Author: Albert Silver
Date: 09:02:26 01/31/02
Go up one level in this thread
>>That does bring up a question though regarding the laws of chess, which I think
>>I will submit to FIDE. The question is this: I know (unless the rule changed)
>>that if a player announces a definite mate in N before the time control though
>>he doesn't make the time control, the mate, if confirmed, is what stands and not
>>the clock.
>
>I did not know it.
Otello says that it isn't in the handbook, so either I was misinformed by a FIDE
player when I started to compete, or the rule was changed.
>
>Does it mean that a human who does not know how to win KQ vs KR endgame(or at
>least is not sure that he knows) may claim mate in at most 40 and later prove it
>by a computer program.
No, my understanding of it was that the player must show themselves the path to
mate and the number must exactly correspond to what was announced. I wasn't made
aware of the penalties if this was untrue. Since I was just starting to play it
didn't seem important as I concluded that the time to sit there verifying the
exact number of moves to mate and counting them would never be faster than
simply delivering them on the board. It isn't as if I were about to announce
anything beyond a mate in 2 or 3, and I could do that with 1 second on the
clock.
>I think that it is illegal and I remember a case in the world championship when
>KQ vs KR was drawn.
>
>I know that if the position is mate for one side then the position is important
>and not the clock but I believe that if there is mate in 5 I cannot stop the
>clock and say mate in 5 and I never saw players do it.
>
>players can say mate in 5 but the game should continue.
>
>There was one case that I said mate in 10(or another number of moves) when I was
>the operator of Rebel in the israeli league and somebody told me that it is not
>polite to say mate.
Yes, the practice of announcing mates (for humans) has long since dropped out of
practice except perhaps in correspondence chess. As to announcing a mate being
impolite, well, that's the first time I ever heard that unless the player had
some paranoia against computers. One thing that is certain is that I have seen
Fritz 6 announce a mate in N that wasn't a mate in N and the number kept
changing every move until it stopped annnouncing mate. I remember it very
clearly as I was looking at a position with it and it said Mate in 23. I
stopped, thought it strange, and played a different move than the one it
proposed because I though the mainline was very strange too. It now said mate in
10. I could see the position was very bad, but couldn't see the mate so I played
another move. Now it was mate in 13. Etc. I tested this twice to confirm it
wasn't some error on my part.
>I did not stop the clock and I did not think that I have the right to stop the
>clock and say that Rebel won the game.
No, I never said announcing a mate would stop the clock. The game only stops
when the time control isn't met, mate is delivered, or a player resigns. The
question is whether a mate is announced before the flag falls but the flag falls
before the mate is delivered. I may not be up-to-date on this though. Reading
Geurt's column at the Chess Cafe (http://www.chesscafe.com) shows that changes
are quite common.
Albert
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