Accidentally displacing a piece

[Geoff Chandler]

Hi Eric

I agree it's not acceptable, but it's over. You cannot let trifles like this upset you so.

Chess has a beautiful habit of playing swings and roundabouts.
You lose a won game one day, next day you win a lost game.
If Giulio feels the game owes him a break and he has been wronged, then he will get one.

Swings and roundabouts.

[Greg Breed]

I think what happened is that Giulio went to move the Bishop, knocked the King (either nudged it sufficiently far to be on another square or that it fell over), picked up the King and then continued with his move.
How did I come to this conclusion? As has been mentioned earlier it is a common occurrence. Some will allow it and some won't. It does depend on the nature of the league/tournament/game/opponent.

I've never really paid too much attention to it before because I don't play at a high enough level for my opponents to be bothered by it either, but knowing all of this now I will remember that I should at the least say j'adoube or continue moving the piece before correcting the "displacement".

[Giulio Simeone]

Maybe they should change the rules and make it mandatory to write down the move before playing it, so it would be very clear, of the two touched pieces which one the player intended to play

On the contrary, recently the FIDE made it mandatory NOT to write down the move before playing it and, once in a while, I agree, because when players wrote down a move, then changed their mind and wrote down another, their scoresheets were likely to become a real mess.

Besides, I believe there would be problems even in this way, because players, especially when in time trouble, might write down the wrong move, or write it in an unreadable way. I rather think that Bayes' theory should apply: when a player "unclearly" touches a piece and it leads to an absurd move, then there is 99,9% that he is doing that accidentally, and 0,1% that he has got crazy and is really intending to make the absurd move. In order to take the fair decision, Biancotti had only to go through this simple reasoning. That a very strict interpretation of the FIDE rules led him to the correct decision, it may be possible, and, as the result of the game can't be changed, I don't care about it more than an extent.

Ciao

[Giulio Simeone]

A friend of mine, and contributor to this forum, was once playing in a rapidplay. Intending to play Qd8-h4, he picked up his king on e8 by mistake and put it on h4. He felt obliged to move his king and lost quickly. I wrote to Guert Gijssen on Chess Cafe and he said touch and move should apply, therefore he did have to move his king. If I can ever find the link, I'll post it here.

Yes, many users have mentioned similar episodes in this thread. Also Korchnoi once fell into this. In this case, though, I think it's fair that the player has to move the piece, because it's your brain that worked unproperly, not your arm/hand.

[Greg Breed]

In this case, though, I think it's fair that the player has to move the piece, because it's your brain that worked unproperly, not your arm/hand.

I don't think you want to open another can of worms Giulio!

[Paolo Casaschi]

That a very strict interpretation of the FIDE rules led him to the correct decision, it may be possible, and, as the result of the game can't be changed, I don't care about it more than an extent.

It might be a matter of semantic, but I dont think you can say he applied a very strict interpretation of the FIDE rules; I think he might only got the wrong impression from what he actually saw; there is nothing in the FIDE rules that indicates what factors the arbiter should take into consideration to make his own opinion about what happened. Remember the old Italian saying about people summoned in court because of their "bad intentions"...

[Giulio Simeone]

I remember once, many years ago now, playing Black, I turned to my team mate who had just arrived after a rather traumatic journey. Foolishly, whilst in conversation with my team mate, and without looking at the board, I continued with my first move and picked up my e-pawn, rather than my d-pawn. Defending a French (1. d4 e6 2. e4) rather than my planned 1. d4 d6 rubbish was rather a painful experience!

Once an opponent told me that, in the morning, he had spent some hours preparing the variation 1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. f3. When in front of the board, though, he considered some variations involving e5 ... and he played 3. e5!! To me, this happens only in blitz games.

[Giulio Simeone]

A football analogy may help here. How many arguments have we seen about handball in the penalty area? Hand to ball or ball to hand decisions can be very difficult to judge at the margin. "I've seen them given" is a familiar pundit's comment over a penalty decision. The referee gets castigated by at least half the crowd.

Yes, but there is one basic difference between football, basketball, etc. ... and chess. In these sports, as far as I know, the arbiters have only a few seconds to decide. Yes, you may still say that the arbiter is an incompetent, or things that are even worse: you have to take into account, though, that he has had very little time to think. In chess, though, it seems to me that arbiters have more time to decide: they may lesson to the players, seek for informations on the rules and on the players involved, talk with other arbiters. An unfair decision, under this point of view, seems more questionable.

[Giulio Simeone]

There’s no excuse for creating a situation where, on the basis of a very common set of agreed facts which the laws have engaged with for a hundred years, two arbiters of considerable experience think the laws say diametrically opposed things, nor for creating one where FIDE’s top arbiter thinks the laws he’s written say one thing, whereas in fact any native English speaker can tell him immediately that they say the opposite.

The ironic thing is that I suspect most arbiters would be with AM and GG, that is that a player who adjusts a displaced piece without saying j’adoube does not have to move it whereas a player who accidentally picks up the wrong piece does. But actually the laws on their obvious construction say the opposite in both cases. That shouldn't happen; it’s just rubbish administration. And so easily preventable simply by sacking GG and paying someone competent to overhaul the drafting of the laws.

No wonder you're a lawyer John! I completely agree: all over the world every day there are played hundreds, thousands of chess FIDE rated games, I don't know the exact number. How many times it happens that the ambiguity of the current rules leads to disputes between players? If every time that in Italy, in Indonesia, in Paraguay a dispute arises because of the rules being unclear, the FIDE would correct the rules and pay someone skilled to rewrite them down, in maximum a couple of years we would have clear and fair rules, and there would be much less room for discussions like this one.

