Sudden death draw claim CFC rules??????

[Denton Cockburn]

Re: Sudden death draw claim CFC rules??????

I'm searching the internet for more references. For our governors, I think having the CFC determine a clarification of this rule would be good. Considering how many times this has happened to me, I figure it's happened a lot of times to others.

From: http://www.sccu.ndo.co.uk/frul.htm
Guidance regarding quickplay, some from Chess Arbiters Association
In particular, Appendix D, dealing with the absence of an arbiter

"A player with a king and rook claiming a draw against an opponent with a king and a knight would be awarded a draw under situation (a) above (opponent cannot win by normal means)."

Note that this example is the same as what we have. It's possible for the K+R to create a situation where it can be mated by the K+N, but that is not considered normal means.

Here is further guidance, with illustrated examples:

http://www.westlondonchess.com/FIDE_10_2

and another thread elsewhere on the same topic:

http://www.ecforum.org.uk/viewtopic....st=0&sk=t&sd=a

[Denton Cockburn]

Re: Sudden death draw claim CFC rules??????

deleted for redundancy

[Denton Cockburn]

Re: Sudden death draw claim CFC rules??????

Here is the official response from the Chess Arbiters Association regarding 10.2

http://chessarbiters.co.uk/QP.aspx

[Denton Cockburn]

Re: Sudden death draw claim CFC rules??????

arggh, duplicate posting, way too early in the morning.

[Vlad Drkulec]

Re: Sudden death draw claim CFC rules??????

Here is the official response from the Chess Arbiters Association regarding 10.2

http://chessarbiters.co.uk/QP.aspx

That is the UK chess arbiters but the following two passages are relevant.

"A player can only claim a draw if it is that player’s move."

"A player must also be careful that they understand the definition of sufficient mating material. Player A has king and rook, Player B has king and knight. Player A is very short of time but does not claim a draw because his opponent does not have mating material. A’s flag falls and the arbiter correctly awards a win to player B because a mating position can be established for B."

The initial claim made after he made the move was that I had insufficient mating material.

[Vlad Drkulec]

Re: Sudden death draw claim CFC rules??????

I'm searching the internet for more references. For our governors, I think having the CFC determine a clarification of this rule would be good. Considering how many times this has happened to me, I figure it's happened a lot of times to others.

From: http://www.sccu.ndo.co.uk/frul.htm
Guidance regarding quickplay, some from Chess Arbiters Association
In particular, Appendix D, dealing with the absence of an arbiter

"A player with a king and rook claiming a draw against an opponent with a king and a knight would be awarded a draw under situation (a) above (opponent cannot win by normal means)."

Note that this example is the same as what we have. It's possible for the K+R to create a situation where it can be mated by the K+N, but that is not considered normal means.

Here is further guidance, with illustrated examples:

http://www.westlondonchess.com/FIDE_10_2

The offer of a draw is not to be confused with a claim under 10.2, the stopping of the clock being a key differentiator.

If after consultation with others there is still some doubt, the draw should not be awarded.

and another thread elsewhere on the same topic:

http://www.ecforum.org.uk/viewtopic....st=0&sk=t&sd=a

That one is less definitive as it is unclear what the qualifications of the people who are contributing to that thread are.

It seems to me that making a claim under 10.2 requires a certain procedure and that you have to make that claim in a proper manner with sufficient time and when you are on the move and you have to stop the clocks before time runs out.

You can't really look for precedents in club tournaments played in Great Britain arbitrated by individuals with unknown qualifications.

There is some doubt here. An arbiter qualified enough to hold that position for the 2008 women's world championship ruled one way but was overturned on appeal. The appeal committee decision appears to me to set a precedent. There appears to me to be an element of whim here.

The example from the message board is particularly troublesome to me because not all opposite colour bishop endings are drawn and sometimes the wins require studylike maneuvers.

This situation kind of reminds me of what used to happen in the Windsor High School League where they used to arbitrate positions based on the material on the board. The people doing the arbiter's job were very bad chessplayers and just counted up the pawns and pieces and didn't take into account the position. Some teams would deliberately not move after they won a pawn.

[Stephen Wright]

Re: Sudden death draw claim CFC rules??????

Geurt Gijssen's column at ChessCafe has many examples and discussions of 10.2 (apparently it will also be the main subject of his next column). If you can find it, The Chess Organiser's Handbook (3rd edition) by Stewart Reuben is very useful. He gives the following advice for an arbiter faced with a 10.2 claim (remember the options are accept the claim, reject the claim, or postpone your decision):

1. Only award a draw if you are absolutely certain it is the correct decision.
2. Remember 12.1, if a loss would bring the game into disrepute, award a draw.
3. If in doubt, postpone your decision and don't award the opponent two extra minutes.
4. It is fine to consult other people before making your decision.

