Rules question

[E Michael White]

Irrespective of what W says to B, or anything else that may happen in the game, the spectator should not interfere. The game has to continue,

You place too much importance on the spectator comment. In this instance the spectator comment is secondary to the comment made first by the W player.

By making the comment “I think that’s mate” W was starting up a discussion about the game, with anyone who cared to reply, while the game was in in progress. This is not permitted. Without this comment it is unlikely that the spectator would have made his comment. If B did not reply W should be defaulted, which appears to be what happened. B should have ignored W's comment, maybe he did.

If W had not commented he would either have stopped the clocks, otherwise resigned or continued to look at the position until he saw the correct move. It is unlikely the spectator would have commented during that period.

[David Shepherd]

I don't see why the white player should be defaulted, I assume his comment was directed at his opponent. Checkmate ends the game and he was just saying he thought it was checkmate. Had it been checkmate he would have done nothing wrong.

The fact though was that it was not checkmate, so the question arises over whether being mistaken about checkmate constitutes resignation and I don't think it does. If this is the case the game has not ended but white has distracted black so a time adjustment seems appropriate rather than a default.

The intervention of the spectator is not something within the players control and the fact that blacks teammate intervened to help the white player leads me to think no penalty would be justified. This may not have been so clear if there had been two ways of avoiding the checkmate and blacks team mate only pointed out the worst one. In that case maybe a points deduction from the team could be considered but regarding the game in progress I believe it should still continue with a time penalty being applied.

[Graham Borrowdale]

I have to agreed with David Shepherd's last comment. It is quite natural to play a move which checkmates your opponent and to declare 'I think that is checkmate'. I did the very same thing yesterday, and my opponent looked for a few seconds just to be sure, whereupon he held out his hand in acknowledgement. The suggestion that I should have been defaulted for disturbing my opponent flies in the face of any notion of common sense, and my match captain would not have been too pleased either.

[E Michael White]

I have to agreed with David Shepherd's last comment. It is quite natural to play a move which checkmates your opponent and to declare 'I think that is checkmate'. I did the very same thing yesterday, and my opponent looked for a few seconds just to be sure, whereupon he held out his hand in acknowledgement. The suggestion that I should have been defaulted for disturbing my opponent flies in the face of any notion of common sense, and my match captain would not have been too pleased either.

I don't think anyone would disagree with you in this scenario. The scenario you have described is different from the one being discussed higher up the thread. In yours you made a move which was checkmate; at that point the game ended and your later comments had no effect, when you became a spectator as the game had finished. In the scenario higher up the thread it was the other player who thought he had been checkmated and began discussing the position while the game was in progress.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Yeah. Two different scenarios. Player delivering checkmate correctly says "I think that is mate". Player who thinks they have been checkmated incorrectly saying "I think that is mate". You can also get player incorrectly thinking they have delivered checkmate saying "I think that is mate". You can also get the player who has been checkmated being the first to (correctly) realise this and saying "I think that is mate" before the winner of the game realises they have delivered checkmate.

[Jonathan Bryant]

Player who thinks they have been checkmated incorrectly saying "I think that is mate".

Somewhat to my embarrassment I have to confess that I did this. As I recall I didn't stop the clocks - because I wasn't resigning I was checkmated (at least I thought so) - and we began to talk. During this conversation the penny dropped that it wasn't mate at all. None of the pieces had been moved. The clock was still running.

Could I continue the game legally? Frankly, embarrassment if nothign else pervented me from trying to do so. Also, I think you'd have to be a bit of a dick to say, 'oh it's not mate, let's continue then'. But could I have done it according to the laws of the game? Whatever the answer to that, it seems obvious to me that I shouldn't be able to.

[Mike Gunn]

Jonathan, you could continue, but could be reprimanded for distracting your opponent. Another question is what do you do when you are in the opponents situation? The sporting thing could be to say "no" or look surprised ... but I guess many players would assume it is equivalent to resignation.

[Jonathan Bryant]

Jonathan, you could continue, but could be reprimanded for distracting your opponent. Another question is what do you do when you are in the opponents situation? The sporting thing could be to say "no" or look surprised ... but I guess many players would assume it is equivalent to resignation.

I could continue? OK, but that just seems wrong to me.

I don't remember exactly what happened now, but I think that my opponent didn't actually say, "but it's not mate", but looked at me rather confused as if I were a simpleton (he had a point). So I see he's confused and I'm confused because he's confused and i see it's not mate.

So I've had outside assistance in effect. Surely it's not right that I be allowed to continue in that circumstance.


As for 'sporting' this concept has always confused me. Frankly, I reject anything that in some sense removes a chesser's responsibility for his actions. It's not my opponent's job to make sure I know it's not mate any more than it's his job to stop me putting a piece on prise. I don't see it as unsporting of him to collect his point - it's playing chess.

On the other hand, I do think it would be very unsporting of me to try to continue - i.e. try to absolve myself of any responsibility for my (incompetent) actions.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

I suppose it is like touching a piece. You would have to move the piece. By stating it is mate, you are sort of touching the king and about to topple it in resignation. Even if you haven't done so, you can't really take the action back once started.

[IM Jack Rudd]

I suppose it is like touching a piece. You would have to move the piece. By stating it is mate, you are sort of touching the king and about to topple it in resignation. Even if you haven't done so, you can't really take the action back once started.

It's an interesting analogy, but it leads to a false conclusion. Therefore either something's wrong with your premises or something's wrong with your argument.

[Jonathan Bryant]

I suppose it is like touching a piece. You would have to move the piece. By stating it is mate, you are sort of touching the king and about to topple it in resignation. Even if you haven't done so, you can't really take the action back once started.

It's an interesting analogy, but it leads to a false conclusion. Therefore either something's wrong with your premises or something's wrong with your argument.

Chris's post exactly covers how I feel about it - so personally I'd say that if it leads to a false conclusion there's something wrong with the 'right' conclusion.

[IM Jack Rudd]

Ah, I've spotted where the analogy falls down. Saying "I think that's mate" is not equivalent to picking the king up and toppling it in resignation, because you can't resign from a checkmate position.

What, incidentally, would you think of a situation where you can't see a legal move but there is one, and you announce "I think that's stalemate"?

[Jonathan Bryant]

Ah, I've spotted where the analogy falls down. Saying "I think that's mate" is not equivalent to picking the king up and toppling it in resignation, because you can't resign from a checkmate position.

What, incidentally, would you think of a situation where you can't see a legal move but there is one, and you announce "I think that's stalemate"?

I think that's different - although i can see you're point. In my situation I was giving up - albeit erroneously - and saying "OK, you've won". In the stalemate position, i'm trying to claim a draw (erroneously). To be told 'you must play on', perhaps with a penalty, seems fair enough to me in that situation.

[Mike Gunn]

If you don't feel that you should be allowed to continue then (of course) it is open to you to resign.

[Jonathan Bryant]

If you don't feel that you should be allowed to continue then (of course) it is open to you to resign.

Well obviously. I suppose technically that's what I did. That's not really the point, though.

All I'm doing is expressing an opinion that if the laws of chess are wrong (if they do indeed say that I hadn't actually lost that game - which I'm prepared to believe they do if people who would know better than me say they do).