Evil Days Ahead: End of the Rubinstein Rule

[Peter McKillop]

Re: Evil Days Ahead: End of the Rubinstein Rule

I love chess.

[Jonathan Berry]

Re: Evil Days Ahead: End of the Rubinstein Rule

Lawrence,

Right you are. Enterprise opportunities for arbiters were getting rarer until the Zero Forfeit.

Tasers for arbiters? I hope not. Don't you need to take a training course? Still, people die after being tasered. But weapons for security staff would be normal, these days.

At the 2007 Keres, on board 1 in the final round, IM Georgi Orlov's opponent showed up an hour and 3 (?) minutes after the clock had started. He tried (loudly of course) to get the game (re-) started. His excuse was a typical one, not very compelling. The restaurant where he had chosen to eat, a car ride from the tournament hall, had been slow to serve the food.

I think that only one person in the hall wasn't sympathetic with Georgi "taking" that forfeit. Yet if it had been 15 minutes... well, that's a gray area. With one hour, it's never a gray area unless the late show has a very good reason. PR: another benefit of the Rubinstein Rule.


The (normally reliable) ChessBase report on the final round stated that there were no forfeits during the entire Olympiad. I'm sure that I wasn't the only one to query Frederic about that. Just a little while ago the pertinent paragraph was changed to:

"Not everybody was at the board at the prescribed time – there were at least six lateness forfeits and ten other forfeits that morning! During the Olympiad about 20 players were forfeited for being late, including Ermenkov, who, we are told, left the board for 20 seconds to get a new pen from the arbiters' table when the gong was sounded."

[Lawrence Day]

Re: Evil Days Ahead: End of the Rubinstein Rule

From chessdrum.net blogs:
...Gabon’s Jean-Pierre Moulain was on 8.5/10 and had arrived on time to play the match against the U.S. Virgin Islands. The Chief Arbiter Ignatius Leong announced the match would begin in one minute. Moulain met his opponent at the board, they shook hands and he went to take a quick bathroom break. When he returned he had forfeited.

Moulain protested that he was at board on time. Smith, who had shaken hands with Moulain, had insisted that the rule be enforced and that Gabon forfeit on board #1. He never acknowledged that Moulain had been at the board prior to the forfeit. Gabon decided to forfeit all the boards in protest. They were told to pay a sum of money after which the appeal would be launched. If Gabon wins, the money is returned; if Gabon loses, FIDE keeps the fee. Gabon could not afford the fee and decided to forfeit the boards...

hmmm...

[Jonathan Berry]

Re: Evil Days Ahead: End of the Rubinstein Rule

Lawrence

The previously referenced

http://chessexpress.blogspot.com/200...ad-day-11.html

gives the same story for Gabon, except no mention of what the US Virgin Islands said.

Also the Malawi match had pretty much the same result, except that their opponents , the British Virgin Islands begged the arbiters not to default Malawi. In both cases the decision was to default the late player(s). It didn't matter whether the opponents protested or cheered.

[Jonathan Berry]

Re: Evil Days Ahead: End of the Rubinstein Rule

But checking up on the German blog story about Ermenkov, I found this game in the TWIC database:

[Event "38th Olympiad"]
[Site "Dresden GER"]
[Date "2008.11.25"]
[Round "11"]
[White "Elliott,W"]
[Black "Ermenkov,Evgenij"]
[Result "1-0"]
[Eco "B10"]
[Annotator ""]
[Source ""]

1.e4 c6 2.Ne2 d5 3.e5 c5 4.d4 Nc6 5.c3 cxd4 6.cxd4 Bg4 7.Nbc3
e6 8.Be3 Nge7 9.Qb3 Qd7 10.Ng3 Nf5 11.Nxf5 Bxf5 12.Be2 Be7 13.O-O
Rf8 1-0

"What probably happened" was that Black played O-O, but the board got confused
and didn't record any further moves. After 13.O-O there is no reason for Black to give up. Black is fine.

The TWIC gamescore agrees with the result as reported in German, but not with the way it supposedly happened.

So we are left with the possibility that just any old moves were input in order not to lose face. Or maybe they played those moves up to 13 and then the ruling of chief arbiter Leong arrived, giving the game to Jamaica from move zero.

It's still a mystery to me. I thought I'd grow up gracefully ...

