In the last 16 seconds, a pawn down, black achieved a theoretically drawn opposite coloured bishop endgame. Black stopped the clock to claim a draw. White argued that there was a little play left, so play continued until black's time ran out. The final position clearly demonstrated that black could always defend their remaining pawns and blockade the white pawns etc.
Firstly, this was a rapidplay game. The FIDE rules explicitly exclude rule 10.2 fom blitz games, but no such exclusion exists for rapidplay, so I have to assume that it applies.
OK so far, except the interpretation of "by normal means". White makes a few claims:FIDE 10.2 wrote: If the player, having the move, has less than two minutes left on his clock, he may claim a draw before his flag falls. He shall stop the clocks and summon the arbiter.
1. If the arbiter agrees the opponent is making no effort to win the game by normal means, or that it is not possible to win by normal means, then he shall declare the game drawn. Otherwise he shall postpone his decision or reject the claim.
- UK arbiters normally like have a period where the defender shows that the attacker can make no progress. In this particular case there wasn't time for the defending side to demonstrate that the attacking side was making no progress i.e. hadn't repeated any maneuvers. Therefore it could be argued that black had not left themselves enough time to show that they could defend the position and should therefore lose.
- The phrase 'by normal means' is open to a very wide range of interpretations. e.g. one interpretation might be 'by the opponent not leaving material en prise'. The rule would only be applied in a situation where the side trying to win on time is at a disadvantage (e.g. a queen down) rather than a pawn up. This is the sort of interpretation they seem to apply in Spain.
- In cases where a player is material down and doesn't allow himself enough time to defend a theoretically drawn position and the attacking player does try to win then I think the defender should lose.