having said that, a claim under the 10.2 rule very often spurs on a player to start trying to make progress - while in the preceding play perhaps he/she had made next to no efforts in that direction. An arbiter is unlikely to have seen the preceding play.

This highlights another problem with rule 10.2: you're no longer bound to keep score once you're down to the last 5 minutes, and in the intervening 3 minutes before the 10.2 rule comes into play some 20-30 moves can quite easily be rattled off. If both players reach this stage at roughly the same time, it can be very difficult to judge whether someone's been trying to make progress or not.

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Re: FIDE Rule 10.2 misconceptions

Post by Roger de Coverly » Wed Sep 16, 2009 10:53 am

Ola Winfridsson wrote:I see what you mean, but these are very specific cases, and not quite what I understood from your initial posting where I got the impression (please accept my apologies if I misinterpreted it) that you were talking in general terms about clearly superior positions for the side with less than 2 minutes
I was earlier - but there seemed to be an assertion that a 10.2 claim should never be awarded on the arbiter's first sight of the position. I'm suggesting there are plenty of practical examples - possibly arbiters never see these because of the sporting sense of the players in agreeing draws themselves.

Ola Winfridsson wrote: This highlights another problem with rule 10.2: you're no longer bound to keep score once you're down to the last 5 minutes, and in the intervening 3 minutes before the 10.2 rule comes into play some 20-30 moves can quite easily be rattled off. If both players reach this stage at roughly the same time, it can be very difficult to judge whether someone's been trying to make progress or not.
That indirectly brings up a point that Jack made. There's nothing in the rules about the player making the 10.2 claim having attempted to make lots of moves (perhaps there's some secret arbiter guidance :) ). I'm not sure what sort of benchmark would be appropriate - perhaps 60 seconds a move. So if the move rate was 40/100 + 20, you would have to be at move 58 before a 10.2 claim could even be considered. In the 4NCL or the British, it would be move 88. That would rule out a decision in the 4NCL several years ago where a player made only 19 moves after move 60 and was awarded a 10.2 draw - he had the inferior position but there were numerous breakthrough attempts that his opponent could have tried given the moves to try them. As the rules stand at present you could play 40/100, then run your time out and make a 10.2 claim. Jack would tell you to play on, but would all arbiters and how would they rule if you only played 5/10/20/30 moves in the remaining 2 minutes?

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Re: FIDE Rule 10.2 misconceptions

Post by Ola Winfridsson » Wed Sep 16, 2009 11:38 am

Roger de Coverly wrote:That indirectly brings up a point that Jack made. There's nothing in the rules about the player making the 10.2 claim having attempted to make lots of moves (perhaps there's some secret arbiter guidance :) ). I'm not sure what sort of benchmark would be appropriate - perhaps 60 seconds a move. So if the move rate was 40/100 + 20, you would have to be at move 58 before a 10.2 claim could even be considered. In the 4NCL or the British, it would be move 88. That would rule out a decision in the 4NCL several years ago where a player made only 19 moves after move 60 and was awarded a 10.2 draw - he had the inferior position but there were numerous breakthrough attempts that his opponent could have tried given the moves to try them. As the rules stand at present you could play 40/100, then run your time out and make a 10.2 claim. Jack would tell you to play on, but would all arbiters and how would they rule if you only played 5/10/20/30 moves in the remaining 2 minutes?
Sounds like a good benchmark to me, perhaps adjusted for quicker time controls and/or the last cutoff-point: in the case of 30/75min + 15min, say 30 seconds, so that at least move 60 is reached (move 45 seems very early), whereas for 42/1.45h + 15 min (popular up North I believe) 45 sec/move (= move 62). However, there's always the problem if both players come down to their last 2 minutes quickly.

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Re: FIDE Rule 10.2 misconceptions

Post by Alex Holowczak » Fri Oct 09, 2009 9:55 pm

10.2 reared its head tonight in a schools' match in Birmingham. They were playing 20 minutes each. One game became KP v K, and it was obviously a draw, the King wasn't infront of the pawn. Apparently, progress was being made towards the inevitable stalemate, but it had gone wrong many times. It went from a win for one player to a draw, back and forth. Would that have been a draw under 10.2? He could easily have regained the drawn position, but it didn't seem like the player knew for certain what it was.

In the event however, the player didn't know about rule 10.2, and calmly lost on time, avoiding potential chaos given no one present had any knowledge of the rules, and giving second place in the tournament to my old school. :)

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Re: FIDE Rule 10.2 misconceptions

Post by IM Jack Rudd » Fri Oct 09, 2009 10:24 pm

If it's going from win to draw, back and forth, it's almost certainly going to fail as a 10.2 claim - the player with the pawn is getting genuine winning chances.

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Re: FIDE Rule 10.2 misconceptions

Post by Alex Holowczak » Sun Oct 11, 2009 7:58 pm

Yet another one happened today, this time involving me.

It was a rapidplay game. About half way through, my opponent got up and went to the toilet. He was a pawn up at the time. He wasted a couple of minutes on his clock, as a result. A couple of moves later, he spent almost 10 minutes on one move, putting himself in massive time trouble. The move he had to play was worthy of thought, but not 10-minutes worth. When it became clear my defence was (just about) good enough to meet his attack, he just swapped everything off. He had seconds left, to my 2 minutes. He then said "draw", and went to stop the clocks. I said, "no", and he continued. He ended up losing on time.