I was trying to determine how many Zero Forfeit games there really were. If you take into account that Uganda tended to forfeit two boards on each match, that some countries never arrived, the 12 forfeits reported by Shaun Press in his blog of round 11, and Guseinov - Tkachiev, there aren't a heck of a lot of unaccounted zero-move games in the TWIC database. But if a Zero Forfeit game could have moves, like this one did (or might have done), that widens the net.

I haven't checked the w-OL database.

[Lawrence Day]

Re: Evil Days Ahead: End of the Rubinstein Rule

from http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=5039

Here's Kirsan's explanation:

I still remember with shame how during the world championship match in Luzerne, on 2 January 1989, I stood on stage with IOC President Juan Samaranch, waiting to start the clocks in the Karpov-Anand match. Anatoly Evgenievich turned up ten minutes late. And Samaranch said to me “You tell me chess is a sport? Can you imagine if a boxer turned up in the ring ten minutes late?” I did not know what to say! But at this latest Olympiad, the chief arbiter told me that, out of thousands of games, there were only three or four where anyone was late. So yes, I proposed that in all official FIDE events, the rule should be that a player who is not present when the clocks are started, loses immediately. It is claimed that chess disciplines a player’s thought processes – for that reason, we include it in many countries’ education programmes. It will be good, especially for children, if chess players behave in a disciplined way.

And everybody else too no doubt, ordinary fascism as in Mussolini making the Italian trains run on time, and Samaranch himself so fascist he was an actual minister in Franco's cabinet:
http://www.transparencyinsport.org/samaranch.html

We were better off when Kirsan was listening to the space aliens.

Baa

[Gary Ruben]

Re: Evil Days Ahead: End of the Rubinstein Rule

We were better off when Kirsan was listening to the space aliens.

Hmmm. I was wondering who yanked his yo-yo string.

[Jonathan Berry]

Re: Evil Days Ahead: End of the Rubinstein Rule

But checking up on the German blog story about Ermenkov, I found this game in the TWIC database:

[Event "38th Olympiad"]
[Site "Dresden GER"]
[Date "2008.11.25"]
[Round "11"]
[White "Elliott,W"]
[Black "Ermenkov,Evgenij"]
[Result "1-0"]
[Eco "B10"]
[Annotator ""]
[Source ""]

1.e4 c6 2.Ne2 d5 3.e5 c5 4.d4 Nc6 5.c3 cxd4 6.cxd4 Bg4 7.Nbc3
e6 8.Be3 Nge7 9.Qb3 Qd7 10.Ng3 Nf5 11.Nxf5 Bxf5 12.Be2 Be7 13.O-O
Rf8 1-0

"What probably happened" was that Black played O-O, but the board got confused and didn't record any further moves. After 13.O-O there is no reason for Black to give up. Black is fine.

The TWIC gamescore agrees with the result as reported in German, but not with the way it supposedly happened.

So we are left with the possibility that just any old moves were input in order not to lose face. Or maybe they played those moves up to 13 and then the ruling of chief arbiter Leong arrived, giving the game to Jamaica from move zero.

I gave three explanations for the game score, and, surprisingly, one of them was correct. It was the last one.

The also explains Black's 13th move. He castled. The arbiter came along, put White's King on e4 and Black's on d5 as required to signal a 1-0 result and the computer re-interpreted the move.

Tassie Devil, the unimpeachable source of how the game ended, further states that at least 17 games in the (Open) Olympiad, and 11 in the Women's Olympiad were decided by the Zero Forfeit rule. That excludes players who never arrived, players who had gone home (in and from Dresden), players who didn't show up for the game, players who refused to play as a protest of their comrade being unjustly forfeited under the Zero Forfeit rule, and at least one player who was forfeited because, after his teammates left, it was deemed that the team had less than the two players which rules require each team to field ! To repeat, none of those are counted in the 17 and 11 = 28 Zero Forfeit total.

[Jonathan Berry]

Chessatorium

Last night I happened to be reading Paul Hoffman's book King's Gambit. In it, he relates that GM Pascal Charbonneau, until 2003, had what I will call "stage fright". If Charbonneau arrived early for a game of chess (or tennis), he would get very nervous, and vomit. Yes. So he always arranged to come to the playing hall at the instant, more or less, when the game was to start. Fortunately, he overcame stage fright, otherwise we might have had more Zero Forfeit stories from Dresden.

