Arbitration question

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Joey Stewart
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Re: Arbitration question

Post by Joey Stewart » Sat Aug 14, 2021 11:26 am

I wonder if the actual correct procedure would be to penalise white for making an illegal claim - I think the arbiter has to assume both players have a knowledge of all the basic moves of the game.
Lose one queen and it is a disaster, Lose 1000 queens and it is just a statistic.

Roger de Coverly
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Re: Arbitration question

Post by Roger de Coverly » Sat Aug 14, 2021 11:34 am

Joey Stewart wrote:
Sat Aug 14, 2021 11:26 am
I wonder if the actual correct procedure would be to penalise white for making an illegal claim - I think the arbiter has to assume both players have a knowledge of all the basic moves of the game.
There's another complication if the arbiter only sees the position with the pawn on g4 as the previous move could have been g3-g4. The players could be asked to reconstruct, but would they agree?

Allegedly there are or have been (junior) competitions, some of them even graded or rated, where an assumption that players had basic knowledge would be false.

Kevin Thurlow
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Re: Arbitration question

Post by Kevin Thurlow » Sat Aug 14, 2021 2:28 pm

"Allegedly there are or have been (junior) competitions, some of them even graded or rated, where an assumption that players had basic knowledge would be false."

Not just juniors!

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IM Jack Rudd
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Re: Arbitration question

Post by IM Jack Rudd » Sat Aug 14, 2021 2:58 pm

Wadih Khoury wrote:
Sat Aug 14, 2021 10:11 am
Alex McFarlane wrote:
Sat Aug 14, 2021 9:43 am
A

Here is one to consider. It is a position between two inexperienced players.
White plays g4 and announces mate. The arbiter is standing there. What does the arbiter do if:
a) Black accepts that it is checkmate
b) White's flag falls before any agreement
c) White's flag falls at the same time as Black acknowledges 'checkmate'?
I'll will give it a go and offer myself for public shaming :lol:

a) White wins: even if there is not a checkmate, an opponent agreeing that there is a checkmate is equivalent to resigning. In effect, both players agree the game has ended with White's victory
b) Black wins: there is a legal way for black to win
c) No idea: without any video recording, I would give priority to Black's resignation and give the win to white


I have a nasty feeling that I am going to get a 0/3 grade :cry:
I'll give you 1/3, but would give you 3/3 if there were also, say, a white pawn on a2.

Wadih Khoury
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Re: Arbitration question

Post by Wadih Khoury » Sat Aug 14, 2021 3:28 pm

IM Jack Rudd wrote:
Sat Aug 14, 2021 2:58 pm
Wadih Khoury wrote:
Sat Aug 14, 2021 10:11 am
Alex McFarlane wrote:
Sat Aug 14, 2021 9:43 am
A

Here is one to consider. It is a position between two inexperienced players.
White plays g4 and announces mate. The arbiter is standing there. What does the arbiter do if:
a) Black accepts that it is checkmate
b) White's flag falls before any agreement
c) White's flag falls at the same time as Black acknowledges 'checkmate'?
I'll will give it a go and offer myself for public shaming :lol:

a) White wins: even if there is not a checkmate, an opponent agreeing that there is a checkmate is equivalent to resigning. In effect, both players agree the game has ended with White's victory
b) Black wins: there is a legal way for black to win
c) No idea: without any video recording, I would give priority to Black's resignation and give the win to white


I have a nasty feeling that I am going to get a 0/3 grade :cry:
I'll give you 1/3, but would give you 3/3 if there were also, say, a white pawn on a2.
Now I am confused. Was there a trick in Alex's setup?

After 1.g4:

a) during the arbiter training course, we were told that when a player says checkmate, an arbiter should not confirm it as it would be deemed as advice, but can ask the other player "do you agree it is a checkmate" and if said player says "yes", then he is effectively resigning. I'd say therefore that if black accepts it's a checkmate, he is resigning and loses the game, irrespective if white will not have sufficient material after black's only move. Article 5.1.2 which does not mention anything about sufficient material (I therefore assume that someone could resign against a lone king and give him the full point?)

b) when the flag falls , according to 6.9 " the game is lost by that player. However, the game is drawn if the position is such that the opponent cannot checkmate the player’s king by any possible series of legal moves. ". Here black can win after 1 ... hxg3 ep hence he should get the win

c) is the trickiest, as since 6.8 says "A flag is considered to have fallen when the arbiter observes the fact or when either player has made a valid claim to that effect". The arbiter has observed the flag, and should give the win to black. However, given that the resignation was pronounced simultaneously, does 5.1.2 take precedence?