My issues were numerous:
1. You can't get up and go to the toilet in a rapidplay game, and then complain that you've run out of time. He wasted two minutes that would have made a big difference. It's not like he couldn't have gone beforehand.
2. 10 minutes on one move in a rapidplay game?
3. He didn't offer a draw, he just went to stop the clocks. You can't do that.
4. After declining the draw offer, he didn't call an arbiter over. If he was convinced that it was a draw, why not call an arbiter over, who would surely agree?
5. Minor pieces were still on the board, and I was attacking one of his pawns at the time.

After all that, he says that "[I'm] not supposed to try to win on time. We shall meet again" as if I were the one at fault. :shock:

I don't see what I did wrong. :?

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Re: FIDE Rule 10.2 misconceptions

Post by Kevin Thurlow » Mon Oct 12, 2009 12:16 pm

Alex Holowczak wrote: I don't see what I did wrong. :?
Neither do I (based on your description of events...)
"Kevin was the arbiter and was very patient. " Nick Grey

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Re: FIDE Rule 10.2 misconceptions

Post by Paul McKeown » Tue Mar 16, 2010 8:00 pm

John Upham wrote:My concern here is that some arbiters feel they should be adjudicating the position : they are wrong.

They should determine if one of the players is making a attempt to win by improving their position or mating their opponent.
Not true: there are in fact, two different 10.2 claims, the first, as you state, that a player is not making an attempt to win by normal means, the second, which you omit, that a player cannot win by normal means. This is in fact a sort of adjudication, useful for example when some idiot with 10 minutes insists on forcing you with half a minute to play on with your KNP vs. his KN or KB vs. KoB, when you could only lose by helpmate or similar.

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Re: FIDE Rule 10.2 misconceptions

Post by matt_ward » Fri May 27, 2011 8:46 pm

I find this rule totally unfair, I recently encountered "The two minute rule", in Richmond, it was something of a deadlock position closed, King, Knight, five pawns against his King Bishop Five pawns. I had the Knight, and therefore my opponent had about 1.50 against my 5 minutes when he stopped the clock and called over the arbiter.

The only one that had winning chances was me as knights can jump over pieces in the sense I could of got to his pawns but he couldn't get to mine as his Bishop was cut off and my pawns were on opposite coloured squares.

What right should someone have to call a arbiter on the 10.2 rule, in a rapidplay tournament when the game will finished in a fixed period of time and chess is a game with a clock he should of managed his time better, it would of been drawn although with little time had he moved his king or Bishop so my knight could get through I would of won.

I won't mention the chaps name as he was a junior however had this not of happened it would of changed the outcome of winners as I would of got 5/6 instead of 4/6 winning me 1st place instead of nothing.

I think the two minute rule effects the results of Rapidplay tournaments massively and influences the results and should not take presidence therefore.

Matt. :( :o :o :o

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Re: FIDE Rule 10.2 misconceptions

Post by Roger de Coverly » Fri May 27, 2011 8:59 pm

matt_ward wrote:What right should someone have to call a arbiter on the 10.2 rule, in a rapidplay tournament when the game will finished in a fixed period of time and chess is a game with a clock he should of managed his time better, it would of been drawn although with little time had he moved his king or Bishop so my knight could get through I would of won.
I think you've answered your own question. If the position is a dead draw or even with an advantage to the player with less time, the point of 10.2 is that the position on the board should help determine the result. Up to a point you will find that players, higher rated ones anyway, will call off hostilities in positions where no winning prospects remain. This is without recourse to the arbiter. It's part of chess etiquette. You might after all be facing the same player in a future game where you are the one seeking the draw.

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Re: FIDE Rule 10.2 misconceptions

Post by Susan Lalic » Fri May 27, 2011 9:20 pm

matt_ward wrote:I find this rule totally unfair, I recently encountered "The two minute rule", in Richmond, it was something of a deadlock position closed, King, Knight, five pawns against his King Bishop Five pawns. I had the Knight, and therefore my opponent had about 1.50 against my 5 minutes when he stopped the clock and called over the arbiter.

The only one that had winning chances was me as knights can jump over pieces in the sense I could of got to his pawns but he couldn't get to mine as his Bishop was cut off and my pawns were on opposite coloured squares.

What right should someone have to call a arbiter on the 10.2 rule, in a rapidplay tournament when the game will finished in a fixed period of time and chess is a game with a clock he should of managed his time better, it would of been drawn although with little time had he moved his king or Bishop so my knight could get through I would of won.

I won't mention the chaps name as he was a junior however had this not of happened it would of changed the outcome of winners as I would of got 5/6 instead of 4/6 winning me 1st place instead of nothing.

I think the two minute rule effects the results of Rapidplay tournaments massively and influences the results and should not take presidence therefore.

Matt. :( :o :o :o
Matt, nobody stepped in to give your game a draw. You offered one yourself when you realised you couldn't make progress. The point of an arbiter watching is surely to step in if 3 fold repetition or the 50 move rule occurs. I'm not sure how an extra half from that game (if you had won on time) would have given you a point extra in the tournament though.

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