English Chess Forum

Chris Wardle wrote:Michael: Can implies power and ability, yes - the issue is, does it imply obligation? I've never heard it used that way. If I wanted to specifically remove the arbiter's option to apply no penalty, I would use must.

As I think you know the obligation is contained in rules 6.7c, 6.12d where the words shall be penalised according to Article 13.4 are used. Taken together with 13.4, the list of penalties, that reads as obligatory.

E Michael White wrote:As I think you know the obligation is contained in rules 6.7c, 6.12d where the words shall be penalised according to Article 13.4 are used.

Chris Wardle wrote:It depends whether you interpret the words "shall be punished in accordance with 13.4" to mean that the arbiter shall apply the entirety of Article 13.4 to the situation including the word "can" - the arbiter can apply one of the following penalties - or whether the arbiter must select a punishment from the menu. I lean towards the former - you can be in accordance with a law, you can't be in accordance with a list.

We've gone round in a circle here.

EDIT - Yes, I misquoted the laws - penalised, not punished.

Local leagues are going continue to set their own rules on eg mobile phones regardless of what FIDE prescribe if they're not happy with FIDE's stance. They may well be in breach of FIDE rules in so doing, but they probably don't really care on the basis that they will have in place a process that has some flexibility in it rather than a rule divorced from the realities of local league chess designed by some lunatic FIDE apparatchik. Nobody in the ECF is ever going to check up, and if they did they would probably be told to mind their own business.