English Chess Forum

Black blunders with ... Nd7. White plays Qd6+, then asks for a takeback on the grounds that it was a mouseslip and he was in the act of playing Qxd7 Mate. Consider your reaction to this request. My reaction would be that Qd6+ is a very plausible move and not at all the kind of thing we are thinking...

But for a rated or a tournament game, I would disagree....What you are also forgetting is the disruptive effect on the other player of a takeback. Well not really, no, as it's basically asual games I'm talking about. (Though in principle I don't see that it should be inconceivable to have the funct...

Here's another point. When you're playing with a board and pieces, you can take back moves if you want, and many people do. Perhaps they're playing with a kid, or just with a friend, wither way perhaps they don't want to spoil a game they were previously enjoying, or perhaps it's just their game, no...

why is online any different? Because there are mouseslips and fingerslips in online, they happen to everybody at every level and there is no real equivalent OTB. Tough old world ain't it, we are all subject to the same mistakes, personally if I'd slipped with my mouse I wouldn't ask to take a move ...

Wadih Khoury wrote: ↑

Thu Apr 15, 2021 10:59 pm

But at other levels? Too often a player plays a move and only realises he is hanging a piece or falling to a tactic or made a positional mistake. He suddenly asks for a takeback.
In my opinion, the fairest way is to reject all takebacks. .

Or in casual play, you can use your judgment

Jon Mahony wrote: ↑

Thu Apr 15, 2021 8:26 pm

why is online any different?

Because there are mouseslips and fingerslips in online, they happen to everybody at every level and there is no real equivalent OTB.

Fair enough, but the point to be made is perhaps more the general one in my bracket.

It is simple. You should never ask for a takeback, as a refusal often offends. No it's not simple, provided you're prepared to be refused and not offended. (I wanted to add - in my view mouseslips and fingerslips are a relatively serious problem in online games. There's not really an OTB equivalent...

If we're discussing personal policies in casual games - I allow them for fingerslips but not for blunders. I also ask for them on the same basis. A lot of people ask for them when they've made bad mistakes and instantly seen this, which personally I find odd, but then again maybe a lot of people con...

If there's not a rule in any given competition, there ought to be. Otherwise all the pressure will be on the player who is being asked for one.

I think "simply" may be doing a lot of work in that sentence

How so

Do we have any reason to think that 100 games is a normal number

I think the original book by Pierre Boulle is not bad. Interestingly, he also wrote The Bridge Over The River Kwai. However, for me the films are rubbish. The original is full of ideas (thanks not least to Boulle), it looks fantastic, and it has any number of memorable sequences and images, includi...

Indeed