FIDE Laws - An Interesting Case

[Jonathan Bryant]

- but not if written on a separate piece of paper.

“It’s a different bit of paper not the scoresheet so I can make notes on it” was part of Wesley So’s defence IIRC

[Paul McKeown]

The episode was discussed on here at viewtopic.php?f=2&t=7319.

I agree with the comments of Ian Thompson and Nick Faulks on Page 2.

Absolutely, good points by both.

[Paul McKeown]

Never shake hands. May be taken to be I resign, I agree a draw, or I accept your resignation.

Luckily I have never yet come across an instance where two players shook hands and then argued as to what the shaking of hands meant. I've heard it happens, though. I accept that chess players are quite capable of being weird and doing weird things.

I think I ought not to knock over my king to resign anymore. Especially when I'm on a live board.

Well, it's usually resignation. (Especially if its hurled across the room.) Someone can always sort out the live board's misapprehension later. Of course it may be just being clumsy, we've all seen this, but only nine year olds would try to claim this as a resignation. Unless someone's actually seen an adult being a queen down arguing that his opponent resigned instead of accidentally knocking over his king whilst reaching for his bishop. Or his tea. Or scratching his nose.

I note my blood sugars readings and or insulin units injected - where else can I record as I can't go back to a bag?

I think that one is easy. An arbiter is required under the Laws to

take special measures in the interests of disabled players and those who need medical attention,

I think we'll allow insulin readings to be written on the scoresheet as a special measure. Otherwise the insurance rates might rocket after the bodies piled up.

[Paul McKeown]

The original post concerned two players simultaneously resigning.

However, most of the subsequent comments concern someone's off hand recollection of their young daughter writing "resigns" on the score-sheet.

Of course, this is an instance the Immutable Law of the Forum. No one ever posts on topic.

It should astonish me that anyone would consider writing "resigns" on their scoresheet to be anything but a resignation, but there we are.

Chess players are not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can ever suppose. "JBS Haldane"

[AndrewBanks]

Sorry Paul

Although I should reiterate she wrote "0-1" not "resigns"... and that was (ahem) corrected (/ahem) to 1/2 - 1/2

But she won't do that again...

[Paul McKeown]

It's alright. She's forgiven. Kids usually are. It's the supposed grown ups... @_@

[Nick Grey]

Paul - that your interesting case is appears to be a junior event means I ought not have commented.

I think the correct actions would have been to laugh, say you cannot both resign, stop the clocks and ask if they both want to continue. But seems other things happened. Explaining the right etiquette is hard.

There are of course local rules to be considered. My last game of 2019 was in a pub where juniors have to leave the bar area by 9pm. We use that to analyse games. We finished at 810 so I was quite keen to analyse with him and his father and offering to buy them both drinks as is custom. We agreed that he had a better way to continue rather than accept a draw offer but also a bit earlier I had a better continuation as analysed by Botvinnik.

At 9 we all went back upstairs with four games still in progress including his younger brother,

[Paul McKeown]

Paul - that your interesting case is appears to be a junior event means I ought not have commented.

It was an adult's event. Some behave more foolishly than the children.

[NickFaulks]

Luckily I have never yet come across an instance where two players shook hands and then argued as to what the shaking of hands meant.

It happened to me. My opponent's flag fell, we shook hands and he filled out the slip to say 0-1 ( he was White ) and handed it in. A few minutes later he informed the arbiting team that he had in fact given checkmate with his final move and the result should be reversed. Which they did!

[Roger Lancaster]

Luckily I have never yet come across an instance where two players shook hands and then argued as to what the shaking of hands meant.

It happened to me. My opponent's flag fell, we shook hands and he filled out the slip to say 0-1 ( he was White ) and handed it in. A few minutes later he informed the arbiting team that he had in fact given checkmate with his final move and the result should be reversed. Which they did!

Well, I suppose that - if he had in fact given checkmate with his final move before [Rumens/Mabbs] his flag fell - that ended the game there and then. What the later shaking of hands indicated would therefore have been irrelevant. Or am I missing something?

[David Sedgwick]

Luckily I have never yet come across an instance where two players shook hands and then argued as to what the shaking of hands meant.

It happened to me. My opponent's flag fell, we shook hands and he filled out the slip to say 0-1 ( he was White ) and handed it in. A few minutes later he informed the arbiting team that he had in fact given checkmate with his final move and the result should be reversed. Which they did!

Well, I suppose that - if he had in fact given checkmate with his final move before [Rumens/Mabbs] his flag fell - that ended the game there and then. What the later shaking of hands indicated would therefore have been irrelevant. Or am I missing something?

You may be.

In Rumens v Mabbs, there was no dispute that the final move was checkmate.

In Nick's case, after he had left the board thinking that he had won, his opponent and the arbiting team subsequently acted as described.

If this is the episode which I think it is, Nick's opponent did make one entirely accurate allegation. He accused Stewart Reuben of not being a Christian.

[Roger Lancaster]

It happened to me. My opponent's flag fell, we shook hands and he filled out the slip to say 0-1 ( he was White ) and handed it in. A few minutes later he informed the arbiting team that he had in fact given checkmate with his final move and the result should be reversed. Which they did!

Well, I suppose that - if he had in fact given checkmate with his final move before [Rumens/Mabbs] his flag fell - that ended the game there and then. What the later shaking of hands indicated would therefore have been irrelevant. Or am I missing something?

You may be.

In Rumens v Mabbs, there was no dispute that the final move was checkmate.

In Nick's case, after he had left the board thinking that he had won, his opponent and the arbiting team subsequently acted as described.

If this is the episode which I think it is, Nick's opponent did make one entirely accurate allegation. He accused Stewart Reuben of not being a Christian.

Assuming the game was standard play, in which case there would be a record of the moves, I imagine the arbiters felt impelled to reproduce the moves on the opponent's scoresheet to see if the final move was, in fact, checkmate. Question that next crosses my mind is, if the final move recorded was checkmate, would the arbiters then have requested Nick's scoresheet to ensure that they tallied?

[Roger de Coverly]

Assuming the game was standard play, in which case there would be a record of the moves

That wouldn't necessarily be so unless there was an increment of at least 30 seconds, or with a shorter or no increment, that the remaining time was at least 5 minutes for the player not having a flagfall.

[David Sedgwick]

Assuming the game was standard play, in which case there would be a record of the moves, I imagine the arbiters felt impelled to reproduce the moves on the opponent's scoresheet to see if the final move was, in fact, checkmate. Question that next crosses my mind is, if the final move recorded was checkmate, would the arbiters then have requested Nick's scoresheet to ensure that they tallied?

I should have said that it was not Standardplay.

[JustinHorton]

That does change it a bit. Were the pieces back in the starting position (or in the box) when the claim was made?