English Chess Forum

NickFaulks wrote: ↑

Fri Dec 31, 2021 11:26 am

Joey Stewart wrote: ↑

Fri Dec 31, 2021 11:08 am

Anyone consistently surviving time scrambles in such a fashion needs investigating

Unless you have something better to do, like popping the bubbles in leftover plastic packaging.

Very relaxing, that, and probably better for our stress levels generally than playing chess in any format

Round 15 of the 2021 World Blitz, Arjun Erigaisi - Parham Maghsoodloo. At 7:32 into the video, Maghsoodloo moves the bishop twice, Erigasi either doesn't notice or doesn't care and the game goes on. Maghsoodloo to give him the benefit of the doubt must have convinced himself that he hadn't taken his hand off the bishop which he clearly does.
Clearly if Erigaisi claims his opponent took his hand off it then it would have went through due process. But if he doesn't notice and there is no arbiter around then Maghsoodloo just gets away with it even thought we have the equivalent of VAR?
Justice was done anyway I guess as Erigaisi went on to win.

You might recall this being the problem with Aronian/Nakamura in that there is no action taken if no complaint is made. Difficult for Erigaisi: he's clearly winning as it is, and if he stops the game he has no guarantee of his complaint being upheld.

There are so many things little cheaty things that go on in time scrambles they I can think of -
Touch move violation
illegal moves
clock blocking
Knocking over pieces and leaving it for your opponent to tidy up
hiding queens to slow down/ prevent promotion
placing pawns ambiguously between squares in order to gain a free move


Over the board I feel like increments have heavily curtailed a lot of these things, and fully support them there but online most of them cannot happen and incremental time only benefits engine users so should never be used in an internet game.

"Knocking over pieces and leaving it for your opponent to tidy up"

I noticed Magnus knocked pieces over with a couple of seconds to go (at least twice), but immediately replaced them before touching the clock.

A few years back there was a case of a GM being disqualified for repeatedly knocking the pieces over and not resetting them before pressing the clock and then after the game people were acting like it was a terrible rule and he had been unfairly screwed but really the arbiter and opponent were totally in the right there - it even had a bad knock on effect, I was in a blitz tournament a few weeks later in a time scramble where my opponent was doing exactly the same thing and the arbiter refused to step in and apply sanctions even when I pointed out it was against the rules.

Joey Stewart wrote: ↑

Fri Dec 31, 2021 1:16 pm

There are so many things little cheaty things that go on in time scrambles they I can think of -
Touch move violation
illegal moves
clock blocking
Knocking over pieces and leaving it for your opponent to tidy up
hiding queens to slow down/ prevent promotion
placing pawns ambiguously between squares in order to gain a free move

Knocking over pieces and placing pawns (or any other piece) ambiguously could be said to not meet the relevant requirements of Articles 3.1 – 3.9, and as such are illegal moves.

Over the board I feel like increments have heavily curtailed a lot of these things, and fully support them there but online most of them cannot happen and incremental time only benefits engine users so should never be used in an internet game.

I don't see the relevance of increments here. And how on earth do increments only benefit engine users?

Reg Clucas wrote: ↑

Fri Dec 31, 2021 3:51 pm

I don't see the relevance of increments here. And how on earth do increments only benefit engine users?

In on0line chess It would give that little bit of extra time to consult an external device or switch tasks on the same device. Having checked the move count after a few OTB games of 3 2, I reckon it's more equivalent to 4 0 than 5 0 as Blitz games infrequently get past move 40.

To a fast player online increments are effectively a time unlimited game whereas over the board you don't get a lot of change once you have removed the time it takes to make your move and hit the clock so blitz games still progress towards a natural result if someone is being too slow.

The relevance of increments to my point above was that almost every means of cheating over the board involve misplacement of the pieces via desperation/underhandedness and therefore tend not to happen once increments are applied but online the only type of cheating you really need worry about is engine use and sandbagging of which neither can be solved with incremental time and it is better for the cheats to face a hard cut off if they over stretch themselves.

Chris Rice wrote: ↑

Fri Dec 31, 2021 12:17 pm

Round 15 of the 2021 World Blitz, Arjun Erigaisi - Parham Maghsoodloo. At 7:32 into the video, Maghsoodloo moves the bishop twice, Erigaisi either doesn't notice or doesn't care and the game goes on. Maghsoodloo to give him the benefit of the doubt must have convinced himself that he hadn't taken his hand off the bishop which he clearly does.
Clearly if Erigaisi claims his opponent took his hand off it then it would have went through due process. But if he doesn't notice and there is no arbiter around then Maghsoodloo just gets away with it even thought we have the equivalent of VAR?
Justice was done anyway I guess as Erigaisi went on to win.

Erigaisi noticed. That is clear from his body language.

However, he may not have realised that the game was being filmed. According to the commentators, they didn't have a camera on every board.

Chris Rice wrote: ↑

Fri Dec 31, 2021 12:17 pm

Round 15 of the 2021 World Blitz, Arjun Erigaisi - Parham Maghsoodloo. At 7:32 into the video, Maghsoodloo moves the bishop twice, Erigasi either doesn't notice or doesn't care and the game goes on. Maghsoodloo to give him the benefit of the doubt must have convinced himself that he hadn't taken his hand off the bishop which he clearly does.

I find it difficult to believe anyone could not realise they'd let go of a piece when their hand almost presses the clock before stopping and changing the move. The picture shows the bishop after it was moved to e7 with Maghsoodloo's hand near the clock, just before he stops, picks the bishop up again, and moves it to f8, presumably having spotted Rc7 for White.

Yeah, he knew it. I'm sure his moving the bishop was an instinctive reaction, but if you do that kind of thing you really want to be resigning as soon as you've realised what you've done.

Rukavina-Korchnoi, Leningrad Interzonal 1973. World Championship Interzonals, Leningrad/Petropolis 1973, Wade, Blackstock and Kotov, Batsford 1973:

Now Korchnoi picked up his queen and played it to d5 with check (it's the only move to keep a spark of life) and let go of it; then he did not like it there and picked it up again, put it back to d8 and then swiftly moved it to b6 where it would allow three mates on the move! Rukavina very quickly restarted Korchnoi's clock and started to remonstrate; the watching deputy chief arbiter, Walter Kuhnle-Woods, stepped forward intending to award the game to Rukavina. Korchnoi saved any further fuss by promptly resigning. No one attributed anything to the incident other than that Korchnoi was completely confused. He spent the next few hours walking the streets of Leningrad working off his annoyance with himself.

This guy is putting up some remarkable performances for somebody whose bullet rating is actually in the 1600s

https://lichess.org/2uPoyux1#25

Always helpful when opponents gift you free wins

JustinHorton wrote: ↑

Mon Jan 17, 2022 11:20 am

This guy is putting up some remarkable performances for somebody whose bullet rating is actually in the 1600s

I have been avoiding such posts, which I feel belong properly in Not Chess, but what does "actually" mean here?