I won’t have time to make anything like a real chess post for a week at least, so I thought I’d throw this out there – especially for any of you whose brain may have been fried by the 8 x 8 queens post.
The question was whether, in a game where White starts with his king and queen in each other’s positions, is the checkmate after
1.e4 e5
2.Bc4 d6
3.Kh5 g6#
legal? Or – more to the point – does the result stand in a tournament game?
The questioner quoted a whole bunch of rules relating to making an illegal move, which I didn’t read because I don’t really give a damn. Gijssen said that the more relevant rules were those governing pieces being set up wrong in the starting position – if it’s discovered during the game, the game must be restarted from the beginning (with, one hopes, the pieces set up correctly).
However, he added, since giving checkmate and pressing one’s clock ends the game, then the result of the game must stand, even though it would really pain him to allow it. He proposed several technical rule changes to allow such a game to be disqualified, which (of course) I didn’t read either, since if I’d been that bored I would have been banging my forehead against the computer, not reading stuff on it.
My main point in sharing is that this is just a hilariously ridiculous game, and it’s even more hilariously ridiculous to see an international arbiter approaching it seriously. I mean, this is a game where White (a) attempts the Scholar’s Mate while (b) not noticing that he’s moving his king to h5. What are the chances that this is going to occur in an event governed by the laws of FIDE?
Furthermore, I think that Gijssen is just dead wrong for two reasons:
First of all, what the hell are the standards for “discovering” that the pieces were set up wrong – or that an illegal move was made earlier in the game? It’s hard to imagine that Black delivered checkmate without “discovering” that it was his opponent’s king he was checkmating. I mean, unless he played 4...g6 and then went “Wait a minute! That’s your king!”
For Gijssen’s logic to be correct, both players have to have realized that the piece on h5 was a king immediately after (and only after) Black played 4...g6. After all, if White still thought it was a queen, he would have just retreated it to f3 and the game would have continued. To constitute “discovering” that the pieces were set up wrong, is Black somehow required to blurt out “Oh my God! That’s your king on h5! It must have come from d1, where it was set up incorrectly in the initial position and it was an illegal move to bring it out to h5!”? Give me a break. If Black delivered checkmate intentionally, it’s hard to imagine that he didn’t also realize that the king’s appearance on h5 was not quite kosher.
An alternative, of course, is that perhaps the helpful arbiter who submitted the question pointed out that a checkmate had occurred, when neither player had noticed it. (In this case, the arbiter should simply be shot, because he should have let the kids play) I have no idea what the rules are on continuing the game after checkmate, because (like I said) I’m not that bored. I’m just a bit intrigued by the ridiculousness of it all.
Okay: the second reason that Gijssen is dead wrong is that White should be forfeited on principle for attempting to mate on f7. Quite honestly, this should overrule all other considerations. Especially with children. Granted, perhaps this is a Nakamura game (blitz playoff?) where he decided to revert to his Qh5 repertoire, but in that case he should lose even more so, because it might influence young people.
I once had an eight year old student who would not accept that this strategy could possibly be bad. I lectured him sternly about the need to get all your pieces out, but he would not listen. “Okay,” I said, “we’re going to play a practice game.” This went:
Howard – Leon
CalArts, ~1990
1.e4 e6
2.Bc4 Nc6 You see, I have prepared for my opponent’s repertoire.
3.Qf3 Nd4
and here he joyfully picked up his queen to deliver checkmate at f7, only to discover that his bishop was blocked. And that he had a problem on c2. Consternation ensued.
(Here, actually, you see why this mindless checkmate goal is such a destructive meme: here’s a kid who – when he looks freshly at a position – can notice that not only his queen is attacked but there’s also a costly fork on c2. And yet, when planning his mate, he was so deeply on automatic that he didn’t notice that my e6 pawn blocks his bishop from f7)
The game continued:
4.Qc3 Bc5 I considered 4...c5, but thought it wouldn’t teach him as much about the importance of development if I won while behind in development. Luckily, the game finished very “instructively”:
5.d3?? Bb4
6.Qxb4 Nxc2+
0-1 because of 7...Nxb4 coming
A much nicer game, which actually accomplished its instructional purpose and got me the best parental response that I’ve ever had or heard of. Howard was a bit sulky after the game, so I thought it best to give his mom a little heads-up on what had happened.
So I drew her aside when she came to pick him up and said (quietly, out of the side of my mouth, like a secret agent) “We played a training game today, and I, uh, sort of kicked his ass.”
Mom: Well, I should hope so! We are paying you after all!
