Conclusion of Noritsyn vs NAC Appeal

[Paul Bonham]

Re: Conclusion of Noritsyn vs NAC Appeal

....I mostly blame the fiasco on the idea of holding blitz games to determine a national champion. Garbage chess produces garbage results.

Taking this argument to its logical conclusion, the only chess that truly "matters" is correspondence chess. We could go for even longer time controls than that for national championships, but too many players would die during the event.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

The blame for this fiasco is squarely on the shoulders of FIDE for not having a proper rule to be enforced by all arbiters regarding presence of extra Queens at each board before games begin.

[Tom O'Donnell]

Re: Conclusion of Noritsyn vs NAC Appeal

Taking this argument to its logical conclusion, the only chess that truly "matters" is correspondence chess. ...

I would agree if there were a way to police players into not using any aid to assist their play while games are going on.

As it stands, it would be like arguing that a NASCAR driver is better than Usain Bolt because he is faster.

[Erik Malmsten]

Re: Conclusion of Noritsyn vs NAC Appeal

The blame for this fiasco is squarely on the shoulders of FIDE for not having a proper rule to be enforced by all arbiters regarding presence of extra Queens at each board before games begin.

The USCF rules accept a rook as a Queen, perhaps as players provide their own pieces and don't carry extra queens. But FIDE recently changed the rule as the new dgt boards can only sense a rook as a rook, not a Queen. And the dgt sets come with spare queens.

[Roger Patterson]

Re: Conclusion of Noritsyn vs NAC Appeal

The blame for this fiasco is squarely on the shoulders of FIDE for not having a proper rule to be enforced by all arbiters regarding presence of extra Queens at each board before games begin.

as opposed to one of the players either not knowing or not using the clearly stated rule about pausing the clock?

In any case, your belief that there should be a rule about having extra queens available is not sound. Such a rule would not prevent the same type of situation from arising - as it easy enough to conceal two queens as it is one.

[Paul Bonham]

Re: Conclusion of Noritsyn vs NAC Appeal

as opposed to one of the players either not knowing or not using the clearly stated rule about pausing the clock?

In any case, your belief that there should be a rule about having extra queens available is not sound. Such a rule would not prevent the same type of situation from arising - as it easy enough to conceal two queens as it is one.

Roger, maybe you didn't see my original post describing that rule. I said the rule should be that each player have in front of them at game's start an extra Queen of their own color. If Bator reaches across the board and grabs Nikolay's extra Queen right from in front of him, that would be blatant interference.

And actually, I specified two extra Queens of one's own piece color AND an extra Knight, Bishop, and Rook. These should eventually become part of every player's chess set, but until then organizers should supply them at cost to players.

Stopping the clock is the LAST THING that rules should ever rely on, especially in short time control games.

[Mavros Whissell]

Re: Conclusion of Noritsyn vs NAC Appeal

Stopping the clock is the LAST THING that rules should ever rely on, especially in short time control games.

I have to agree, and as someone also pointed out earlier, players are reluctant to stop the clock in any event because of the possibility of being penalized. Add to that the fast pace of modern games and its almost like relying on this is an easy way of laying blame, as opposed to trying to adapt to a changing circumstance.

[Sid Belzberg]

Re: Conclusion of Noritsyn vs NAC Appeal

as opposed to one of the players either not knowing or not using the clearly stated rule about pausing the clock?

In any case, your belief that there should be a rule about having extra queens available is not sound. Such a rule would not prevent the same type of situation from arising - as it easy enough to conceal two queens as it is one.

Even the arbiter could not figure out how to stop the clock in the video, Sambuev actually stopped it. So many different types of clocks are now out there, it is not like thirty years ago where clocks were mechanical and you simply pushed the button half way.

[Roger Patterson]

Re: Conclusion of Noritsyn vs NAC Appeal

And actually, I specified two extra Queens of one's own piece color AND an extra Knight, Bishop, and Rook. These should eventually become part of every player's chess set, but until then organizers should supply them at cost to players.

.

but this is completely impractical. For our tournaments, the equipment we supply and own came with extra queens. For a few years, we put them out, but now we have taken the extras all out and leave them at home. The extra queens get in the way, they don't get put in the right box at the end of the event, if you put a queen on the player's right, someone will take the queen from the left and so the queens migrate around and don't stick with the one board, and it is generally a mess.

Specifiying two extra queens, a knight, bishop, and rook is just nuts - compounds all the problems I just described. That's 10 extra pieces cluttering up each board. All to deal with a very rare circumstances. I don't think I have ever promoted to a bishop or rook in 40+ years.

And I repeat, having these extra pieces does not deal with the problem that occurred in this game - that the piece was not immediately visible when it was needed. You say the other player cannot reach across the board to touch those pieces but that is not the only way a piece can not be visible. It could be behind a clock, knocked to the floor, or just hidden by the player's own elbow, or picked up by players on the next board. Moreover, your rule in your own explanation requires additional rules about areas of the table each player is allowed to touch or put captured pieces. It is just not a reasonable solution.

