Lack of Good Manners on RHP

Originally posted by greenpawn34
Trying to give RJ a loophole.

When did the ruling come in? He says he started 30 years ago and
the rules do differ slightly in the USA.

I've never played in the USA.
It may have become law there just in past 5-10-15 years.

Anybody?

One wee thing that RJ said caught me.

"...if the flag falls or in these days of digital clocks the expira ...[text shortened]... ior to the game.

Is it different in the USA. (I know they have to supply their own kit.)

Hi GP,

I am a certified local TD with the USCF, which does not mean much, but it does mean that I own a copy of the rule book (5th edition, page 46). The USCF rule is as follows:

14E. Insufficient material to win on time. The game is drawn even when a player exceeds the time limit if one of the following conditions exists.

14E1. Lone king. Opponent has only a lone king.

(E2 refers to king and bishop or king and knight, while E3 refers to king and two knights)

Conceptually, the idea is that a player should not be able to claim a win in a game due to time if there is no way they could possibly claim a win in the absence of clocks.

Originally posted by kingshill
I've seen a win awarded on time to a player who only had a king, rook pawn and wrong colour bishop with the defending king covering the queening square.

I didn't agree with the decision BTW as the winner was making no progress but the arbiters decision is final.

I just found the USCF rules on the internet and I think they could have made the rules clearer. It appears there are exceptions to the general rule for losing on time and if one calls the tournament director over and states his case then it is up to the T.D. to determine if the request meets these exception and can award a win or draw based on his understanding of the rules. However, in the case that greenpawn34 stated, it appears that even under USCF rules, he is right that the worst the player with the Q + K can get, provided he knows to call the T.D. over, is a draw.

Originally posted by C J Horse
Can you have a position with 9 queens where it's not stalemate if it's the King's move?

Sure. You'd have to be daft to let it get that far, but...

Anyway, while I'm here I'll just say that I really don't care whether my opponent resigns or not. I've often thought there's not a lot of point playing on, but never thought of it as a question of manners or etiquette. I see that the OP is a 6 games non-sub, which probably explains why he gets the hump about it

Well, it oughtn't - so am I, and I disagree with him.

Richard

Originally posted by Shallow Blue
Sure. You'd have to be daft to let it get that far, but...

[fen]qqq1qqqq/q3k2q/8/8/8/8/8/3K4 w - - 0 1[/fen]

Anyway, while I'm here I'll just say that I really don't care whether my opponent resigns or not. I've often thought there's not a lot of point playing on, but never thought of it as a question of manners or etiquette. I see that the ...[text shortened]... e hump about it

Well, it oughtn't - so am I, and I disagree with him.

Richard

Heck, why stop at 9?

Originally posted by greenpawn34
I'll paste in the wiki explanation which quotes with FIDE law to look up.

Pikiwedia my big fat hairy Donner Reveal Hidden Content. The real rules, with the caveats Pikiwedia missed out, are here:
http://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?id=124&view=article

Perhaps more to the point is whether these official OTB rules differ from the official Correspondence ones (I haven't checked); whether this site follows the ICCF rules rather than the FIDE ones; and most fundamentally, whether it should.

You can also draw a 'won game'....
(in reality there is no such thing. The game is won with mate or a resignation) ......if you are deemed not trying to win it.

For example if you have 4 minutes left and your opponent has one minute left in an allegro finish (google allegro finish RJ)

I just did. Apparently it is an Irish specialty - at least, that was the only relevant link on the main page. Well, so is Guinness, and the Special Export I just finished was very nice, but I wouldn't quote it as an authority on the rules of brewing.

and all you are doing is shuffling your pieces about to win on time the TD can step and warn you to make a winning attempt. A very grey area this and it takes a tough (and well built) TD to enforce this rule. It will end in an uproar.

As it bleedin' well should. Who is he to say that I'm not just shuffling my pieces into just the right configuration for the breakthrough? I'm waiting for him to make a subtle positional mistake, not for his flag to fall!

Richard

Originally posted by SwissGambit
A US TD would prefer to put a time delay clock on the game

If it wasn't there before (i.e., if the game was traditionally timed before), he'd better not!

Richard

Originally posted by RJHinds
It is still hard for me to believe FIDE rules are different from USCF rules. That does not make any sense.

