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Stigma, You make an interesting point about the obligation to call flag fall, or to pause the modern digital chess clock. Yet I think my core point still stands.
Stigma wrote on 10/06/14 at 16:16:00:
There is harm in the change you suggest: A player who mates with a legal move but then doesn't have enough time to physically press the clock, still wins with the current rules. And that is as it should be.
By that reasoning we could change the chess clock rules that govern the end of the first segment of the time control. We could say that if Black's moves his piece on the board before he runs out of time, then the game could continue even if Black hurries to press his clock but is one second too late. The burden of justification is on the rule writers who prefer the two cases be treated differently instead of consistently and the same as each other.
Quote:As I understand it, a flag fall doesn't end the game until someone (the player or the arbiter) calls it.
True, and a good rule in my opinion.
Quote:So the shoe is on the other foot: The player about to be mated should be required to stop the clocks (or at least call the flag fall) before the mate is on the board.
When White sees that Black has run out of time, the rules must allow White to calmly make that claim any time from immediately on through White's very next turn (before White touches a piece perhaps).
Unfortunately the current rules fail to guarantee White that White will have that calm opportunity.
Instead the current rules suffer a design flaw which can force White to make his claim in the frantic one second between when (A) Black's clock time expires and (B) Black's hand releases his piece that checkmates White's king. The current rules frivolously disregard the chess clock device which can eliminate disagreements that are otherwise unsolveable about who wins the game. And the only justification for this is the romantic idea that "mate ends the game" - it is not sufficient justification.
Quote:I realize there will sometimes be difficult conflicts with the current rules, but it may not be possible to avoid that in all circumstances.
In this case it is plenty possible to avoid the difficult conflicts.
Quote:If the arbiter wasn't present, he has the option to ask spectators or other players if they saw what happened.
The official rules of chess should forbid the arbiter from considering anything any spectators have to say. The biases (conscious and subconscious) of the spectators cannot be known by the arbiter. I cannot think of any other professional sport where spectators help make rulings.
Quote:And the modern time controls with increments get rid of the vast majority of these situations.
Modern increments and delays (usually of 5 seconds) do help, but only to a degree. The problem scenarios are entirely valid and plausible with our without increments or delays.
The current rule has survived only because the precise timing is so rare that the quantity of outrages from the scenario is tiny.
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