Stopping the clock is however, an entirely reasonable solution. Each player should be responsible for informing themselves as to how the clock operates and should know how to pause just as they should know all the particulars of how to claim a three fold repetition properly or of any other chess rule. The claim by those in this thread that the player may not have the time to react to this is not relevant - that is the nature of blitz, that one may not have enough time to counter an unexpected check, mate threat, or time to stop the clock in case of promotion, draw claims, forcing the opponent to replace knocked over pieces, whatever. That someone may get freaked in blitz chess and lose on time because they can't react fast enough is the nature of the beast.

ps: that the arbiter apparently didn't know how to stop the clock is appalling. It is part of the rules of chess that he know how to do so - certainly for an event like this.

[Neil Frarey]

Re: Conclusion of Noritsyn vs NAC Appeal

In the recent Grand Chess Tour event St. Louis Rapid & Blitz a game occurred where both players were terribly short on time, something like less than 5 seconds each. The material was basically even in a late endgame and no pawn move was made in well over 50 moves as they both were firing off moves. During this sequence either player could have easily claimed a draw but neither wanted to so. At about move 61 in the same sequence the arbiter, who was paying attention, stopped the clock and the game ended in a draw.

1) The arbiter was paying attention.
2) Neither player wanted to stop the clock under such time pressure.

[Paul Bonham]

Re: Conclusion of Noritsyn vs NAC Appeal

but this is completely impractical. For our tournaments, the equipment we supply and own came with extra queens. For a few years, we put them out, but now we have taken the extras all out and leave them at home. The extra queens get in the way, they don't get put in the right box at the end of the event, if you put a queen on the player's right, someone will take the queen from the left and so the queens migrate around and don't stick with the one board, and it is generally a mess.

Specifiying two extra queens, a knight, bishop, and rook is just nuts - compounds all the problems I just described. That's 10 extra pieces cluttering up each board. All to deal with a very rare circumstances. I don't think I have ever promoted to a bishop or rook in 40+ years.

And I repeat, having these extra pieces does not deal with the problem that occurred in this game - that the piece was not immediately visible when it was needed. You say the other player cannot reach across the board to touch those pieces but that is not the only way a piece can not be visible. It could be behind a clock, knocked to the floor, or just hidden by the player's own elbow, or picked up by players on the next board. Moreover, your rule in your own explanation requires additional rules about areas of the table each player is allowed to touch or put captured pieces. It is just not a reasonable solution.

Stopping the clock is however, an entirely reasonable solution. Each player should be responsible for informing themselves as to how the clock operates and should know how to pause just as they should know all the particulars of how to claim a three fold repetition properly or of any other chess rule. The claim by those in this thread that the player may not have the time to react to this is not relevant - that is the nature of blitz, that one may not have enough time to counter an unexpected check, mate threat, or time to stop the clock in case of promotion, draw claims, forcing the opponent to replace knocked over pieces, whatever. That someone may get freaked in blitz chess and lose on time because they can't react fast enough is the nature of the beast.

ps: that the arbiter apparently didn't know how to stop the clock is appalling. It is part of the rules of chess that he know how to do so - certainly for an event like this.

Roger, thank you for the detailed reply. You are an experienced organizer and I respect your views.

The rule I propose is meant for high profile events sponsored / regulated by FIDE, so I'm not talking about regular club events. In this particular case, it was the Canadian Closed. If we ask the question: which is worse, an embarrassing incident such as what actually occurred or having 10 extra pieces at the table, 5 in front of each player... what do you think is the best answer?

The rarity of the event doesn't come into it imo. As long as it is possible, it needs to be handled in the best way possible. So I will continue to propose that for high profile events sponsored by or regulated by FIDE, this rule should be in effect and arbiters should ensure that these extra pieces are in place.

You are correct that things can happen to these extra pieces, they can be hidden etc. So for sure, it is still possible that something bad can happen. There is no absolute guarantee to prevent something like that, but players should get used to the extra pieces and to making sure they are not disturbed as play gets into the middlegame and endgame and time is getting short. Just as you say players should know how to stop various clocks, I say players should take responsibility for these extra pieces and make sure they know where they are. Why one and not the other? Stopping the clock is disturbing to the game, it interrupts the flow of the game. The opponent gets extra time to study the position while the clock is stopped. Just a bad scene overall.

Sorry Roger, I must respectfully disagree with your position although I wouldn't propose my rule for regular club games (1 extra Queen in front of each player doesn't seem that bad however). And I'm sorry you haven't underpromoted in over 40 years.... hopefully your chance will come soon! :)

Edit: I would actually like to see these extra pieces become part of the standard chess set. So eventually players would get used to them and it would become part of even the regular club scene. Just as a club organizer now may gather chess sets after a night of play, they would gather these extra pieces as well and make sure each set had the right extra pieces. Perhaps Kevin Pacey or someone else might comment on what Shogi players do in Japan and elsewhere (Shogi being a game where captured piece are much more regularly being put back into play than in chess). Have there been incidents in high profile Shogi matches where players have hidden captured pieces from their opponent? (I'm assuming Shogi matches are timed similar to chess).

My interest in this topic is partially because I will be promoting events of a chess variant where promotion is much more prevalent than in regular chess, and so for these events, extra pieces are going to be necessary. But it's also because even in chess there needs to be a handling of this situation that doesn't involve stopping the clock.