They aren't - the UCSF rules are different from the FIDE ones. And yes, that distinction is important.

Richard

Originally posted by Shallow Blue
If it wasn't there before (i.e., if the game was traditionally timed before), he'd better not!

Richard

He has the right to do it under USCF rules. Yes, the old timers hate all the new rules that favor digital clocks over analog.

The post that was quoted here has been removed

That may be Reveal Hidden Content, but in this area at least the rules have changed in recent decades, and not necessarily for the better.

It used to be that if you let your clock run down, it was your fault for being so careless. It used to be that people like Kotov could write that (and I quote) "Can you justify these blunders by pointing out how short of time you were [...]? No, you cannot. Nobody will take much notice; no official will change the result in the tournament table."
These days, things have changed. Now FIDE apparently thinks that being short of time is somehow not the player's own fault, and that he must be excused for it, and given some leeway. That, if he squandered every last second to get his "winning" material only to lose on time, he did, if not win, then at least draw after all.

Frankly, I think the modern rule is useless, and we should go back to the time when 60 minutes were 60 minutes, and not 60 minutes plus the arbiter thinks you deserve. After all, when you start the game you know that you start with 60 minutes for 40 moves just as clearly as you know that you start with eight pawns and one queen. We don't allow one pawn extra if you're a knight ahead, either, do we? Why should we make such allowances for the clock?

Richard

Originally posted by SwissGambit
He has the right to do it under USCF rules.

Then the USCF are not gentlemen. Where I come from, when you start a contest on certain conditions, you do not change them half way through.

Next new thing: USASA allows the referee to change the size of the goals in a penalty shoot-out.

Richard

Originally posted by Rank outsider
Of course, if it was was a mate which could only be forced in 51 moves even with the help of the opponent, now that would be a legal conundrum. After all, it's not that taking 51 moves is not a legal series of moves. So could you claim the draw?

But I don't suppose such a position exists.

Yes, I believe it does, in some rare rook-vs-bishop (or possibly rook-plus-bishop-vs-rook) endgames. Even the grand masters don't know how to win these reliably. Only computers can, and in some cases, they've proven that it takes over 50 (sometimes quite a bit over 50) moves.
When the first of these was proven (still by hand, IIRC - ouch!) the exception was added to the rule. Possibly the next few were, as well. Then endgame table-bases got so comprehensive that it became clear that there was no way to write all of that stuff into a workable rule, and that no human was going to be able to make use of it anyway, so they scrapped the exceptions.

Richard

Originally posted by Shallow Blue
That may be [hidden]indeed, sometimes it is[/hidden], but in this area at least the rules have changed in recent decades, and not necessarily for the better.

It used to be that if you let your clock run down, it was your fault for being so careless. It used to be that people like Kotov could write that (and I quote) "Can you justify these blun night ahead, either, do we? Why should we make such allowances for the clock?

Richard

I'm not a fan of the arbiter/TD changing the time control in the middle of the game, either. I would prefer to start all games with at least a 5 second delay on every clock, if not an increment. But it's going to take time to phase out the old analog clocks.

Originally posted by Shallow Blue
Yes, I believe it does, in some rare rook-vs-bishop (or possibly rook-plus-bishop-vs-rook) endgames. Even the grand masters don't know how to win these reliably. Only computers can, and in some cases, they've proven that it takes over 50 (sometimes quite a bit over 50) moves.
When the first of these was proven (still by hand, IIRC - ouch!) the exceptio ...[text shortened]... man was going to be able to make use of it anyway, so they scrapped the exceptions.

Richard

Even with the help of the opponent?

Originally posted by Shallow Blue
Then the USCF are not gentlemen. Where I come from, when you start a contest on certain conditions, you do not change them half way through.

Next new thing: USASA allows the referee to change the size of the goals in a penalty shoot-out.

Richard

The only reason it is done is that there isn't always a digital clock available for every game. The 'gentlemanly' approach would require banning analog clocks. That would just piss off the old timers even more.

Originally posted by Shallow Blue
Then the USCF are not gentlemen. Where I come from, when you start a contest on certain conditions, you do not change them half way through.

Next new thing: USASA allows the referee to change the size of the goals in a penalty shoot-out.

Richard

A time delay clock is the standard timer in any sudden death time control including "G/x". USCF 5F and 42D. Use the correct equipment and the issue doesn't come up.