I once claimed a draw citing this rule in a theoretical rook ending where I was a pawn down and had only seconds (around 5) left on my clock. This was in a team match were I had to draw for us to draw the match.

To my surprise, the experienced arbiter asked me to explain at the board how I would draw the position, and then declared the game drawn, commenting that "you are both strong players and this should be drawn at your level".

I actually think this was too kind to me, and if I were the arbiter I would have ordered play to continue and very likely end in a loss on time! Even though the position was a theoretical draw, it was still possible to mess it up with a careless move. I still feel a bit guilty thinking about this; I felt I had to try a claim for the team's sake, but I didn't expect to actually be awarded the draw.

I do know that things are typically run much more professionally in other countries, but it's not so easy to travel internationally just to play chess!

ReneDescartes wrote on 02/14/18 at 12:05:21:


I have had and seen so many instances of poor sportsmanship and cheating that it really soured me on playing competitively for long lengths of time.  One of the worst that happened to me directly went like this:

In a small local evening tournament, I was paired against a TD who ran most local events, though he was playing in this one and someone else was acting as arbiter.  This was when I was rated about 2150 or so and really trying to make a climb to 2200, whereas my opponent was only rated about 1750 or so.

My opponent had the Black pieces and some kind of digital clock that I wasn't familiar with at the time (this was perhaps 8 years ago), though I don't remember the make.  Time control was G/60 or G/75, with 5-second delay.  Because I wasn't familiar with the clock, before the game I asked my opponent how to operate it, how to stop it in case I needed to, and made sure that the delay was working.  It all was.  The one slightly odd thing that I noticed was that there was a move counter set as though there was a time control at move 40, but he showed me that the "second" time control was set for 0 minutes, so that there wasn't any additional time coming; he said that he didn't know how to change the mode, and I thought nothing of it.

My opponent played well for a while, but finally made some kind of error after 30 or 40 moves or so that I capitalized on.  Soon he was down a piece, some pawns, then a queen for a rook...eventually, after many moves, my opponent only had king and pawns whereas I had two pieces and pawns, with one of them queening shortly.  I expected my opponent to resign, but he didn't.  That's fine; I assumed that he was hoping for stalemate as all of his pawns were locked and he only had king moves.  I was also down under two minutes while he had about ten, but with the delay I knew that I was fine.  

At this point my opponent started behaving really badly: he pounded the table, huffed loudly, picked his king up and slammed it into the board while hitting the clock very hard instantly on every move, etc.  He was also staring intently at the clock.  I glanced at the clock a few times and saw that I had more than a minute and, with the delays, should be completely fine on time.  

So instead of "stooping to his level," I tried to play very "politely," taking a few seconds to move, adjusting his king (which was never in the center of a square), that sort of thing.  I deliberately took 3-5 seconds or so per move, just to make sure that I wasn't going to queen into stalemate, or otherwise inadvertently stalemate my opponent.  My opponent still stared intently at the clock.  

To my astonishment, with mate only a couple of moves away, my opponent triumphantly screamed "FLAG!!".  And he was correct; my clock had expired.  I had no idea how it happened, I protested to him, asked to see the delay, etc.  The TD had been watching our board from some distance off and said that my time had expired.  He also said that the clock didn't seem to have any delay!  I protested, saying that I had been shown the delay working before the start of the game, which my opponent denied.  I was also told that even if the delay had somehow stopped working, that it was my responsibility to notice that before my time expired.  

So I lost the game, which left a huge sour taste in my mouth, set me back quite a ways on the road to Master, and turned me off from playing for a while.  My opponent was one of the most prominent local TDs, and he knew full well that he had demonstrated the delay to me before the game began.  

What I believe happened was that the second time control was NOT set to have delay.  Whether that was intentional on his part I do not know; at best, he noticed that the clock was not set correctly and did nothing about it so that he could win on time after having misled me before the game.  At worst, he deliberately removed the delay after the second time control in an attempt to flag his opponents who likely would not notice.  Given his personality as I came to know him better, I suspect the latter.  

Anyhow I'm venting a bit, but I want to warn people that there are all sorts of ways to cheat that we may not have thought of and take us by surprise.  The instance still bothers me this many years later, and it was one of a few that really soured me on competitive rated play, unfortunately.

an ordinary chessplayer wrote on 02/21/18 at 03:45:19:


Outside of the USA, it is normal for tournaments to supply the equipment. If there's a clock to hand that has delay or more likely increment capability, it's more logical to use it from the start of the game. 

In the FIDE Rules it's an arbiter action to substitute a clock, as one may not be available. That's why it has to be triggered by a player request which is regarded as a draw offer. 

After further reflection on gwnn's question about "normal means", and more particularly whether what is normal depends on rating...

First I want to say that the current rules are crummy. Placing a delay clock on a game where one of the players in sudden death is below two minutes (or whatever arbitrary threshold) should be standard operating procedure. It should not depend on a claim by one of the players; it should not constitute a draw offer; it should not depend on the position on the chessboard; it should not require any judgment by the arbiter. The arbiter should have the clock in hand as the two minutes approaches, when the player going below two minutes presses his clock, the arbiter steps in and makes the substitution. Only if the arbiter is not looking / not present would either player need to take any action. Actually, the rule should say that the player below two minutes is not required to summon the arbiter, but can simply wait at the table with the clock paused until the arbiter arrives. If that takes a minute or an hour or a week, so be it.

Okay, enough fantasy. Dealing with the rules as written, "normal means" is only ambiguous as it relates to "realistic chance of winning". Here I don't think there should be a single standard, nor do I think there should be a sliding standard. I think there should be a junior standard and an adult standard.

Junior chess is something else. I'm thinking here not of the talented juniors who are probably playing against adults anyway, but of the vast ocean of unrated and low-rated beginners whose only problem with the clock is remembering to press it. For these youngsters, the arbiter should have total discretion. The only difficulty I can see here would be at a massive championship tournament where both types of "juniors" are competing, as well as some in-betweeners. But total arbiter discretion could also amount to strictly enforcing adult rules on some games and not others, so it could probably still work. With some protests and appeals, of course, because this is chess.

Adult chess should be played to a single standard. I am not a GM, but I want to play by the same rules as GMs. If I make a claim against a GM, whichever way that decision goes, I want the decision to be the exact same in the next game when a class player makes the same claim against me. But I believe it's not only me who wants this, the GM wants it and the class player also wants it. As a practical matter, I think "realistic chance of winning" can be a complex call in many positions. Imagine if the arbiter were now asked to make that call based on the abilities of the actual two players involved. That's complexity squared, and I can't say that I have ever met an arbiter who would be up to the task, including me back when I had that role. (Although there are plenty of arbiters who think they would be up to the task.)

That's my take on it.

an ordinary chessplayer wrote on 02/14/18 at 14:28:54:

Do you have an Amazon link to the book? I'd like to pre-order it.

The player who restarted the clock was, as I was later told, himself an arbiter. He knew it was wrong. This was poor sportsmanship, not ignorance.

Being ground on time with Ks&Rs and having my clock restarted when I sought the arbiter (I had to get up for that)--these have happened to me in a long time control. Finding my clock run down was disgusting. The arbiter was not normal in that he was inexperienced, whatever else he was. The situation was a mess. I don't want to give more details because I don't want to identify anyone involved.