The new rule chess needs, to prevent GM Sambuev incident

[Paul Bonham]

Re: The new rule chess needs, to prevent GM Sambuev incident

Reading through all of the explanations and posts on the notorious incident from the blitz playoff game GM Sambuev vs IM Noritsyn, Montreal, July 1, 2017, distilling my 50+ years of chess experience, and my 48 years of direction / organization experience, I have realized that the creation of a simple, new rule for chess would prevent all of the problems, going forward. This reprehensible incident has illuminated the need to specifically prevent its recurrence in the future.

We simply need to define 'captured pieces', and their role, in the Rules of Chess, via a new Article.....

Sorry, Frank, this does NOT cover everything. What about the case of promoting to Queen (Knight, Bishop, Rook) where your Queen (Knight, Bishop, Rook) has not yet been captured? Since there is no provision for having these extra pieces at the board, the player must stop the clock and ask the arbiter for assistance in locating such a piece. Louis Morin even said some event had a table set up with 40 extra Queens (20 of each color). How absurd! Someone else said that at the CYCC, every board had 1 extra Queen of each color provided at each table. Much more reasonable, but not quite enough.

Not that I care who gets credit for what.... I just want to see common sense prevail. The most common sense thing of all is to (almost) never require stoppage of the clock. And that means each player having 2 extra Queens, 1 extra Bishop, 1 extra Knight, 1 extra Rook of their own color in front of them at the beginning of the game, to be brought onto the board when promoting to that piece. Eventually these extra pieces are to become part of the FIDE standard chess set, and until then, organizers should sell them at cost for players not having them.

These pieces would be the only off-board pieces that players are allowed to "fidget" with during the game, as long as the fidgeting is not such as to distract the opponent. When a captured piece is removed from the board, it cannot be held onto, but must be set aside.

This also removes the so-called "psychological" ploy of reaching for your Queen from among your captured pieces several moves ahead of the promotion, to distract and put additional pressure on the opponent. Under this rule, you can reach for your extra Queens that are in front of you as often and whenever you like, again provided you do not try and distract the opponent.

I don't ask credit for this, I just ask that the CFC's FIDE Representative, following discussion at the national level, take up this topic with FIDE as soon as possible and propose this rule change that covers all reasonably-expected cases.

[Egidijus Zeromskis]

Re: The new rule chess needs, to prevent GM Sambuev incident

Informing players of their rights would have saved everyone from creating new rules and threads. Having troubles - ask assistance from the arbiter.

[Frank Dixon]

Re: The new rule chess needs, to prevent GM Sambuev incident

Thanks, Kerry.

The promotion process is already defined in the Rules of Chess, as I wrote, and my proposed new Rule would complement and clarify it.

The point of my proposed new Rule is that when a player is getting ready to promote a pawn, he will promote to one of HIS OWN captured pieces (Queen, rook, bishop, or knight). In NO CIRCUMSTANCE should a player need to touch one of HIS OPPONENT'S captured pieces, since he will NEVER promote to one of those pieces, and there is no valid other reason, pertaining to the game's conduct, to have to touch these eliminated pieces.

As an interesting note on promotion, from the 2017 Canadian University Team Championship held in London, where I was Co-Arbiter, with Brian Clarke, we had an incident involving promotion. A player wanted to capture, with a pawn on the seventh rank, an opponent's piece on the proposed queening square. He simply placed the new queen on the square, while removing the opponent's piece, all in one motion. INCORRECT! Proper procedure would have been for the pawn to directly capture the opponent's piece on the queening square, announce the name of the promoted piece (in this case, a Queen, but it could have also been a rook, bishop, or knight), and then to place a new Queen on that square. Upon a complaint by the opponent, a five-minute time penalty was assigned, as extra time for the opponent, and the game continued.

