2017 Canadian Championship

[Paul Bonham]

Re: Controversy

These two exact questions were on my mind too.

A clear rule would be that a player can push the pawn, verbally say what the promotion is and only then stop the clock to look for the missing piece. Pawn stays on the promotion square to avoid confusion. And the clock starts again when the piece is put on the board. Player can't back off from the promotion he called earlier.

Any other way means a player can technically stop the clock and use the extra time to think about his move.

This "clear rule" still allows the player to stop the clock and use extra time... because the rule says nothing about when the Queen must be put on the board and the clock restarted. The player could hold onto the Queen, not putting it onto the promotion square until s/he damn well pleases. The clock isn't running. In effect, the game is in a state of "limbo" where neither player's clock is running. A player who was about to promote a Pawn to Queen and was obviously winning, and was peeved at his or her opponent for some reason, could use this rule to delay the game indefinitely. Or if the player doing the promoting was losing (even with the promotion), s/he could use this rule to delay the inevitable forever, since there is no rule as to when the Queen must be put on the board.

Which means there must be a subsidiary rule, and a SECOND clock (!), and a Pawn Promotion Time Control, to time the placing on the board of the [missing] Queen. Thus a player would push a Pawn to the 8th rank, announce it is being promoted to Queen, stop the primary clock, start the secondary Missing Queen clock, start looking for the missing Queen, find it, put it on the board if the Missing Queen clock has not yet expired, stop the Missing Queen clock, hit the primary clock to start the opponent's time.

And what about this "verbally say what the promotion is" bit? Isn't that in violation of the rule that chess players must not speak during the match? Or the rule that a player must not distract or annoy the opponent? What if instead of just saying "Queen", the player starts giving a speech which rambles on for several minutes before it concludes that the promotion will be to a Queen? Therefore we need a special Verbal Promotion Announcement Rule which clarifies that the verbal promotion announcement must be a single word corresponding to the English word "Queen" or "Bishop" or "Knight" or "Rook".

But what language must the verbal promotion announcement be in? The host country language, naturally. What if the player can't speak the host country language? In this case, we would need a special Verbal Promotion Announcement Interpreter Rule which says that a tournament must have in attendance an interpreter who can interpret from any known language into any other known language, and who can be called upon to do this service when a player who can't speak the host country language wants to verbally announce a Pawn promotion in that host country language.

And now we have the problem of when to stop the primary clock to seek the interpreter to verbally announce the promotion piece. The interpreter could be on the other side of the tournament hall, at that very moment verbally announcing someone else's promotion piece, and could have any number of queued requests for interpretation of other players' promotion announcements. Therefore the player making the Pawn promotion must push the Pawn to the 8th rank, stop the primary clock, but not immediately start the Missing Queen clock, but instead announce to the opponent that s/he is going to seek the interpreter to announce in the host country language what the promotion piece will be. Oh, but wait! The player making THAT announcement can't speak the host country language to announce to his or her opponent that s/he is about to seek the interpreter to announce the promotion piece in the host country language!

OMG.... we have a "division by zero" problem! Stack overload!

Maybe we should just.... make sure.... there are never any missing pieces?

Hey Cloutier, I guess you should know that if you troll my posts, you can expect the same in return. And yes, in any game you are playing in, the opponent would need to have 8 Queens in hand before the game starts, in anticipation that all 8 of his or her Pawns could promote.

Best solution to Missing Queen (Knight, Bishop, Rook) problem: each player must have in hand before clocks start their 16 pieces on the board plus 2 extra Queens, 1 extra Rook, 1 extra Knight, 1 extra Bishop in front of them but not on the board.

Not a perfect solution: promoting a 4th Pawn to Queen (or even a 3rd Pawn if the original Queen were never captured) could result in a Missing Queen problem. Also, under-promoting twice in same game to Knight (Bishop, Rook) could result in Missing Knight (Bishop, Rook) problem.

Question:

Is there a known record for the most total Queens (both colors combined) on the board in any game of (i) slow chess, (ii) Rapid chess, (iii) Blitz chess?

[Hugh Brodie]

Re: 2017 Canadian Championship

Suppose you're playing with an unfamiliar clock which you need to stop. In a blitz situation, you could lose on time before figuring out (or asking someone) how to stop it.

[Dan Scoones]

Re: 2017 Canadian Championship

For Noritsyn, there would have been some risk in stopping the clock and calling for the arbiter. While the arbiter was making his way to the table, Sambuev could have put the queen back on the board (as he did in the game). Then the arbiter could easily have pointed to the queen on the table (as he did in the game) and forfeited (or penalized) Noritsyn for illegally stopping the clock.

