Zero tolerance

[Stewart Reuben]

I can't find this old topic on the forum, so am starting it up again. Shaun Press has sent me another example in another sport, Australian Rugby League, where zero tolerance wasn't practiced.
http://www.smh.com.au/rugby-league/leag ... 0r1hb.html.
The World Youth had a 15 minute default time, despite being a major official FIDE event. It is always 30 minutes in Senior events.

[Roger de Coverly]

Australian Rugby League, where zero tolerance wasn't practiced.

I though it pretty much commonplace. There's still a penalty, but you don't just cancel the sporting event because one side is a little late. Don't FIDE Administrators and Delegates ever look outside of Chess?

[Stewart Reuben]

I thought we had been over this. It is solely Kirsan's bee in the bonnet. Together with people currying favour with him. Not Makro and Ignatius Leong, the main supporter, is now off the scene.

[Roger de Coverly]

Together with people currying favour with him.

They represent something like a 2 to 1 majority if the three most recent FIDE Presidential elections are anything to go by.

[Stewart Reuben]

Roger > They represent something like a 2 to 1 majority if the three most recent FIDE Presidential elections are anything to go by.<

That is simply wrong. A large number of people always vote with the incumbent. That is the nature of FIDE.
A large number vote for Kirsan because he has put a great deal of money into FIDE.
Some people vote for him because they prefer him to Kok, Karpov or Kasparov.
Karpov conducted a very mediocre campaign. Kasparov's was better, but he aligned himself with Danailov and Leong.
Thus the percentage of people actually currying favour would have been relatively small. In 2008, when Kirsan made the zero tolerance proposal, a number of people publicly supported him at the GA. Some of the delegates clapped. I have little doubt most of those were currying favour. I was about to try to trash the proposal when Makro got it postponed. I was going to cite boxing, tennis, soccer, snooker where they do not have zero tolerance. Of course you have to have it for track events.

[Kevin Thurlow]

"I was going to cite boxing, tennis, soccer, snooker where they do not have zero tolerance."

I think snooker is slightly intolerant, you lose a frame for every 15 minutes you are late from memory. Doesn't poker do something similar?

[Roger de Coverly]

I think snooker is slightly intolerant, you lose a frame for every 15 minutes you are late from memory.

There was a thread a few years back where the different attitudes were explored. I believe in amateur tennis, which can have a similar problem to chess with fixed length sessions, that late arrivals can be deemed to have lost the first set. Except in the USA and possibly Ireland, where you cannot start the clock because there might not be one, chess imposes a time penalty on late arrivals.

[Stewart Reuben]

Of course snooker is intolerant of late-comers, but it is not zero tolerance.

In poker tournaments, if you are not there, the game simply continues. Every hand there are antes, called the small blind and big blind. If you are not there, when it is your turn, the small blind is taken, then the next hand the big blind. You could even win a hand in the big blind, if the players at the table were so stupid, nobody bet. Eventually, if you weren't there, your chips would dwindle away to nothing. Of course it is different when playing head-up. I rather think somebody's chips won a prize, although it later turned out he had died.

I found it interesting on the last day of a Vegas poker tournament. It was the final table and a player had chips. Overnight he was hospitalised, possibly because of a heart attack. They worked out his equity in the money left, let us say 10% and he received 10% of the prize fund. That is more tolerant than chess.

I think in the US they must impose a time penalty on a late arrival at a chess tournament. Ths clock, when it arrives, is simply adjusted. This must surely be so because they are paranoid about over-running the schedule.

[Michael Farthing]

What language are you speaking, Stewart?

[Stewart Reuben]

Michael >What language are you speaking, Stewart?<

If you mean that you are finding it difficult to understand the poker jargon, then buy one of my beginners books. Just think of chess jargon to an outsider: FIDE, zugswang, rook, etc.

[Michael Farthing]

I take your point. Even as a chessplayer I'm struggling with zugswang!

[Reg Clucas]

Even as a chessplayer I'm struggling with zugswang!

Including the correct way to spell it!

[NickFaulks]

Don't FIDE Administrators and Delegates ever look outside of Chess?

You evidently haven't noticed that zero tolerance is pretty much a dead duck. It's true that in top events the players may sign contracts whereby in return for substantial rewards they agree to do a number of things, one of which is to appear at the board in time for the start of the game, but I have not heard that they resent this.

The only real exception is Olympiads, where the teams billeted far away from the venue, who tend to come from smaller federations, continue to find their enjoyment of the event reduced. I believe that you heartily approve of that aim.

You remind me of a Vietnam war protester whose cause was orphaned when the war was abandoned. You should find a new one.

[Michael Farthing]

Even as a chessplayer I'm struggling with zugswang!

Including the correct way to spell it!

Eh.. that was the point Reg.

[Roger de Coverly]

You evidently haven't noticed that zero tolerance is pretty much a dead duck.

Not in the eyes of the re-elected FIDE President it isn't. He re-affirmed his support for the notion in a brief interview with Danny King at the Olympiad as did his campaign literature.

At
http://www.europeanchessclubcup2014.com/en/regulations
I read

12.1.
Any player who arrives at the chessboard after the start of the round shall lose the game
(zero tolerance FIDE rule)

So it's still quacking.