[Gary Ruben]

Re: Chessatorium

Last night I happened to be reading Paul Hoffman's book King's Gambit. In it, he relates that GM X, until 2003, had what I will call "stage fright". If X arrived early for a game of chess (or tennis), he would get very nervous, and vomit. Yes. So he always arranged to come to the playing hall at the instant, more or less, when the game was to start. Fortunately, he overcame stage fright, otherwise we might have had more Zero Forfeit stories from Dresden.

That book really dishes it, doesn't it. In the old days when there weren't many hockey teams there were goaltenders whom they said would vomit before games.

I understand you are unhappy about the new rule. Complaining here, while admirable, is a waste of time. Complain where it will do the most good. Put your reputation as an International Arbiter on the line. I did it when I disagreed with a decision of the ICCF Congress.

Over the years the ICCF has accumulated a lot of qualifiers for their world championship final. More than 60, I think it was, and they wanted to clean up the situation. So the Congress approved starting 4 World Championship Finals in one year. I guess each person would be World Champion for 15 minutes. As you probably know, a person used to hold the championship for a couple of years until the next championship was decided.

I think 4 World Championship Finals in one year is wrong headed. Can't figure out what they were thinking about.

The only title I ever held in the ICCF is IA. I also have the advantage of being relatively well known because of the stuff I was writing on the CC message boards. Here is what I did.

I sent a written appeal of the decision of the ICCF congress to the ICCF complaint commission. Then I wrote about it on a message board where a lot of international chess players login or simply read the board.

The fast reply to my appeal of the decision of the Congress amounted to basically, drop dead, idiot. They didn't have the mandate to overturn a decision by the congress.

Then I mocked the decision of the Congress more on a message board. I made the text of my appeal to the complaint commission public.

They started 2 championships last December. Tomorrow is Dec. 1st and they haven't started another one yet. I'm hoping they don't start another championship until 2009. That way there will have been 2 started in 2007 and none in 2008, still averaging one a year.

You have a decent point but I think you are going about making your complaint in the wrong place. You have to put your name behind your complaint and make it to the FIDE governing body or a proper commission. In my case, they didn't even bother to point out I wasn't a delegate.

When a decision is wrong and you feel it's not in the best interest of chess, as a veteran IA, you should speak your mind. It won't make you popular but you won't hate yourself for not having spoke out.

[Jonathan Berry]

Re: Chessatorium

Larry Parr used to do that. Avuncularly and self-importantly tell me to do something I'd already done. "You'll hate yourself for not having spoken out." Next he'll be telling the Vatican that the Pope is not Catholic enough.

Gary may have read this (emphasis added):

"One prominent arbiter urged me to write to the Presidential Board (in whose hands the Zero Forfeit matter now lies), adding that petitions don't work. I'm not sure where he would put my Open Letter approach. I'm guessing that he would classify it as a petition. But oh well. I did send the Open Letter to FIDE and several senior officials. That doesn't stop others from doing likewise, in their own words. The email is office at (you-know-what) dot com. You do know what. FIDE doesn't officially reply to communications from individuals. Sometimes they'll even send an email to that effect!"

posted here:

http://www.chessninja.com/dailydirt/...lympiad-r1.htm

But the cause could do with some rabble-rousing amongst arbiters around the world. And I believe that I have a list ...

I disagree with Gary's contention that posting here is useless.
Posting on various forums allows one to test and hone one's arguments. It draws out information. It raises consciousness. It allows one to judge, albeit inaccurately, the chess world's degree of concern over an issue. It allows one to see which way the wind is blowing on any of the sub-issues. Seeing apathy towards an issue may convince one to repaint it on a larger canvas.

[Paul Bonham]

Re: Evil Days Ahead: End of the Rubinstein Rule

A proposal for debate:

If you were scheduled to play White and you show up more than some minimum time late (5 minutes? 10 minutes?), the colors are switched and you are now playing Black.

If you were already scheduled to play Black, and you show up more than the minimum time late, your opponent gets to make an extra opening move. This could open a total new branch of opening theory -- in which Black fights for a draw, and can likely only win with very bad play from the White side.

