Zero move game: should it be graded?

[Stewart Reuben]

1 c4 resigns. Black has made a move according to the FIDE Laws.
5.1b. The game is won by the player whose opponent declares he resigns. This immediately ends the game.

Some, indeed many, of these comments belong with Monty Python.

[David Sedgwick]

1 c4 resigns. Black has made a move according to the FIDE Laws.
5.1b. The game is won by the player whose opponent declares he resigns. This immediately ends the game.

Some, indeed many, of these comments belong with Monty Python.

There's no need to be offensive. As was pointed out on this Forum many moons ago, it's usually a sign that you're losing the argument.

[Richard Haddrell]

Games can only be graded if they are played under acceptable conditions, ...
It is required that:...
b. Both players make at least one move...

Thank you for pointing this out. It appears to be a new Regulation, as I can't find it in the printed 2012 (and last) Grading List. It does raise (at least) two other questions besides those which you mention:
a) who has the authority to make changes of this sort?
b) when such changes are made, should they not be announced?

It isn’t a new Regulation. It’s an accidental insertion, made in June 2013, which had no one’s authority, should not have happened, and was never spotted till now. It is deleted.

My answers to David’s questions: a) Pass; b) Yes.

Richard Haddrell
Grading Administrator, ECF

[Stewart Reuben]

David Sedgwick >There's no need to be offensive. As was pointed out on this Forum many moons ago, it's usually a sign that you're losing the argument.<
I was in no way intending to be offensive. The Monty Python dead parrot sketch is apposite.
I have not been having an argument, I have been having a discussion. I am not interested in scoring points off people.

[David Sedgwick]

It isn’t a new Regulation. It’s an accidental insertion, made in June 2013, which had no one’s authority, should not have happened, and was never spotted till now. It is deleted.

Thank you for sorting that out. However, your post rather takes us back to square one as far as the answer to the original question is concerned.

[Alex Holowczak]

It isn’t a new Regulation. It’s an accidental insertion, made in June 2013, which had no one’s authority, should not have happened, and was never spotted till now. It is deleted.

Thank you for sorting that out. However, your post rather takes us back to square one as far as the answer to the original question is concerned.

I think the answer is that there is no answer. We've not covered this situation explicitly.

Here's my opinion. It is only my opinion. It isn't fact. It's just what I think, and not what the ECF thinks or intends to do.

I think there are two distinct cases:
(1) Two players agree a 0-move draw before the game starts
(2) Two players agree a 0-move draw after the game starts

When does the game start? When white's clock starts.

(1) shouldn't be graded. It isn't a game of chess. The game of chess never started, so the Laws don't apply to it. Therefore, you can't agree a draw.
(2) should be. It is a game of chess. It was started in accordance with the Laws, and a draw was agreed in accordance with the Laws.

[Ian Thompson]

Thank you for sorting that out. However, your post rather takes us back to square one as far as the answer to the original question is concerned.

My view is that a game should be graded once both players are subject to the Laws. By that I mean, for example, that they are prohibited from receiving advice, would lose if their mobile phone rang, etc..

For the game in question, that means I think it should not be graded.

More generally, it's less clear cut, because the laws don't clearly define when players become subject to them. The obvious example is when White is present when the clocks are started and plays his first move, but Black is not. At what point does Black become subject to the laws? Is it:

1. As soon as the clocks are started, regardless of where he is?
2. When he enters the playing area?
3. When he reaches the board?
4. Some other time or event?

[NickFaulks]

I believe that the result of that "game" stood but subsequently SR has informed this place of more recent games in which he was involved in defaulting the players for not playing approved moves.

For example, the second player was defaulted for 1.e4 e6 2.d4 Ke7 at the Lloyds Bank Masters.

Actually, it was 1.e4,d6; 2.d4,Kd7; 3.Nc3 1-0 (SR forfeit), but that doesn't affect the substantive point.

This is outrageous. The move order above is a perfectly legitimate psychological ploy. The first time I met 1.e4, g5, I thought that I was being disrespected, played poorly and lost. Of course, this was against Michael Basman, who I later learned did this against everyone, so I became less offended.

[Matt Mackenzie]

Have to agree that it is difficult to know where to draw the line in such situations.

It has been known for certain players to open as White with 1f3 and then 2Kf2 - would this also be disallowed?