He also has a quiz of seven positions involving 10.2. Reuben also points out the best solution - use an increment, even if it is only 5 or 10 seconds. That way the game will be decided by the players, rather than by an arbiter's decision. I know as an arbiter myself, I inwardly cringe a little when I have to make a 10.2 decision - an increment is definitely the way to go.

[Vlad Drkulec]

Re: Sudden death draw claim CFC rules??????

We have had four games in Windsor in the last year where this claim might have been made so it seems like it is becoming more common or it might just be a factor of playing mostly sudden death time controls. The objection to increments is that we sometimes play on a fairly tight schedule where one of the players has to pick up his wife or child at a certain time and knowing that the game will last three hours and no more makes such games possible.

[Kai G. Gauer]

Re: Sudden death draw claim CFC rules??????

I think what we need is complete clarification on Rule 10.2

Based on this discussion and other times this thing has come up, there is a lot of debate as to what it means.

As you point out, how does an arbiter get to decide that a player isn't trying to swindle his opponent into a mate in time trouble.

For some IAs, I'd like an explanation of what 10.2 means to them, preferably with an example or two.

As I said as well, I've had this happen to me personally on 3 occasions. I learned of 10.2 after the second one, thinking it means the position shouldn't be an "easy draw" for the win to be claimed. I'm OK with going back to playing for the clock, that would be some vindication for what happened last year.

Denton

When a player, named Mr White (W) for simplicity, using those coloured pieces, makes a "normal means" claim to the arbiter (A), W lets A know that A has plan P to play for: (i) P(=), expecting a mere draw (by "normal means" - whatever that would mean in that case) or (ii) P(+), expecting a win (by normal means) or (iii) P(oo), a computer assessment of a non-case of: (case i or ii for white, or a case (iv) P(-) for white (an obviously invalid claim, since nobody claims to optimally lose by normal means, bringing the game into disrepute); read to mean as unclear within a computer's horizon assessment time allocation provided to make a reasonable assessment of whether or not i or ii applies).

W can (attempt to) claim on i, maybe also even be successful on iii, but can W make a resonable claim based on ii, & should A accept, postpone, postpone & assign a time adjustment, or decline? The issue seems partly to be when ii could be assessed as being different from i (or iii - but in case iii, not only could Mr White see his position assessed as type iii, but so too could Mr White's opponent also have the same type iii plan as Mr W, were Mr W to carry on with his plan and let the opponent of Mr B play on as well, & maybe also even do a normal means claim or similar of his own - especially when the position has changed).

If the position has NOT changed, but W has suggested some plan of replies to blockading or non-blockading moves (ie capture P if P advances, else shift another piece if otherwise & use 50-move draw as claiming method if W were allowed to continue), then is W compelled to stick with his plan for many plies after he has announced it to A (similar to how a move is normally recorded on a scoresheet before attempting certain types of claims, meaning that the player is next compelled to play that move if there is a rejection & he has time to do so)?

If W at first succeeds in P for a few plies, but his opponent finds a way to make it fail after a few more plies (say, in a trap), & A has postponed his decision, then can W claim again in future plies, & expect to succeed with the same claim of a plan, even though both A & the opponent overlooked one or more traps?

Theoretically, the plan of case iii (many times, these seem to look a lot like middlegames or openings, rather than endings) should seem to always be able to be assessed as being patitioned into one of the other 3 plans, given sufficient computational time, but that does not mean that the issue could be observed to be finished quickly enough on some sufficiently powerful computer in realistic physical time.

In many cases, it seems that A is well-advised to let A & his opponent demonstrate P on the board to A, as well as taking the time/flag situations or claim situation as secondary factors (ie should A be advised to assess (maybe even with a handheld computer device) at each ply for all boards which plan each side is playing for and/or is actually acheiving by normal means)? Such excessive normal means claims could be cause for rejection, or possibly further penalties (the disrepute clause could ask for players to try and play the game with the pieces, by default, rather than by trying to decide the game by other means often such as with the clock claim or other claim factors).

In olympiad style team chess play, however, or even just stalling by putting out a claim to see a result on another board or by another team might add in some other strategy for seeing whether Mr white would continue go for the P(+) value in a P(oo) or would concede a P(=) in a position of P(plies++). Should A take those factors into account as well?

Has anyone had luck building an all-bots tournament of olympiads style sort which could take this metastrategy into account, & how would the bots tend to play (ie allowing more, or less, P(oo)s to appear more tending to P(+) or P(=) as a function of horizon or time)?

Possibly, it would help out us humans a bit to see how the brain's neurons & other intelligence structures assess this process differently from the computer's AI.