[Sean Hewitt]

Humour me, Sean – supposing the facts are that the player went to make a move, clumsily bumped both pieces, then picked up the king and restored it to its square before moving the bishop, would you then think that he should be compelled to move the king? Alex M seems to think no arbiter could think such a thing, but you, on the other hand, seem to think that’s what the rules require.

No, there would be no requirement to move the king. It would be clear that the player was replacing a displaced piece.

[Sean Hewitt]

A: A player accidentally knocks a piece over or off its square and replaces it without saying j'adoube.

Experienced arbiter SH thinks that the law is clear and that the player has to move the piece.

That's wrong, I certainly don't think that and I've never said ANYTHING OF THE KIND.

I think you may have made an assumption about what Giulio has and has not said. He has never said that he knocked the piece over (in fact, he has said clearly that he didn't do that), nor has he said that he knocked the piece off its square. He merely says that he 'brushed' the piece. Now, if that were that then he would have no compulsion to move it but, when we add in the fact that the opponent says that he deliberately touched his king first, and the arbiter says he saw him pick up the king (which Giulio has no recollection of doing, so is unable to contest), then I believe that, considering the evidence holistically, the arbiter is compelled to require Giulio to move the king.

For a lawyer, your rather selective in the evidence that you're willing to consider!

[Sean Hewitt]

Then I asked to Sean Hewitt to give me evidence of where it is written that Article 4.3 overrides Article 7.3, and he didn't answer me. Probably because there's no such evidence. Now, I'm not accusing anybody, surely Holowczak, McFarlane, Hewitt didn't reply because they had something else to do. In the meantime, though, I want to reassure them that nobody will put their overseas colleague in jail just because an arbiter clearly stated that he has made a mistake!!

1 - I have a job, so don't read the Forum 24/7
2 - You never asked me where it is written that Article 4.3 overrides Article 7.3
3 - You did ask me whether Article 7.3 over-rides Article 4.3
4 - However, I never said that Article 7.3 over-rides Article 4.3. Nor vice versa come to that. I said:-

I don't think I've ever been accused of beating about the bush before! You are correct that I haven't mentioned this law because Article 7.3 does not over-ride the requirements of Article 4.3 unless I've missed that in the laws.

Are you sure that Article 7.3 over-rides Article 4.3? Can you give me evidence of where is it written? (I feel a bit like an inspector here )

4 - On the basis of what you have written here it is you, rather than the arbiter, who has made the mistake.

[John Cox]

>That's wrong, I certainly don't think that and I've never said ANYTHING OF THE KIND.

Really? What did this mean, then?

"Those two things, coupled with the arbiters statement that he saw him pick up the king convinces me that he did pick up the king. Doing that without saying I adjust compels him to move the king. His reasons for picking up the king don't come into it (even if where to stir a cup of coffee )."

[John Swain]

Was it purely by chance that the Arbiter was observing the game at the time your opponent made the claim?

I strongly hope, and believe, it was by chance

[/quote]

Speaking as an infrequent arbiter (usually a couple of tournaments a year for the last 35+ years, and a BCF Arbiter as of 1988 who never bothered to get "upgraded" to ECF Arbiter) I find the arbiter's role in all this somewhat puzzling. Why on earth was he observing such as intrinsically uninteresting position, which your opponent could easily have resigned? You say you had 25 minutes left too - was your opponent in time trouble?

If I watch a game in a non-rapidplay tournament, it's for one of two reasons. Firstly, "professional" reasons eg.monitoring time-scrambles, 10.2 decisions etc. towards the end of a round; sometimes, it's earlier, maybe a three-fold repetition claim, for example. However, I have to agree with Stewart Reuben's early morning post - disputes tend to be fairly rare these days. Arbiters have relatively little to do, which is why I don't do it more often, just supporting the local events. Secondly, if I have time on my hands, I may just have a look at some of the key encounters, or see how players I know well are getting on.

So I return to the question: what prompted Alessandro Biancotti to watch your game? Is he a club-mate of Luca Albertini? I am not suggesting any impropriety, merely trying to ascertain why he didn't look at a more interesting position or one requiring his "professional" attention.

If there had been no arbiter watching, the arbiters could not have compelled you to move your king - it would have been one player's word against another's. However, it might then have led to an arbiter watching your game!!

[Giulio Simeone]

Humour me, Sean – supposing the facts are that the player went to make a move, clumsily bumped both pieces, then picked up the king and restored it to its square before moving the bishop, would you then think that he should be compelled to move the king?.

No, there would be no requirement to move the king.

Finally you said it!! As I said many times, I can't have done any worse than bumping-picking-restoring. Actually, I clearly remember the kind of movement that I made, my hand passing over the thicker king in e4 in order to reach the thinner bishop in e3. I remember the thinking process which led me to the decision of moving the bishop as well. I can't remember what happened to the king, the most probable thing is that I slightly displaced it and then adjusted it. I forgot to report a detail that can be important: when the arbiter talked to my friend, he said him "If the opponent hadn't made the claim, I wouldn't have done nothing". This means, I guess, that he didn't see me quietly touching the king, then changing my mind and moving the bishop.

Now it comes to my mind another thing: it took no more than a few seconds for me to reach the bishop in e3, do whatever I have done and release it in f4. If I, let's say, had decided to move the king, then realized that it wasn't a good idea and changed my mind, I would have released it and have thought another little bit.

So, is it definitely impossible that I touched the king without any "adjusting" reasons. It's only my version of the facts, but what reason could I have to lie here, with players and arbiters that live 2000 km away from my place. Anyone who is curious to hear the other sides involved, can contact Biancotti and Albertini.