Rules concerning blitz?

[Paul McKeown]

...snip... I'm not sure if replacing displaced pieces on your own time is covered anywhere.

The following Laws are relevant:

7.4.1 If a player displaces one or more pieces, he shall re-establish the correct position in his own time.

- FIDE Laws of Chess

7.4.3 The arbiter may penalise the player who displaced the pieces.

(Boxed section) Player A’s clock is running when Player B accidentally displaces a piece. Player A should not restart Player B’s clock but should pause the clock and summon the arbiter. The arbiter may then either add time to A’s clock or subtract time from B’s clock. If A restarts B’s clock this creates several problems with increments being wrongly added and the push counter affected.

(Boxed section) Most problems happen in Rapid Chess or Blitz. The penalty should be according to
Article 12.9. A player should not be forfeited immediately for accidentally displacing
a piece. If he did it deliberately, perhaps in order to gain time, or does it several
times, that is different.

- FIDE Laws of Chess

7.5.3 If the player presses the clock without making a move, it shall be considered
and penalized as if an illegal move.

(Boxed section)If a player restarts the opponent’s clock instead of pausing it an arbiter may regard this as an accident and punish it less severely.
For example: Player B makes an illegal move. Player A, instead of pausing the clock, restarts the opponent’s clock. Is this an infringement of Article 7.5.3?
In this case Player A had not deliberately started Player B’s clock.
Where an opponent’s clock may have been started in error the arbiter must decide if this action constitutes an illegal move or a distraction.

- FIDE Laws of Chess

[MJMcCready]

Yes thanks. I had a look at that too. I will need to speak to him because these are FIDE rated blitz tournaments he is applying them to.

[NickFaulks]

I assumed that since he is an International Arbiter he knew what he was talking about.

Indeed.

[Joey Stewart]

I can't seem to find anything about it now but I recall maybe 4-5 years ago there was a major incident where a grand master was defaulted for knocking pieces over and pressing the clock without resetting them first.
The argument was that it interfered with his opponents view of the board during his time, which I think is a separate rule, but it got quite hotly debated for a short while.

[Kevin Thurlow]

3. If both flags have fallen, the game is drawn. Is this correct?
And lastly,
4. If you touch a piece you have to move it (this I am sure is correct) but the move is only complete once you have released the piece from your hand. If you have done that, you cannot move it to another square even if you have not pressed the clock yet. Is this correct?

3) with analogue clocks, you won't know whose flag fell first, so yes. It's different with DGTs, as the symbol shows whose "flag fell" first.
4) Yes - that's normal chess.

FIDE do try to standardize the Laws. As for the others mentioned, they all look familiar to me, so they probably applied at one stage.

[Ian Thompson]

1. If a player knocks over a piece then presses the clock before he has put the piece back on its square correctly, this is illegal and results in an immediate loss. Is this correct?

No. It's not an illegal move. It is an infringement of the Laws where the penalty is at the discretion of the arbiter. The penalty can be loss of the game, but need not be.

2. Any illegal move of any kind, for example leaving the King in check results in immediate loss. Is this correct?

No. You lose the game after two illegal moves, not one.

4. If you touch a piece you have to move it (this I am sure is correct) but the move is only complete once you have released the piece from your hand. If you have done that, you cannot move it to another square even if you have not pressed the clock yet. Is this correct?

Yes, if the move was legal. If it was illegal you can retract it and play a legal move instead provided you haven't pressed the clock.

[David Williams]

Do FIDE give any guidance as to how many games of blitz one arbiter should be capable of handling simultaneously?

[Ian Thompson]

Do FIDE give any guidance as to how many games of blitz one arbiter should be capable of handling simultaneously?

They imply that an arbiter can only fully supervise one blitz game at once by saying that the standard Laws apply if there is an arbiter for every game (and the moves are being recorded) and the rapidplay Laws apply if there aren't that many arbiters.

[MJMcCready]

1. If a player knocks over a piece then presses the clock before he has put the piece back on its square correctly, this is illegal and results in an immediate loss. Is this correct?

No. It's not an illegal move. It is an infringement of the Laws where the penalty is at the discretion of the arbiter. The penalty can be loss of the game, but need not be.

2. Any illegal move of any kind, for example leaving the King in check results in immediate loss. Is this correct?

No. You lose the game after two illegal moves, not one.

4. If you touch a piece you have to move it (this I am sure is correct) but the move is only complete once you have released the piece from your hand. If you have done that, you cannot move it to another square even if you have not pressed the clock yet. Is this correct?

Yes, if the move was legal. If it was illegal you can retract it and play a legal move instead provided you haven't pressed the clock.

Thanks, I will show him the result of my findings and see what he says. As I have already said in this thread, I assumed that because he is an International Arbiter, he knows what he is talking about even though I hadn't heard what he was saying said before.

[MJMcCready]

Do FIDE give any guidance as to how many games of blitz one arbiter should be capable of handling simultaneously?

And in addition, shouldn't they treat rapid and blitz as separate entities, with their own rules? Like you say, how many games of blitz can one arbiter follow at any given time. You could argue when the moves are blitzing out, just one game alone is hard enough.

[NickFaulks]

And in addition, shouldn't they treat rapid and blitz as separate entities, with their own rules?

The Laws do have Appendix A for Rapid and Appendix B for Blitz.

You would not expect to find logistical matters such as the number of arbiters present addressed in the Laws.

[NickFaulks]

Do FIDE give any guidance as to how many games of blitz one arbiter should be capable of handling simultaneously?

In the case of the arbiter being discussed here, zero sounds right.

[Kevin Thurlow]

"You could argue when the moves are blitzing out, just one game alone is hard enough."

Yes - but unless you have a small event with TV cameras watching every board, what do you do? (And use of cameras in football, rugby, cricket, tennis doesn't avoid errors completely.)

Do you employ at least one arbiter for every board in action?

[Mike Gunn]

7.4 Dispaced pieces:

7.4.1 If a player displaces one or more pieces, he/she shall re-establish the correct position in his/her own time.

7.4.2 If necessary, either the player or his/her opponent shall pause the chessclock and ask for the arbiter’s assistance.

7.4.3 The arbiter may penalise the player who displaces the pieces.

First illegal move used to lose in Blitz. That has been changed and your IA guy is just out of date.

[MJMcCready]

So I spoke to the arbiter in question tonight. He said he is not using the current rules, he is using the old rules because they are less annoying.