[Kerry Liles]

Re: The new rule chess needs, to prevent GM Sambuev incident

Reading through all of the explanations and posts on the notorious incident from the blitz playoff game GM Sambuev vs IM Noritsyn, Montreal, July 1, 2017, distilling my 50+ years of chess experience, and my 48 years of direction / organization experience, I have realized that the creation of a simple, new rule for chess would prevent all of the problems, going forward. This reprehensible incident has illuminated the need to specifically prevent its recurrence in the future.

We simply need to define 'captured pieces', and their role, in the Rules of Chess, via a new Article. This term is NOT defined, so far as I know. :)

New Article:
'Captured pieces':
Pieces captured by either of the players are to be removed immediately from the board. These pieces are to be set to the side of the board, well away from the ongoing conduct of the game still in progress, and are not to be interfered with by either of the players, or by anyone else, except for a supervising Arbiter. Specifically, neither player is to touch, possess, or hide potential Promotion pieces for his opponent. Penalty: At the discretion of the Arbiter, with disqualification possible.

(Note that the Promotion process is already defined specifically and clearly in the Rules; this new Rule would complement it.)

I will leave the specifics of the wording of this proposed new rule to our CFC Executive and FIDE Representative. I propose that the CFC's FIDE Representative, following discussion at the national level, take up this topic with FIDE as soon as possible, crediting me with the creation of this rule as part of the process. :)

Currently, the outcome of this incident, where GM Sambuev's improper conduct decisively impacted the Championship's result, is NOT ACCEPTABLE to me, insofar as determining our 2017 Canadian Champion and Canadian representative to future FIDE events.

Respectfully submitted,
Frank Dixon
NTD, Kingston

Could you clarify whether or not either player is allowed to grab a piece from the pile to use for promotion? I presume from your wording that the answer is likely 'no, they cannot' so that implies there is another place on the table for such supplementary piece(s)?
I see an escalating series of "rules" that might arise.

In the actual case of the Sambuev-Nortisyn game, since there is a clear video replay it is obvious the arbiter(s) made some serious errors in judgment (whether it was some combination of lack of preparation, lack of attentiveness, bad luck, expired sausages at breakfast etc. it no matter: the arbitration was incorrect and needs to be corrected somehow.

I presume the NAC will deal with this and grace us with their wisdom (and any members of the NAC that were involved obviously will have to recuse themselves from the ruling).

Can't wait for that...

[Frank Dixon]

Reading through all of the explanations and posts on the notorious incident from the blitz playoff game GM Sambuev vs IM Noritsyn, Montreal, July 1, 2017, distilling my 50+ years of chess experience, and my 48 years of direction / organization experience, I have realized that the creation of a simple, new rule for chess would prevent all of the problems, going forward. This reprehensible incident has illuminated the need to specifically prevent its recurrence in the future.

We simply need to define 'captured pieces', and their role, in the Rules of Chess, via a new Article. This term is NOT defined, so far as I know. :)

New Article:
'Captured pieces':
Pieces captured by either of the players are to be removed immediately from the board. These pieces are to be set to the side of the board, well away from the ongoing conduct of the game still in progress, and are not to be interfered with by either of the players, or by anyone else, except for a supervising Arbiter. Specifically, neither player is to touch, possess, or hide potential Promotion pieces for his opponent. Penalty: At the discretion of the Arbiter, with disqualification possible.

(Note that the Promotion process is already defined specifically and clearly in the Rules; this new Rule would complement it.)

I will leave the specifics of the wording of this proposed new rule to our CFC Executive and FIDE Representative. I propose that the CFC's FIDE Representative, following discussion at the national level, take up this topic with FIDE as soon as possible, crediting me with the creation of this rule as part of the process. :)

Currently, the outcome of this incident, where GM Sambuev's improper conduct decisively impacted the Championship's result, is NOT ACCEPTABLE to me, insofar as determining our 2017 Canadian Champion and Canadian representative to future FIDE events.

Respectfully submitted,
Frank Dixon
NTD, Kingston