Author: Adrien Regimbald
Date: 18:10:42 05/16/00
Go up one level in this thread
Hello,
>That is wrong. You can't claim a draw, just because you are a bit ahead in
>material, and _way_ behind on time. I have directed many tournaments over
>the years. This has _never_ been in a rule book. There are cases about
>positions where one side can't possibly win, so the other side can't possibly
>win on time. But here, the human couldn't stop the clock and claim a draw
>just because he claimed the game was winnable but he didn't have enough
>time.
>
>What rule book are you looking at?
>
>Certainly not the FIDE rules of chess...
I am looking at the CFC Laws of Chess, which are essentially the FIDE rules
(unlike the USCF, the CFC rules follow the FIDE rules extremely closely).
And I quote:
"Article 10: Quickplay Finish
10.1. A 'quickplay finish' is the last phase of a game, when all the
remaining moves must be made in a limited time.
10.2. If the player has less than two minutes left on his clock, he may
claim a draw before his flag falls. He shall stop the
clocks and summon the arbiter.
(a) If the arbiter is satisfied the opponent is making no effort to win the
game by normal means, or that it is not possible to
win by normal means, then he shall declare the game drawn. Otherwise he
shall postpone his decision.
(b) If the arbiter postpones his decision, the opponent may be awarded two
extra minutes thinking time and the game shall
continue in the presence of the arbiter.
(c) Having postponed his decision, the arbiter may subsequently declare the
game drawn, even after a flag has fallen"
Fritz was in a clearly lost position, and Tiviakov would have no problem having
the arbiter rule by way of 10.a for him.
>>A few other people seem to think that offering the draw at 2 minutes was
>>inappropriate and that the operator would be doing Tiviakov a favour by offering
>>a draw with say only a few seconds left to go. This is also untrue. With 1
>>second to go, Tiviakov can stop the clock and call over a TD, once again claimin
>>g a draw.
>
>This is simply incorrect.
No, it is not incorrect. Please once again refer to the quote I made above.
>Offering a draw was certainly a gentlemanly way of handling the issue. Frans
>didn't want to win on time. He saw no way for the human to win in a sudden-
>death ending... had the flag fallen, the human would have _lost_. I don't know
>how you think he could have claimed a draw, unless he had a forced repetition.
>But he had to actually repeat the position a third time before he could claim
>the draw. You can't claim "the possibility of a repetition"... that isn't in
>my rule book...
First - I didn't state anything at all about repition in my post.
Second - most reasonable human players would have resigned long ago - the
operator was not in any way shape or form being gentlemanly by offering a draw.
- Tiviakov did not want a draw - he obviously thought he had a chance to win or
he would have offered one himself earlier and avoided getting into such pressure
with 2 minutes to go.
- Tiviakov did not need the operator's offer to obtain a draw.
- Continuing on in a lost position where the only chance to win is by the flag
and then later offering a draw doesn't seem gentlemanly at all to me, in fact it
seems a downright rude attempt to weasel a half point or more out when the
operator should have resigned earlier.
>Sudden death has been around for 20+ years. I don't particularly like them.
>But they do stop the ridiculously long impossible to win games that make a
>TD pull his hair out trying to get pairings done on time...
I don't think it is much of an improvement - on one hand you are frustrated
about not getting pairings done - on the other you are running around like a
chicken with your head cut off trying to be at every time scramble :P
Personally, I'd rather wait a bit on the pairings and have good chess.
>sudden death is no advantage for a computer when you have a human operator.
>The human takes time... unlike on ICC with an automatic interface...
It is a huge advantage! The likelihood of a human blundering with extremely low
ammounts of time left is much greater than the likelihood of a computer doing
the same. Computers will outplay humans to a greater extent with shorter time
controls, so of course the last portion of a sudden death time control favours
the computer.
>Probably true. But the GMs visit the chess servers often enough that this isn't
>a problem in general.
Do you really think that a 5 0 or a 15 0 game with a GM on a chess server is of
anywhere near the quality of game that you will get over the board in a standard
time control?
Tell me - if you had the choice of having Crafty play a GM in an OTB game with
tournament time controls as opposed to playing a 5 0 game against a GM (at
least, somebody you think is a GM, and who's true identity you are never 100%
sure of) on a chess server?
On a more general note - I think this thread has brought up a few issues:
1. Computer operators should be people experienced at tournament chess (people
who have actually played tournament games, and have actually TDed as well)
2. Since many of the people in this thread are from the USA, this point comes up
when concerning rules - people who's chess experience comes from USCF play need
to brush up on the FIDE rules before they make an opinion about any rules
related issue. This is not any sort of attack on the USCF or its rules, I think
they are fine rules, it's just that sometimes they are quite different from the
FIDE rules which are what is generally used in major international events.
3. Computer operators need to be as obsequious as they can reasonably be. My
personal take on the matter is that if my program was in Fritz' situation, I
would rather resign a position (even one that you could technically argue the
program had every right to continue on) and get to play again another day than
to get the point and not play again.
Regards,
Adrien.
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