Spare Queens

[Alex McFarlane]

Provided you had not already made an illegal move, you could have simply put the pawn on the promotion square and started the opponent's clock. This would give your opponent 2 extra minutes but the pawn must be exchanged for a queen before the game can continue.
Presumably if the home player did not know how to pause the clock, it would have been your opponent's that continued to run - that would have encouraged his team-mates to get the extra queen. And obviously, if they didn't know how to pause the clock they would have been equally clueless in adding on the two minutes. Also if your opponent had restarted your clock then would have made an illegal move by starting your clock without moving! (not really but good for a fight at those matches).

[Ian Thompson]

Provided you had not already made an illegal move, you could have simply put the pawn on the promotion square and started the opponent's clock.

... and provided you're prepared to risk the consequences of making another illegal move later in the game.

[Alex McFarlane]

Ian,

You are correct but I was assuming from the comment made that a rapid promotion would have led to a quicker [immediate] resignation.

[Rhys Cumming]

I had a peculiar case of ‘no spare queens’ in a game earlier this year. We reached a position where I had around 3 minutes to my opponents 20 in a king and pawn ending where I had a passed pawn that couldn’t be stopped (on about the 5th rank). My opponent’s king was on the other side of the board attempting to hoover up my pawns and hold the eventual queen vs pawn ending.

At some point during a think on my own time it became apparent to me that there were no spare queens and in an attempt to avoid having to deal with weird stopping the clock promotion rules I took the queen that my opponent had previously taken. There were no issues during the game, but afterwards the arbiter informed me that I should not have done this and that it was poor etiquette (and that my opponent would have been within his rights to complain). I understand the idea of dissuading players grabbing a queen as a ‘time to resign’ gesture, but the idea that even on my own time I was not allowed to prepare for the eventuality of hunting down a queen seems a bit much to me.

[Reg Clucas]

Provided you had not already made an illegal move, you could have simply put the pawn on the promotion square and started the opponent's clock. This would give your opponent 2 extra minutes but the pawn must be exchanged for a queen before the game can continue.
Presumably if the home player did not know how to pause the clock, it would have been your opponent's that continued to run - that would have encouraged his team-mates to get the extra queen. And obviously, if they didn't know how to pause the clock they would have been equally clueless in adding on the two minutes. Also if your opponent had restarted your clock then would have made an illegal move by starting your clock without moving! (not really but good for a fight at those matches).

Of course the best solution is to have a good knowledge of the rules, and how to operate clocks!

[NickFaulks]

I took the queen that my opponent had previously taken. There were no issues during the game, but afterwards the arbiter informed me that I should not have done this and that it was poor etiquette (and that my opponent would have been within his rights to complain).

Surely this is kindergarten nonsense.

[Alex McFarlane]

I took the queen that my opponent had previously taken. There were no issues during the game, but afterwards the arbiter informed me that I should not have done this and that it was poor etiquette (and that my opponent would have been within his rights to complain).

Surely this is kindergarten nonsense.

Was the arbiter really an arbiter?
I can think of no reason for anyone saying that. Possibly if you had grabbed it out of his hand ... but otherwise I can think of no logical reason.

[Rhys Cumming]

I took the queen that my opponent had previously taken. There were no issues during the game, but afterwards the arbiter informed me that I should not have done this and that it was poor etiquette (and that my opponent would have been within his rights to complain).

Surely this is kindergarten nonsense.

Was the arbiter really an arbiter?
I can think of no reason for anyone saying that. Possibly if you had grabbed it out of his hand ... but otherwise I can think of no logical reason.

A chief arbiter in a large international open. It wasn’t said in an unfriendly way, but I was a bit bemused that this would be against the rules.

[Peter Shaw]

This reminds me of a game where a team mate of mine was playing a notorious complainer. He had a winning position but was short of time. He spotted a way to simplify into a position with an extra rook, and blitzed out a flurry of moves. Instinctively he grabbed the queen from his opponent's side, only to immediately realize he didn't actually have any pawns left. He apologized saying it was an automatic reaction and the reply was something along the lines of 'Automatic? It's pathetic I think'. He managed to convert RRvR.

[Simon Rogers]

There was confusion after the game as to the rules, also it was a digital clock and people didn't know how to pause it.

Has your club made sure all its players now know how to (at least) pause a digital clock? Do you now know how to pause a digital clock? I had this happen to me once (not a loss on time, but needing to stop the clock for another reason). I made sure after that that I always knew how to stop a digital clock before starting play, especially if it was a model I was not familiar with.