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IM Jack Rudd
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Re: Arbitration question

Post by IM Jack Rudd » Sat Aug 14, 2021 3:33 pm

You're right that 5.1.2 doesn't explicitly say that, but I'm going by analogy with 1.3 and 6.9; the general rule is that a player can't win a game unless they could have given checkmate, and the absence of that from the resignation rule is probably that nobody would have considered that a player might resign a position from which the opponent can't checkmate.

Stewart Reuben
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Re: Arbitration question

Post by Stewart Reuben » Sat Aug 14, 2021 4:22 pm

It is a wildly improbable scenario. It is most unlikely an arbiter would be on the scene of a game between two such inexperienced players.
Basically, Wadih you have a and b correct. c is even more improbable. Run away and Let them decide!

Paul Motwani now GM told me the following story about his very first game. He had black. It went 1 e4 d6 2 Bb5+. His little girl opponent said, 'You can't take my bishop, you can't move your king out of check, so it is checkmate and I win. 'Fair enough', said Paul.
He told me the story when an adult, and said h still knew the girl in Dundee.

Another possibility. 1 e4 d6 2 Bb5+ f6 (illegal) 3 Qh5#. This is NOT covered in the Laws.

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Re: Arbitration question

Post by Ian Thompson » Wed Aug 25, 2021 12:00 pm

The game is being played with 30 second increments. White has about 5 minutes, plus increments, left. Black has been playing off the increment only, moving with less than 5 seconds to spare, for some time. On one move he cuts it very fine and presses the clock when it is showing 0 seconds left. He didn't lose on time because no flag was displayed. However, he hit the button so hard that it bounced, giving him an extra 30 seconds and then restarting his clock. Black noticed this after 5 seconds and pressed the clock again, so it gave him another 30 seconds and now showed 55 seconds for him. White called the arbiter and asked him to adjust the clocks to remove the extra 30 seconds from Black's clock.

What should the arbiter do in this situation after confirming that both players agree the description above is what happened?

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Re: Arbitration question

Post by Alex McFarlane » Wed Aug 25, 2021 1:37 pm

Ian Thompson wrote:
Wed Aug 25, 2021 12:00 pm
He didn't lose on time because no flag was displayed.
Is this a real or hypothetical situation?

The situation as described should be impossible. As soon as the clock goes to zero the player has used up their time and the flag should show. If it does not then the clock is not fit for purpose.

I know (from experience) that this is a flaw in the Saitek clock. After a few emails back and forth Saitek eventually accepted that this was wrong but they did not do anything about it. (Unless you count stopping producing clocks!)

Note that when a clock shows 1hr 56 min then the time is between 1hr 56 and 1hr 57. However when a clock shows 1 min 56 sec it is between 1 min 55 and 1 min 56.

In answer to the question, as the clock shows zero, with or without a flag, the arbiter should call 'flag fall'.

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Re: Arbitration question

Post by NickFaulks » Wed Aug 25, 2021 1:52 pm

Alex McFarlane wrote:
Wed Aug 25, 2021 1:37 pm
Note that when a clock shows 1hr 56 min then the time is between 1hr 56 and 1hr 57. However when a clock shows 1 min 56 sec it is between 1 min 55 and 1 min 56.
I never knew that and it sounds daft. So 2:00 means between 2:00 and 1:59?
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Re: Arbitration question

Post by Alex McFarlane » Wed Aug 25, 2021 2:14 pm

No! 2:00 would be 2 hours 2.00 would be 2 minutes.
So an XL showing 2:00 could have between exactly 2 hours and just under 2hours 1 min. When a clock is started showing 2:00 it will go immediately to 1:59.

An XL showing 2.00 will have between exactly 2 minutes and just over 1 minute 59 seconds.

0.00 being a loss on time makes perfect sense. Consider the DGT3000, its initial display is 2:00.00 so when it reaches 0:00.00 you clearly have had your full 2 hours.

