English Chess Forum

From yesterday's game between Teimour Radjabov and Jan Smeets at the Corus event...

...The game’s climax happened when as he was making his 39th move, and with only seconds on the clock for both players, Radja knocked over a piece, and pressed the clock without fixing it. Smeets restarted his opponent’s clock without making a move., Teimour then overstepped the time limit. Just before the arbiters were about to award a time win for the Dutchman (a decision that would have been sure to prompt an appeal), and upon the initiative of the arbiters, the players decided to meet half way and the game was declared a draw

My tuppenceworth...had I been in Smeet's shoes I would have claimed a win on time, although I expect to be told that simply re-starting the opponent's clock isn't quite legal either?!

http://www.coruschess.com/report.php?ye ... &report=10

Stewart Reuben is of course the prime authority on these things but I will make my observation. It's what I would have done in a game had I been the arbiter.

Radja completed his 39th move when he pressed his clock. Therefore Smeets had no right to re-start the clock without making a move first. However, Radja's move was illegal as he had knocked a piece over. Therefore the clocks should have been stopped, Radja penalised for making an illegal move by the award of an extra two minutes time to Smeets, the knocked over piece re-instated and then the clocks re-started, with Smeets to move.

I was of the view that you can put your opponent back on the clock to adjust the piece. Id still do it now.

Law 7.3 says

If a player displaces one or more pieces, he shall re-establish the correct position on his own time. If necessary, either the player or his opponent shall stop the clocks and ask for the arbiter`s assistance. The arbiter may penalise the player who displaced the pieces.

So I think you could argue that either action is acceptable. I just thought that if the time was as short as suggested, making the guy lose on time for accidentally knocking a piece over seems extreme. Thats why I preferred the stop the clock and penalise the player as allowed by the rule above. But I wouldn't argue with someone who thought starting the clocks was the right thing either!

Knock over a piece - replace it on your own time.

Smeets should have stopped the clock, called the arbiter over and demanded time added to his own clock and removed from his opponent's. Difficult in a game in the Hillingdon League or whatever (9 pensioners come over and Captain Mainwaring declares such behaviour unheard of in his day when they played board 2 on his club's third team in the Soke of Peterborough league and was regarded as a considerable authority), but with an arbiter present, there can be no argument.

What Smeets did is also valid - and very natural. He didn't demand time added to his own clock, but did insist that Radjabov should sort the mess out in his own time. The only problem would have been with digital clocks counting the moves to a time control after which play continues; the arbiter might have more difficulty resetting the move counter.

You can't knock over pieces and then try to flag your opponent; you have to take the penalty - even if your own flag falls in the process.

Don't cry - live with your own incompetence.

Have to say that Sean Hewitt's posts on this thread are quite cogent and rather persuasive too. I think we're all agreeing here. Extraordinary, what?

Also in the Hillingdon League you'd probably struggle to stop your clock because it actually won't let you do it without starting the opponent's. God, what fun we used to have trying to find some exact midpoint where neither clock would go.

Hillingdon league is the pits

You might be interested in the video of the incident, and the arbiters press conference

http://www.chessvibes.com/reports/radja ... -happened/

Andy Burnett wrote:From yesterday's game between Teimour Radjabov and Jan Smeets at the Corus event...

My tuppenceworth...had I been in Smeet's shoes I would have claimed a win on time, although I expect to be told that simply re-starting the opponent's clock isn't quite legal either?!

You might look on the ChessCafe website at Arbiter's Notebook No. 71. There's a question from me on this subject. Geurt Gijssen does not disagree when I say it is OK to immediately restart your opponent's clock.

Ian Thompson