I was also told that because I was queening the pawn it was my responsibility to place the pawn with a queen as you can't request a queen. Two Lytham players stood next to the board and could easily have got a queen for me in preparation.

There is no obligation for them to do so, and I would not have expected that. It would be more normal for one of your team-mates to do so. However, in certain circumstances, them doing so could be seen as a prompt to you, as a suggestion that you should be trying to promote a pawn instead of (say) playing directly for mate. (This doesn't even begin to get into the pitfalls around under-promotion.) I think most arbiters (and I know this was an evening league game) would say that no spectators or team-mates should be doing anything like providing promotion material unprompted.

[The other common mistake is to push the pawn to the promotion square and let go (and sometimes press the clock at this point while loudly declaring "QUEEN!") - I believe some complicated process of removing the pawn in the same motion, and putting the queen on the square, is needed, and you absolutely must not press the clock until the new queen is present! Watching players unaware of this trying to work out the etiquette here can be amusing, but really all new players should be taught this, but there is so much etiquette that it mostly just gets picked up as part of experience over time.]

I think it is acceptable to ask someone to get a spare queen for you. It is also acceptable for you to go and get a spare queen during your opponent's move, or to anticipate the need several moves earlier. Beware of opponents who may find it disrespectful that you have flagged up your intention to promote a pawn!

There is a write up about it in the Fixtures section on the Blackpool & Fylde League website dated Thursday 4th November 2021.
Lytham 1 v Poulton 1.
https://ecflms.org.uk/lms/node/14087/home

Direct link:

https://ecflms.org.uk/lms/node/80103

From the sound of it, you played well and got a moral win at least, even if not an actual one!

Hi Christopher.
Not sure how to do part quotes on the forum
Only one person at our club knows how to set and pause the digital clocks at our club as we only use them for league matches. (It's the same person that fell asleep and was snoring at the club last Monday).
I will post the game later today while on my break at work.

[Joseph Conlon]

This looks like a very apt place to bring up the finish to the 2017 Canadian Championships, which (after ties on standplay and rapidplay) came to blitz games, and with six seconds on the clock one IM promoted to an upturned rook because he couldn't see the queen....which was safely hidden inside his opponent's hand.

The arbiter upheld upturned rook = rook and the lack of the Queen was decisive.

https://www.chess.com/news/view/controv ... nship-5047

[John Clarke]

It's reading about this sort of nonsense which sometimes makes me kind of glad I don't play competitively any more. So capturing the opposing queen gives you sole custody of it thereafter?? And your opponent's in breach of etiquette by picking it up off the table ready to complete a promotion?? What has the game come to? If I were to start playing tournaments again (unlikely for the foreseeable future) I'd be inclined to carry a spare queen of my own, just in case. Although no doubt some pedantic sod would then try to have me pinged for using an item not part of the standard playing equipment, or some such daft notion.

[NickFaulks]

It's reading about this sort of nonsense which sometimes makes me kind of glad I don't play competitively any more.

Except we have established that it is nonsense. There have always been rubbish arbiters.

In one Olympiad, the arbiter interrupted my game to inform me that my opponent was somehow disturbing me by doing something with his foot. This had to be explained by sign language, since he spoke no English. We eventually worked out that the punishment was that he had to leave the board for a while. I stopped the clock for the duration of this business, which the arbiter didn't like either.

[Alex McFarlane]

The Canadian case referred to does not show how stupid the rule is but rather the poor (I'm being careful here not to use the language I would like) the performance of the arbiter was.
There was one game going on at the end of an important event. It was also a qualifier for the World Cup. Apparently there was a table of spare queens. None of the arbiting team thought that having spare queens actually at the board might be useful.
None of the arbiting team thought, with promotion looming, to check that a queen was available.
The Chief Arbiter subsequently claimed that the queen had been available for the promotion. (I doubt if this is significant to the decision)

A player in time pressure is unlikely to think about pausing the clock to get a spare queen. A good arbiter would foresee that problem.

An Appeal is not normally based on what could have been done better but on were the laws followed. In this case I don't see any option but to reject the Appeal. I would hope that it was explained, strongly, to the Chief Arbiter how the situation could easily have been avoided.

[Roger de Coverly]

Only one person at our club knows how to set and pause the digital clocks at our club as we only use them for league matches.

How do players start and finish the game? Do you rely on one person ti run around starting all the clocks?

There are a couple of points that it's worth the "clock expert" training other club members,

One is that clocks remember their previous settings, so to reset you just switch them off and then on again with a ciuple of buttons to press to confirm the settings. Another are the magic numbers for local league playing rates and how to change from one to another.