[Vlad Drkulec]

Re: Sudden death draw claim CFC rules??????

Geurt Gijssen's column at ChessCafe has many examples and discussions of 10.2 (apparently it will also be the main subject of his next column). If you can find it, The Chess Organiser's Handbook (3rd edition) by Stewart Reuben is very useful.

My opinion of the correct application of 10.2 was largely based on Geurt Gijssen's column at ChessCafe.com. I look forward to seeing the next column on 10.2. I will look for the Stewart Reuben book.

[Jonathan Berry]

Re: Sudden death draw claim CFC rules??????

The best part of 10.2 is:

d. The decision of the arbiter shall be final [...]

(even if it is wrong). Any player who lets themself get in a 10.2 situation
should take a philosophical view. If the ruling goes in their favour, they
were fortunate; if the ruling goes against them, it's just the same result
as if the opponent played better or faster or knew the rules better; it's
a deserved result for oneself, even if it was the opponent who was, in the
second instance, fortunate.

I realize that one of the parties whose result is at stake has made 24 posts
to this thread, but I ask him nonetheless to take that attitude. 10.2 is
horribly flawed and always has been.

The solution to 10.2 is incremental time controls. 10.2 is one of the best
selling points for digital clocks.

With, it appears, score not being kept and the arbiter not present, the arbiter
even has good reason (not that he needs it with 10.2) to blaze new trails.

[Vlad Drkulec]

Re: Sudden death draw claim CFC rules??????

The best part of 10.2 is:

d. The decision of the arbiter shall be final [...]

Except when it is not as in the case of the 2008 FIDE women's chess championship (K+N vs K+N) though that was possibly because there are additional contractual requirements that allowed appeals.

(even if it is wrong). Any player who lets themself get in a 10.2 situation
should take a philosophical view. If the ruling goes in their favour, they
were fortunate; if the ruling goes against them, it's just the same result
as if the opponent played better or faster or knew the rules better; it's
a deserved result for oneself, even if it was the opponent who was, in the
second instance, fortunate.

I realize that one of the parties whose result is at stake has made 24 posts
to this thread, but I ask him nonetheless to take that attitude. 10.2 is
horribly flawed and always has been.

The solution to 10.2 is incremental time controls. 10.2 is one of the best
selling points for digital clocks.

With, it appears, score not being kept and the arbiter not present, the arbiter
even has good reason (not that he needs it with 10.2) to blaze new trails.

My opponent in the game is a friend and I can see myself playing him about five hundred or more CFC rated games over the next thirty years if we both continue to live in the Windsor area and continue playing our little tournaments so there will be plenty of opportunities to trade rating points in the future.

Based on the available facts, it seems to me that a time forfeit is the right conclusion but I will give it a few days as I am still waiting for a response from other arbiters and if I have any doubt I will tip in the favour of my opponent. Had he made the correct claim in the proper manner a few seconds earlier my current belief might have been different.

The bigger issue is the need for me to make better use of my time (use more of it to find some better moves) so that I don't give my opponents the opportunity for Houdini type escapes when they are in time trouble.

[Denton Cockburn]

Re: Sudden death draw claim CFC rules??????

The Socko (K+N vs K+N) case was not a 10.2 claim by the way.
It was a 9.6 claim after the flag had already fallen.

So yes, 10.2 doesn't allow the overruling of the arbiter.

I think the case you presented is a clear case of 10.2 leading to a draw. If that isn't a definitive case for "cannot win by normal means", then I think 10.2 should be thrown out completely. Other than for the time, you absolutely wouldn't hope to win that position, even if we replaced your 2150+ opponent with one of our 1000 rated kids.

I really just want to see the CFC Governors provide their own clarification for the CFC, even if that means we disregard 10.2.

Denton

[Egidijus Zeromskis]

Re: Sudden death draw claim CFC rules??????

May I ask two more question: did a player press a clock after he claimed a draw? Can we see a whole game?

[Denton Cockburn]

Re: Sudden death draw claim CFC rules??????

May I ask two more question: did a player press a clock after he claimed a draw? Can we see a whole game?

According to FIDE Handbook Appendix D (dealing with 10.2 claims when no arbiter present, which is this case), he doesn't have to press the clock.

Appendix D:
Where games are played as in Article 10, a player may claim a draw when he has less than
two minutes left on his clock and before his flag falls. This concludes the game.
He may claim on the basis:
a. that his opponent cannot win by normal means, and/or
b. that his opponent has been making no effort to win by normal means.
In a) the player must write down the final position and his opponent verify it.
In b) the player must write down the final position and submit an up to date scoresheet. The
opponent shall verify both the scoresheet and the final position.
The claim shall be referred to an arbiter whose decision shall be final