This was the ONLY game going on in the tournament at that time. Where on earth was the arbiter? There were no other games to worry about except this one. Why was the arbiter not at the board, and able to see that Sambuev was hiding the Black queen? Instead, he showed up just in time to miss the entire episode in which Sambuev returned the Black queen to the table.

A new tiebreak match should be arranged, with different arbiters.

[Paul Bonham]

Re: 2017 Canadian Championship

For Noritsyn, there would have been some risk in stopping the clock and calling for the arbiter. While the arbiter was making his way to the table, Sambuev could have put the queen back on the board (as he did in the game). Then the arbiter could easily have pointed to the queen on the table (as he did in the game) and forfeited (or penalized) Noritsyn for illegally stopping the clock.

This was ONLY game going on in the tournament at that time. Where on earth was the arbiter? Why was he not at the board, and thus in position to see that Sambuev was hiding the Black queen? Instead, he showed up just in time to miss the entire episode in which Sambuev returned the Black queen to the table.

Dan, you make a very good and valid point about having to stop the clock and seek the arbiter in the case of a "missing Queen". Very few blitz games are recorded on video, so the arbiter plus any appeal committee only has the evidence in front of them to go by. The rules don't say what the arbiter is supposed to do if one player says the Queen was missing and the other player says no, it was there the entire time!

In this particular case, Dan, I don't think the arbiter had to make his way to the board. It appeared from the video that he was there at the time, and he simply missed that Bator was holding the Queen and that the Queen wasn't available to Nikolay when he promoted. Then suddenly he sees the Queen on the table (after Bator put it back, which he missed). I think that's why people are saying the arbiter was derelict in his duties, he should have anticipated the situation, and either stopped the clocks and asked Bator to release his hold on the Queen, or alternatively placed an additional Queen nearby, accessible to Nikolay.

But again, this wouldn't be the normal situation. Normally the arbiter would have to be summoned. Which seems to me to be absurd, and in fact the whole crux of the problem.

I repeat again: there should be a rule in place to absolutely and positively prevent there ever being missing pieces. Simply make a FIDE-compliant chess set have 2 extra Queens of each color, and 1 extra of Knight, Bishop, Rook of each color, and each player has the extra pieces of their own color in front of them at beginning of the game which the arbiter will verify for each game before clocks are started, as a FIDE rule. Organizers can provide these extra pieces at cost for those not having them, but eventually they will become part of the standard chess set.

[Tom O'Donnell]

Re: Re : Re: Controversy

...
3) If you put the pawn on the 8th rank without replacing the pawn with a piece, say "Queen" out loud and THEN stop the clock, you only manage to play an illegal move (a7-a8=P is an illegal move). You might be allowed to get a Queen, though, if the penalty for this illegal move is not "losing the game". Alternatively, if you play your move, stop the clock and call for the arbiter to claim a draw by 3-fold repetition or the 50-move rule, this does not work because it is not your turn to move anymore. Your opponent might decide to play a move that no longer allows you to claim a draw.

...

So a player before promoting would need to do a quick scan of the immediate vicinity (however that is defined - say within their arms' reach), and having found nothing useful, then stop the clock, then ask for a piece? What if he asks for a piece that is in the immediate vicinity but he genuinely doesn't see it? Can he change his mind when he gets the piece? Is asking for a piece binding on his immediate move?

Can he ask for more than one piece? For example, can he ask for a Q and a N because he is unsure what he will promote to or ask for two Qs because he has two Ps that are close to promoting and doesn't want to interrupt the flow of the game twice?

Maybe to cover some of these problems the CFC should add an extra Q of each colour to their standard set. I noticed in my most recent USCF event that most of the sets there had a pair of extra Qs that came with the set. Perhaps that's because many USCF events have five-second delays so these problems happen fairly frequently there.

[Hugh Brodie]

Re: Controversy

The recent photo taken at the CYCC of a room full of chess sets...no players yet...clearly shows two Queens at every table.