[Gary Ruben]

Re: Chessatorium

I disagree with Gary's contention that posting here is useless.
Posting on various forums allows one to test and hone one's arguments. It draws out information. It raises consciousness. It allows one to judge, albeit inaccurately, the chess world's degree of concern over an issue. It allows one to see which way the wind is blowing on any of the sub-issues. Seeing apathy towards an issue may convince one to repaint it on a larger canvas.

Actually, my contention was that posting here without a complaint to FIDE, which would likely be rejected, and posting on international forums frequented by the top players would be useless.

I looked at your comments on the link you provided and when I could not easily find them used the search feature to look for your last name.

I agree with you the accelerated pairings did not make for a very satisfying Olympiad for the spectators from non contending nations. They served the purpose of keeping the patser teams away from the contenders much more than did regular pairings. I'm sure most will join me in congratulating our national team on gaining 5 of 6 points from the final 3 rounds. However, the strength of some of the teams they faced was questionable, as shown by their tie break points, If it were me, which it isn't, I'd have to think twice before I participated in another such event with that pairing system. That's a long way to go and a lot of time to waste playing teams like that.

I don't see much wrong with having to be at the table when the game starts. If not, the toilet paper dispenser retracts, the toilet flushes and the stall door opens. NEXT! I know you fear cheating. I'll let you in on a secret but don't tell anyone. Last rounds of events often aren't hard fought as players "look after business". Draws amongst siblings and friends in any round are not unusual. It's a good thing to pair countrymen with each other in the early rounds in international events.

I know punctuality takes the laid back feeling out of chess. It takes away the manyana feeling from the game. Players who are not known for good play can at least be known for showing up half an hour late for every game. If the jerk is going to beat you anyway, he might as well wait 55 minutes before he can start.

[Kerry Liles]

Re: Chessatorium

...

I know punctuality takes the laid back feeling out of chess. It takes away the manyana feeling from the game. Players who are not known for good play can at least be known for showing up half an hour late for every game. If the jerk is going to beat you anyway, he might as well wait 55 minutes before he can start.

Part of the problem with rules such as the recent FIDE folly (absolute requirement for being on-time for a game) is that chess doesn't really have any process for partial penalties - what penalty can be assessed other than forfeit? Clearly, in this case, penalizing a player via the clock is not an option (your penalty for being late is removing half the time on your clock...) You also could not make the penalty something like "since you were late, the most you can win is not 1 point but 0.75 points...

FIDE has become a joke under the 'leadership' of IllusionOF ... this petty tinkering with the rules pales only in comparison with that other dictator - Gary Bettman of the NHL. Perhaps it is a Napoleonic-stature thing? Although IllusionOf seems somewhat taller than Bettman (mind you, my coffee table is taller than Bettman)

[Gary Ruben]

Re: Chessatorium

Part of the problem with rules such as the recent FIDE folly (absolute requirement for being on-time for a game) is that chess doesn't really have any process for partial penalties - what penalty can be assessed other than forfeit? Clearly, in this case, penalizing a player via the clock is not an option (your penalty for being late is removing half the time on your clock...) You also could not make the penalty something like "since you were late, the most you can win is not 1 point but 0.75 points...

I don't know what they are trying to do. Possibly in their view the problem has gotten out of hand and they want to put a stop to it. Why should someone pay a lot of money to enter an event and then sit and wait an hour to have to win on time?

Players get very upset when they lose on time in correspondence chess. I had one player write after I forfeited him and remind me one day he would be getting out of jail. I hope he never gets out.

Another guy sent me a registered letter berating me. I didn't reply. So he got his post office to trace the letter to make sure I got it. Canada Post sent me an enquiry in French and Russian. Not being fluent in either language, I didn't reply to that either. He lost 10 games and a whack of rating points.

I had to write each of his opponents twice during the 5 months while I tried to find him and get a reply if he was going to continue the games. He didn't reply to me until after I informed him he had lost all the games. Then he sent me registration slips from the moves he sent to his opponents AFTER I forfeited his game.

I spent a LOT of time on his games because everything was done by regular mail. At the time I was directing for more than 300 people. The pay was ZERO. I got my stamps reimbursed when I remembered to submit the receipts.

The set of rules covered the situations and a TD has the job of enforcing the rules. A TD who doesn't agree with the rules and doesn't want to enforce them, or plays favourites, should not be doing the job.