[Stewart Reuben]

Alex Tucker didn't appeal against my decision to forfeit him in that three move game. He might have won the appeal. He didn't even argue. I later learnt that he had taken bets that he would play 3...Kd7 in the game. Armed with that knowledge:
I am quite certain he intended to bring the game of chess into disrepute.
It can be argued that he was bribed. There was certainly a financial inducement.
From time to time teenagers have done these type of things. From time to time the ECF administrators have come down hard. It is usually some years before it again happens.
I remember in the British Boys plotting with my friend Patrcik Jiggins, long before we were paired together, to play the longest game of chess ever. We decided it would be easiest to get 2 knights against a pawn, try to win for nearly 50 moves and blunder into 2 knights against a queen and then play that position on for another 50 moves ending in a draw. When we actually played, it was a proper game - and drawn.

I can't see where it says in the ECF Grading Rules what Laws must be played to. Could the players switch knights and bishops and the game still be graded? (That was once done in one game in a county match). It probably didn't mention this when it was the BCF Grading system and I was nominally in charge as Home Chess Director for a couple of years. Roger Edwards was then the Grading Officer.

There is a common rule in leagues and congresses which are not FIDE Rated, 'The FIDE Laws of Chess shall be used except where specifically amended.'
Written in Helsinki, now closing in on Tallinn.

[John McKenna]

Ian Thompson>White is present when the clocks are started and plays his first move, but Black is not. At what point does Black become subject to the laws?<

I'll risk saying that a zero-tolerance rule would simplify matters, but upset some people no end.

[David Sedgwick]

I can't see where it says in the ECF Grading Rules what Laws must be played to.

I can quite understand you not being able to find it. Oh, for the days of the printed grading list, when you could simply turn to the introduction.

However, the Grading Regulations actually state:

"It is required that ... The FIDE Laws of Chess are used."

So perhaps competitions which derogate from the full rigours of the mobile phone default rule, such as the London League, should not be graded.

Or perhaps I'd better not go there.

[Alex Holowczak]

So perhaps competitions which derogate from the full rigours of the mobile phone default rule, such as the London League, should not be graded.

Or perhaps I'd better not go there.

Well, perhaps we should. Again I'm not wearing an official hat here. First:

My view is that a game should be graded once both players are subject to the Laws. By that I mean, for example, that they are prohibited from receiving advice, would lose if their mobile phone rang, etc.

"Prohibited from receiving advice" - so we shouldn't grade leagues where adjournments are possible? I don't think that would be the intention (would it?), but that precise wording could be misconstrued.

I've said this elsewhere in a different context, FIDE should structure their Laws into 2 sections: (1) The fundamentals of the game, and (2) The technical elements of the game. (1) would contain stuff like where the pieces start and how they move. You would need to comply with these in order for games to be ECF-graded or FIDE-rated. (2) would contain stuff like mobile phones, defaults, even the 50-move rule. You can write whatever rule you like in these cases, and you could still publish the game and readers would be blissfully unaware of the fact there was a 10-minute default time instead of a 1-hour default time, or the fact that the ageing bloke who played it wrote in descriptive notation. Organisers would have the freedom to modify everything in (2) as they see fit, and players could take it or leave it.

This is not uncommon in cricket. There are different Law modifications in force for the County Championship from the Sheffield Shield; yet both competitions have first-class status. For example, you can have a runner in the County Championship, but not the Sheffield Shield.

[David Sedgwick]

This sounds rather as though you're suggesting reviving in a modern form the old "BCF Rules for Events Played under its Auspices".

Your predecessor Adam Raoof was thinking along the same lines, but abandoned the idea after it was roundly condemned on this Forum.

It's getting late, so I'm going to leave you or someone else to search for the thread.

[Geoff Chandler]

Hi

Still cannot see where the dispute is.
The players of each team did not feel like playing (football on the telly?)
So they agreed a draw. Both teams start with ½ a point.

Asking them to go through the motions of a one move game to satisfy some red tape rule
that may or may not exist is nonsense.

If they had sat down, set up the pieces, wound up a clock....
(or what ever it is you do with these new fangled electronic things)

Played 1.c3 draw agreed then everyone would have nodded their head and said fair result no argument.
The grading system has not been tarnished.

What about getting the two players to sit down and play a one move draw in front of a witness.
Would that make you all happy. I actually think it would, I think some of you really want this too happen.

And what next?
Smith beat Brown from a lost position Smith should not get the grading points
because Brown played correct chess for 99% of the game and then blundered.
Giving Smith the extra points due to a fluke move will bring the entire grading system crashing down.

What about junior adjustments - no games are played there yet their grade goes up.
In this situation one gets extra grading points by simply staying alive for a year.
It's a farce.

Their league will pay the grading fee so it should be and will be graded.