[Mathieu Cloutier]

Re: Re : Re: Controversy

1) No, you stop the clock and call for the arbiter, without making any move. This is the proper procedure to promote a pawn with an unavailable piece or claim a draw by 3-fold repetition or the 50-move rule.
2) NEVER do that.
3) If you put the pawn on the 8th rank without replacing the pawn with a piece, say "Queen" out loud and THEN stop the clock, you only manage to play an illegal move (a7-a8=P is an illegal move). You might be allowed to get a Queen, though, if the penalty for this illegal move is not "losing the game". Alternatively, if you play your move, stop the clock and call for the arbiter to claim a draw by 3-fold repetition or the 50-move rule, this does not work because it is not your turn to move anymore. Your opponent might decide to play a move that no longer allows you to claim a draw.

So, every time you need the assistance of the arbiter for a serious reason, stop your clock and call for the arbiter. Never play any move before or while doing this. Of course, every time you stop the clock, you must have a valid reason, if not you might get a warning or penalty from the arbiter.

Thanks Louis. It does makes more sense to stop the clock before. Only problem I see is if a player pushes the pawn and THEN realizes the piece is missing.

And this should be clearly written somewhere in the FIDE rulebook. Because it seems even world champions can get it wrong.

[Sam Sharpe]

Re: Re : Re: Controversy

It's almost a week after the appeal (assuming it was started on the 2nd); any result?

My guess as to the outcome:
- Mistakes made by all parties
- Since there does not appear to be a claim of "I am continuing to play this game under protest," the result will stand.

[Sid Belzberg]

Re: Re : Re: Controversy

It's almost a week after the appeal (assuming it was started on the 2nd); any result?

My guess as to the outcome:
- Mistakes made by all parties
- Since there does not appear to be a claim of "I am continuing to play this game under protest," the result will stand.

The player was duped just like the arbiters in believing the Queen was available when it was not. So neither the player nor the arbiters were aware that the opponent violated rule 12.6 until looking at the video. Therefore if this were the outcome it would not be a good result and in fact would be a very lame excuse.

[Mathieu Cloutier]

Re: Re : Re: Controversy

The player was duped just like the arbiters in believing the Queen was available when it was not. So neither the player nor the arbiters were aware that the opponent violated rule 12.6 until looking at the video. Therefore if this were the outcome it would not be a good result and in fact would be a very lame excuse.

In line with what the CFC and some of its arbiters have become... :p

[Hugh Brodie]

Re: Controversy

NAC Appeals can take a long time - sometimes weeks - so be patient.

[Mavros Whissell]

Re: 2017 Canadian Championship

Whether Bator withheld the Queen intentionally or not is not the question here. He was holding the Queen that Nikolay needed and that's already enough information to rule in Nikolay's favour. There is no way that you punish the person who 1) doesn't have his own Queen to promote to 2) doesn't have an extra one provided by the tournament.

Comical that our national championship didn't have arbiters who would think to place extra Queens on the table :D

This is what I think the unfortunate truth is. By holding the queen, intentionally or not, Bator has created the issues for both the arbiter and Nikolay. You can sight all the rules you want - but I don't see one that take this into account adequately. I would lean in this direction and its interesting to hear a player of Aman's caliber state this.

[Sid Belzberg]

Re: 2017 Canadian Championship

but I don't see one that take this into account adequately

At the risk of being repetitive 12.6 does cover it adequately. The key being that no annoying or distracting in any manner whatsoever. At the time of the incident neither Nickolay or the arbiters were aware that rule 12.6 was violated as the queen magically reappeared at the perfect moment. The whole incident was somewhat rare although not unheard of for anyone that has ever played many games against speed chess hustlers. That is why the rule 12.6 covers unusual events with the phrase "in any manner whatsoever"

Annoyances and distractions like this might be acceptable in the park (Not!) but not during a key game for the National Championship.

[Ben Daswani]

Re: Controversy

Philosophically, however, there is a lot to be said about why these disputes happen so often. I've found that usually nobody wants to hear it.

Why do they happen?

I'm also interested in what you have to say about it.

[Kevin Pacey]

Re: 2017 Canadian Championship

Regarding Sid's cited rule, it would seem to be a reasonable interpretation he's making in regard to captured pieces in the hand(s) of an opponent, especially around the time of a possible promotion.

Sometimes I wonder about that rule in other regards, though. I've sometimes been in a tournament hall around the odd player that smells of tobacco, or even of strong body odour. Not to mention chewing gum (or food/beverage) consumption that might have a scent, or even strong perfume. In such cases another participant might ask an arbiter to talk to said player(s), but there's no guarantee the arbiter will interpret such scents as a genuine annoyance to other participants, and instead rule that said player(s) are within their rights to be the way they are.

It would seem it's always better to have beforehand a clear rule on a specific type of situation that may arise, if it's possible to do so.