David Sedgwick wrote:Ian Thompson wrote:Alex Holowczak wrote: 12.4 The scoresheet shall be used only for recording the moves, the times of the clocks, the offers of a draw, and matters relating to a claim and other relevant data.
Marking the first, second etc. occurrence of a repeated position on the scoresheet would come under the "matters relating to a claim" part of 12.4.
But it's not a claim. The first and second time the position occurs the mark is an aide mémoire to a possible future claim, which may never happen. Indeed, it may never happen quite deliberately because the player has made the note on his scoresheet to remind himself not to accidentally allow a draw by repetition in a position he's trying to win.
You raise an interesting point in your last sentence. The same argument would apply to the superior side and the fifty move rule. However, indicating that on the scoresheet is virtually standard and indeed was done in the game under discussion. I have to admit that it had never occurred to me to question the practice.
I am using this whole quote since it is relevant to two points I'd like to raise in this discussion. (As well as other posts but I'm not going to post 10 previous posts into 1!)
One game I had, me and my opponent repeated moves until I reached a point where I had to decide whether to complete the next move to make the three-fold repetition. Note, I did not do anything to my scoresheet before this other than writing the moves down. However, at the 'about to claim' point, I was checking mentally, looking at the scoresheet and put some dots indicating where I thought the position had already occurred - i.e. which position I was claiming to be repeated - incidentally my opponent noticed what I was doing and shook his head, looking at me as if I shouldn't be doing it. I then went to the arbiter to check that it was based on reaching the same
position three times, and not the fact that I had to depend on my opponent to complete it based on repeated
moves - if you understand what I mean.
I played my move and then claimed the draw without pressing the clock (paused later when we went through it), in view of the arbiter. My opponent didn't accept this, so we went and played through the game somewhere else: I then played through it and pointed out the first position, and counted up to three that this happened. My opponent again didn't accept this, and therefore we went to see the head of the organising committee who concurred with me and the arbiter. I believe this was correct however at the time I couldn't remember what the controversy was with regards to writing the actual intended move down before playing it. The World Cup incident between Wang Hao and Dreev(?) comes to mind, hence why I checked with the arbiter and played it in her view. In the end, the draw was the final result, and my opponent was amicable afterwards with regards to the game played though I suspect he still doesn't accept the procedure carried out.
Would this be acceptable in this case?
Second point is what about the case when I 'marked' (I can't remember whether I circled the move number or underlined the move at which the last capture occurred) for the later scenario to check how many moves I had left before my opponent could claim a draw while I was trying to win a knight and bishop endgame. My memory was a little hazy at this procedure (it must have been shown to me about 10 years ago and helped by my intensive concentration, my brain was very numb after this!) - indeed I finally mated my opponent in 46 moves. Was this allowed, as I was not going to claim for the draw, but, in Ian's view/point, to 'motivate' me to play more accurately in the resulting time scramble and thereby trying to prevent my opponent to have the right to claim the draw if I over-stepped the 50-move rule?
Apologies if I've opened a can of worms, but I'm curious.