Four arbiting queries

[J T Melsom]

Neville Belinfante once picked up on my using different hands for make move, press clock, write move sequence, but I can't recall which parts of the sequence prompted the change of hands. Most likely that I moved with my left hand when the pieces were on that side of the board and that clock pressed and score recorded with the right. I'd not been aware of doing it until that instance, and it would probably have gone unremarked had I not been playing Neville at the time. An infraction which might have been attributed to the high stakes surrounding the match rather than a desire to practice ambidexterity.

[David Clayton]

John, have you considered attending an arbiter course?

It will give you all the answers to these questions, plus many more you might encounter in the future.

Look on the ECF website for further information, or contact the Manager of Arbiters.

David

[John Upham]

John, have you considered attending an arbiter course?

It will give you all the answers to these questions, plus many more you might encounter in the future.

Look on the ECF website for further information, or contact the Manager of Arbiters.

David

Thanks David.

I have not only considered it but passed the course. I have yet to be invited to be an arbiter at any events.

My curiosity was to observe how others felt these matters should be dealt with.

I am a Table Tennis England Umpire and am regularly invited to umpire at various events around the country. TTE provides the accommodation as part of the deal.

Should the course have answered the single gender event query?

[David Clayton]

John, If you are an arbiter, do you not get emails from the ECF Manager of Arbiters for events that require arbiters? Perhaps the ECF do not have your email address, my advice would be to contact the Manager of Arbiters, details on the ECF website.

Most events would pay arbiter expenses.

The arbiter course covers many aspects of arbiting, it cannot cover everything of course. You will have been given the opportunity to ask any questions I am sure, and if the arbiter could not answer them then, I am sure he/she would have got back to you.

Why not ask the question to the arbiters who ran your course? I am sure they would be willing to take any questions that you experience after the course.

For others who are interested in the rules and would like to learn more, why not attend an arbiter course?

[Joey Stewart]

Given the number of unanswered queries we see on the forum, sometimes by trained arbiters, I feel like the course must not cover a whole lot and most arbiters are simply left to their own devices as to how best to act fairly.

[IM Jack Rudd]

The Laws of Chess don't cover a whole lot; what they gain in simplicity they lack in comprehensiveness. (Compare and contrast the Laws of Bridge.) Thus a lot of situations are left up to the judgement of the arbiter.

[Joey Stewart]

The Laws of Chess don't cover a whole lot; what they gain in simplicity they lack in comprehensiveness. (Compare and contrast the Laws of Bridge.) Thus a lot of situations are left up to the judgement of the arbiter.

Are there many laws of chess that you personally feel could do with a set penalty for breaking or do you think the vagueness allows them to be better tailored to specific and unusual incidents?

[IM Jack Rudd]

In general, I think I prefer the vagueness.

[Chris Goodall]

The Laws of Chess don't cover a whole lot; what they gain in simplicity they lack in comprehensiveness. (Compare and contrast the Laws of Bridge.) Thus a lot of situations are left up to the judgement of the arbiter.

Are there many laws of chess that you personally feel could do with a set penalty for breaking or do you think the vagueness allows them to be better tailored to specific and unusual incidents?

Imagine having to forfeit someone's dad for persistently writing PxP instead of dxc4.

[Joey Stewart]

Using dodgy notation doesn't really feel like it deserves a forfeit, just that you won't get your game published at the end when the inputter can't make sense of it....or if you want to claim some sort of draw the incomplete scoresheet might invalidate the claim.

[Brian Egdell]

4. In a single gender team event the arbiter is concerned that a playing member of a team is of the opposite gender, what is the correct (rather than woke) course of action for the arbiter?

Nothing, for your own safety, especially if your address is in the public domain.

Get legal and policy advice from the national-level organisation.

That is excellent advice, but this is the same ECF whose answer to the question "can we play OTB chess during a lockdown?" was "you may wish to do so, you may wish not to, it's completely your decision, we disclaim all liability". I think it will be a rainy day in the Atacama Desert when they volunteer an opinion on this one.

Yes to all these, and this issue is a prime example of a case where vagueness in the written laws simply will not do. It's a source of concern to me that as far as I can tell even FIDE does not appear to have addressed this issue (I'd love to be corrected on this though - does anyone know that it in fact has addressed it?). That is despite international governing bodies of other sports in recent decades having drawn up clear guidelines for admission to women's events. Do we have to wait for the first case of a competitor in the Women's World Championships, or a potential qualifier for one of the women's titles, to have their gender called into question by others, before this issue is finally addressed internationally and at national level? Before that happens, organisers of women's tournaments could find themselves in difficult circumstances, and some trans women players will lack the clear backing of their governing federations to compete as women.

[NickFaulks]

That is despite international governing bodies of other sports in recent decades having drawn up clear guidelines for admission to women's events.

Most other sports have a different and probably simpler problem to deal with. It is quite clear why men perform better, so they can address the specific characteristics of being male or female which cause that outperformance.

The trouble with chess is that there is no agreed explanation of male outperformance, it is just an observed fact.

[Kevin Thurlow]

There was some comment about transgender players a couple of years ago and I think an ECF official more or less said, "We have procedures in place but we are not going to tell you what they are".

[Chris Goodall]

Do we have to wait for the first case of a competitor in the Women's World Championships, or a potential qualifier for one of the women's titles, to have their gender called into question by others, before this issue is finally addressed internationally and at national level?

Yes. Because every country's laws are different, and England's Equality Act 2010 allows exceptions to "women are women if they say they are" only on safety grounds, which obviously don't apply to chess. I wouldn't want the ECF to spend membership money defending a legal action under the Equality Act if it was purely hypothetical i.e. no-one was actually claiming to have lost out as a result of a Y chromosome appearing in a women's event.

[Matt Mackenzie]

Using dodgy notation doesn't really feel like it deserves a forfeit, just that you won't get your game published at the end when the inputter can't make sense of it....or if you want to claim some sort of draw the incomplete scoresheet might invalidate the claim.

Descriptive really isn't *that* hard to understand, at least when done properly (ie without many of the ambiguities that can plague it)

Have used algebraic since the mid 80s but am still fully "fluent" in the old stuff - which is good if historic books/magazines interest you.