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Re: Arbitration question

Post by Ian Thompson » Wed Aug 25, 2021 2:24 pm

Alex McFarlane wrote:
Wed Aug 25, 2021 1:37 pm
Ian Thompson wrote:
Wed Aug 25, 2021 12:00 pm
He didn't lose on time because no flag was displayed.
Is this a real or hypothetical situation?
It's real, but of no relevance to the result of the game because Black was clearly losing and resigned a few moves later.
Alex McFarlane wrote:
Wed Aug 25, 2021 1:37 pm
The situation as described should be impossible. As soon as the clock goes to zero the player has used up their time and the flag should show. If it does not then the clock is not fit for purpose.

...

Note that when a clock shows 1hr 56 min then the time is between 1hr 56 and 1hr 57. However when a clock shows 1 min 56 sec it is between 1 min 55 and 1 min 56.

In answer to the question, as the clock shows zero, with or without a flag, the arbiter should call 'flag fall'.
It was a DGT clock. I'm surprised at your answer. I'd assumed that if a clock showed, say, 5 seconds remaining that meant the precise time remaining was >= 5.0 seconds and < 6.0 seconds. If it's as you describe, I'd say that was poor design.

Back to the question. The arbiter wasn't watching the game as things happened. All he saw when he was called was a stopped clock with 55 seconds remaining for Black. If he'd wanted to, he could have checked the move counter and seen one more clock press than there should have been, but he didn't. I don't think there was any need to do that when players agreed what had happened.

As White didn't think Black had lost on time he didn't claim a win on time. All the arbiter was asked to do was to adjust the clock times for the double press of the clock by Black. The question is how much time should Black be given and should the arbiter do anything other than adjust the clock times?

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Re: Arbitration question

Post by Alex McFarlane » Wed Aug 25, 2021 3:14 pm

It may be poor design but it is the way every digital clock works!

I am surprised that this is a DGT clock.

If the facts are as related (and I am afraid I don't think they were unless the clock was faulty) then the arbiter made a mistake. When told the clock had shown zero the game should have been declared a loss on time. One player had clearly used up all of their time.

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Re: Arbitration question

Post by Ian Thompson » Wed Aug 25, 2021 10:06 pm

Alex McFarlane wrote:
Wed Aug 25, 2021 2:14 pm
So an XL showing 2:00 could have between exactly 2 hours and just under 2hours 1 min.

An XL showing 2.00 will have between exactly 2 minutes and just over 1 minute 59 seconds.
That's obviously inconsistent and not sensible - a display of hours and minutes means you've got more time left than the precise time shown but a display of minutes and seconds means you've got less time left than the precise time shown.
Alex McFarlane wrote:
Wed Aug 25, 2021 2:14 pm
0.00 being a loss on time makes perfect sense. Consider the DGT3000, its initial display is 2:00.00 so when it reaches 0:00.00 you clearly have had your full 2 hours.
If it's precisely 0:00.00, then, yes, you've had your full 2 hours. That's not an answer to the question of what a well-designed clock should display if the precise remaining time is 0.5 seconds and it's only capable of displaying times in whole seconds.
Alex McFarlane wrote:
Wed Aug 25, 2021 3:14 pm
If the facts are as related (and I am afraid I don't think they were unless the clock was faulty) then the arbiter made a mistake. When told the clock had shown zero the game should have been declared a loss on time. One player had clearly used up all of their time.
The arbiter wasn't told the clock had shown zero seconds remaining. Why tell the arbiter that when there was no flag fallen indicator showing and you assume that 0 seconds means <1.0 seconds remaining, but more than 0.0 seconds left until the flag indicator appears? The arbiter was given the information that the players thought relevant - that Black had pressed the clock button twice, due to the rocker bouncing, and got an extra 30 seconds as a result. The arbiter could see, without needing to be told, that Black had 55 seconds left when the clocks were stopped. The arbiter was asked to adjust the clocks to remove the time that was incorrectly added to Black's remaining time. What's not obvious to me is what Black's time should have been reduced to.

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Re: Arbitration question

Post by soheil_hooshdaran » Tue Oct 19, 2021 1:23 pm

Hi
Yesterday I was the CA of a rapid tournament. On one table, I noted a displaced King-and-Queen for Black. I went to look on other tables. When I returned at the same board, I noted a position with the Black King moved two squares toward a Rook, with the Rook being placed on the square the King supposedly crossed. I asked Black if he castled he said yes. I said he couldn't and he said OK, and made another (non-K)-move(I didn't forced him to make a K-move).
What should I have done?

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