Touching opponent's piece

[Roger de Coverly]

Suppose instead of first touching your own piece, you pick up an opponent's with the intent of capturing it and then spot that it's a blunder. I would think that the usual touch move conventions apply, but I don't ever recall seeing it happen in practice.

Any views?

[Nick Ivell]

My guess is that you have to make the move, but I will leave it to the experts to confirm.

[LawrenceCooper]

Suppose instead of first touching your own piece, you pick up an opponent's with the intent of capturing it and then spot that it's a blunder. I would think that the usual touch move conventions apply, but I don't ever recall seeing it happen in practice.

Any views?

Not quite the same but I once had an opponent pick up my piece and one of his which could capture mine. With his other hand he then put another of his pieces, which could also capture, on the square where my piece had been, before replacing the piece in his other hand, on its original square. Needless to say, I insisted the piece in his hand with the captured piece be the one that was moved.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

This is quite common in practice and undoubtedly a standard arbiter exam question. If one of your pieces can take the piece that you touch, then you have to play that capture. If more than one piece can take the piece that you touch, I am less sure what happens. You still have to take the piece, I think, but you get to decide which piece if you have not already touched one of those pieces.

If you then touch one of your pieces that can move, but cannot capture the opponent's piece you touched, then the first touch move applies (you still need to capture the opponent's piece).

Unless of course you failed to notice you were in check, etc. That is one of the major caveats.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Just to confirm the above:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touch-move_rule

Some interesting examples there.

One aspect I did not know:

If the player touches both pieces in attempting to castle illegally, the king must be moved if possible, but even if there is no legal king move, there is no requirement to move the rook.

It may be best to check the FIDE Handbook and Rules of Chess to see if this is correct.

[John Clarke]

See here for an earlier thread on this subject - with almost exactly the same title!

[Joey Stewart]

I've seen it happen years, with a quite cunning get out of jail card played. Teammate grabs an opponent rook, immediately sees that it is protected and taking it with the queen would be a blunder, and instead of removing it from the board moves it to the far side and then says "oh, no, wait, that's your piece isn't it" to which the opponent allowed not only the retraction of the rook but he also got away with being allowed to move a different piece because the queen capture was not spotted

[MJMcCready]

Crafty

[Ted Black]

The laws of chess are quite clear on this:

If the player having the move deliberately touches on
the chessboard:
a) one or more of his own pieces, he must move the first piece touched which can be
moved
b) one or more of his opponent’s pieces, he must capture the first piece touched
which can be captured
c) one piece of each colour, he must capture the opponent’s piece with his piece or, if
this is illegal, move or capture the first piece touched which can be moved or
captured. If it is unclear, whether the player’s own piece or his opponent’s was
touched first, the player’s own piece shall be considered to have been touched
before his opponent’s.

So in the above scenario, if my opponent picks up my rook, and then claims its not his piece, I would enforce the above law.

[Matt Mackenzie]

The rules are pretty clear, i agree. But as the cited example above shows, not everyone is fully aware of them.