English Chess Forum

I have been asked about the number of 10.2 claims during junior events. I am told that juniors have heard of an alleged rule that they refer to as "the two minute rule" which works like this :







I was asked about this at the recent Southern Giga Final. Is this a wide spread problem?

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Lots of juniors ask about the "two-minute rule" in games. They clearly don't understand it, and in my opinion, arbiters are too soft with juniors. They defer their decision until flag fall, when they should blatantly just decline it and give the opponent two extra minutes. If you do that, I think the problem will solve itself in the long-term.

Someone in the Warwickshire Junior Championship wanted to claim a 10.2 in the Under 10s. I hastily explained to him that his section wasn't even using clocks...

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February 16-17: 2013 BUCA Team Championship
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July 27-August 10: 100th British Chess Championships

I am tempted to ask Alex McFarlane to use the next available BCM "Ask the Arbiter" article to discuss FIDE rule 10.2, its correct interpretation and lack of in modern tournaments.

The July 2011 issue article from Alex is entitled

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The weekend events at the recent e2e4 Irish Championships used G90' +10" per move increments. Not a 10.2 claim in sight!

Surely this is the way forward?

Yep - whatever your view on increments you can't dispute that they reduce 10.2 claims ...

Whenever I was in charge of a junior event I would mention the above interpretation and let them all know in no uncertain terms that it is wrong, and any frivolous claims could be met by immediate loss of game - if the number of players in the tournament was large. I then explained in what sort of conditions a draw claim would be considered 'reasonable' , and left them to decide.

It seemed to work.

I hope that's a joke. It's completely wrong according to the laws of the game.

That's genius! I'd missed this:

12.6 It is forbidden to distract or annoy the opponent in any manner whatsoever. This includes unreasonable claims, unreasonable offers of a draw or the introduction of a source of noise into the playing area.

Bearing in mind the next rule:

12.7 Infraction of any part of Articles 12.1 to 12.6 shall lead to penalties in accordance with Article 13.4.

And that:

13.4 The arbiter can apply one or more of the following penalties:
warning
increasing the remaining time of the opponent
reducing the remaining time of the offending player
declaring the game to be lost
reducing the points scored in the game by the offending party
increasing the points scored in the game by the opponent to the maximum available for that game
expulsion from the event.

This means that you can quite legally declare the game to be lost for a frivolous 10.2 claim! 10.2 only mentions the 2-minute addition of time. I think trick is worth using!

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February 16-17: 2013 BUCA Team Championship
April 20: 2013 British Blitz Championship
July 27-August 10: 100th British Chess Championships

Not quite Alex. It's unreasonable claims, plural.

Yes, but that's ambiguous. It could mean:
(1) You need more than one unreasonable 10.2 claim.
(2) You need one unreasonable claim, but "claims" covers all of the different types of claim, e.g. 10.2, fifty-move rule, repetition.

_________________
February 16-17: 2013 BUCA Team Championship
April 20: 2013 British Blitz Championship
July 27-August 10: 100th British Chess Championships

You're right - like alot of the laws it's not well written. But, the original suggestion that any frivolous claim could result in loss of game is wrong. It would have to be the second claim of some description (at least).

Well, if you can't do it under 10.2 or 12.6, you could do it under 12.1 about bringing the game into disrepute?

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February 16-17: 2013 BUCA Team Championship
April 20: 2013 British Blitz Championship
July 27-August 10: 100th British Chess Championships

Don't arbiters desperately searching for a way to send juniors crying to their parents bring the game into disrepute? Oh, sorry, you are not trying to give them the wrong impression that arbiters are rule-bound robots, you are trying to teach them when not to make 10.2 claims... (yes, I know the whole suggestion is a joke, but some might take you seriously here). Adults making frivolous claims, by all means make them sit on the naughty step.

I've had this problem at a junior event before! It was misleading as many have believed that if they make a "false claim" they automatically lose the game.

I wonder where they got that from idea from? Wilf, any ideas?!!

I don't understand the reasons for arbiters wanting to interpret the rules differently all the time. Doesn't usually happen in other sports though of course referees, umpires etc do make mistakes on points of fact, they rarely make errors in law.

Case in point at the weekend. There were two standard play game where both players had less than 5 minutes left. In one a player attempted to move a knight was pinned to his king. I stepped in and awarded two minutes to his opponent. The opponent thought he should be awarded the win. Apparently, this is a local custom dealing with illegal moves in the last 5 minutes.

In the other, both players had stopped recording. They reached a position where the only way for white (down to 5 secs) could avoid a draw by repetition was to give up a piece. The position was repeated 4 times thus giving white extra time to consider the sacrifice. Black claimed a draw by repetition which was given based on both arbiters observing the repeated position. White then told me that locally, players forfeit the right to claim a draw by repetition once they have stopped scoring. Yet nowhere do the laws state this!

If arbiters stuck to the laws as they are things would be better. Where laws are bad, we should lobby FIDE to change them rather than ignore them locally.