Curious Touch Move Query

[John Upham]

During a league match last night white (short of time) pushed his queen from either c2 or c3 up the c file and it landed on c8 with check.

He did not place the queen on c8 but shunted it there in the style of a curling stone so that it glided there.

It could have stopped short on c7 or c6 or even have veered of course.

I suspect he let go of the queen whilst it was on c4 and it carried on moving.

Has any kind of touch move offence been committed ?

[Geoff Chandler]

Hi John,

Just to be clear, was Qc8+ the intended move? If not then obviously it could not have been taken back.

Quite a risky ploy this. The Queen, as you say, could have gone anywhere.

But sheer coincidence yesterday I did a column about the danger of of using knitted chess pieces.



As they tend to slide over the intended square. (examples supplied).

https://www.redhotpawn.com/chess-blog/t ... gazine.442

I really did have a proper clean out. All chess stuff was kept. The rest donated or dumped.

[Reg Clucas]

Interesting. The law (4.7) states "When, as a legal move or part of a legal move, a piece has been released on a square, it cannot be moved to another square on this move." But in this case it is presumably not clear on which square the piece was 'released'.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Interesting. The law (4.7) states "When, as a legal move or part of a legal move, a piece has been released on a square, it cannot be moved to another square on this move." But in this case it is presumably not clear on which square the piece was 'released'.

I think the law is assuming the piece has come to rest on a square. I doubt the law covers pieces still in motion with no hand touching them. Please let's not get into whether pieces can be moved by telekinesis or blowing on them or, er, throwing them or sliding them (as happened here). Pieces being thrown ('flying') around the board is not uncommon in blitz.

[My view is that by 'sliding' the piece, White gained time to press his clock sooner than he would have otherwise, and hence this should be ruled illegal. Maybe a rule is needed that pieces need to have stopped moving (think a piece tottering on its base after being 'placed' on its destination square) before pressing the clock?]

[John Upham]

Whilst watching all of this it occurred to me that the queen might have overshot c8 and sailed off the board.

Clearly White would have to clarify where the queen had moved to but Black could justifiably question this.

No-one made a claim so I breathed a sigh of relief and the game continued normally.