She also reported the following week that in his games with his father, Howard had taken to admonishing him over and over to get all his pieces out. It is good to have one’s instructions taken to heart.
If my math is right, Howard is almost 30 years old now. I wonder if he still plays chess.
The Third Ridiculous Game
When I started this post, I called the first game the most ridiculous one I’ve ever seen, but then I realized that wasn’t true. The most ridiculous chess game I know of goes1.e4 e5
2.Qh5 Ke7
3.Qxe5#
But that’s just so offensively ridiculous that I won’t even give it a diagram. It does seem to show, though, that there’s a theme of an early Qh5 being associated with ridiculousness. Elizabeth Viccary just made a post where she mentions an argument among some players about what move is most often a good one (or bad one) – wherever it occurs in whatever game. I’d make a case for Qh5 to most often turn out to be a silly move.
I think I disagree on a few things.
ReplyDelete1. It’s great that Gijssen cares, I think. He wants the rules to be complete and perfect, and that’s his job and as it should be.
2. Is it Black’s responsibility to teach White chess? Maybe Black knew all along, or at least with the move …g6, that some mistakes had been made, but why does he have a legal imperative to say so? He hasn’t broken any rules.
3. Who could possibly know when they realized? Trying to decide when people gain understanding is very hard in any situation. or maybe the spectators started laughing.
4. I bet Qh5 is by far the best move a serious percentage of the time it’s played.
Great post though!
Thanks, Elizabeth!
ReplyDeleteI'm all for Gijssen and what he does. I just wish there were more of him. For example, when I was a teenager, I had black in the first round of a Swiss against Sunil Weeramantry (the highest rated player in the tournament). He showed up half an hour late, the game started with 1.e4 Nc6, I was better prepared than he was, and he lost on time five moves before the time control. I flagged him. He then argued with me, saying that we should continue the game anyway, since I was winning on the board. I was confused, argued back, and finally just went and got the tournament director.
With the tournament director, he argued that there had been a clear space between his clock's minute hand and the 12 when his flag fell. The TD picked up the clock and noted that there was no clear space. Sunil argued that there had been one, but it had closed up as his clock continued to run while we were arguing.
The TD clearly had not the faintest idea what the rules were -- it was a small tournament, and Sunil was the highest-rated player. He decided to give Sunil "30 seconds" on his clock, and Sunil rather demonstratively thought a bit when his clock was started, whipped off his remaining moves and beat me.
Afterwards, I was quite appalled to find out that he was working as a trainer of children. I only hope that this sort of behavior was not one of the things he was training them in.
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The "dark side" I mention is my own -- I always want to suck more information in, even though I'm terribly over-extended already.
Well, at least it had a nice payoff this time...
Also:
ReplyDeletePoint 4: Qh5 (or Q-KR5, to use a color-neutral notation) is often a make-or-break sort of move. I would expect it to have an above-average percentage of times that it is *either* the worst or best move on the board. And likewise many other "kings field" moves like Qh7, Qg7, etc. :-) But Qh5 is going to be less of a trivial case -- it's going to be more difficult to evaluate than those moves because it isn't checkmate as often.
I agree with your points 2 & 3.
Point 3 is something I had in the back of my mind while writing my "first reason that Gijssen is wrong", though now that I look back on what I wrote, I see that I didn't say this explicitly.
Point 2 is another good point in favor of letting the result stand, no matter whether Black 'discovered' earlier that White was moving the wrong piece.
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I have to also say that I find the whole situation grotestque because White clearly *intended* to play Qh5, not Kh5. His failure is not one of how to play the game, it's a failure to recognize the physical difference between the two biggest pieces on the board. Even Fischer refused to play a game at Skopje 1967 because (besides the lighting) he demanded a set in which the difference between king and queen was clearer. I mean, it's not as if White had played 1.d4 2.Qe1-a5 to try to take advantage of the abnormal set-up -- he clearly thought he was moving a queen.
(To put it another way, if White had been playing blindfold, there would be no issue, because White would have called out Qh5, regardless of the physical piece on the board. In playing d1-h5, White is clearly "calling out" internally Qd1-h5, even though the physical piece s/he's moving has the wrong physical design for being a queen.)
I seem to remember a GM game where, in a time scramble, White intended to play Rh1-h8+, but instead grabbed the piece next to it by accident and played Kg1-h8. (This move was not only illegal, it was clearly weaker than Rh8.) White had to take back his move (because it was illegal) and he was allowed to play his intended one (regardless of touch-move), on the grounds that he had touched the king accidentally -- analogous to knocking over another piece on the way to touching the one you intend to move.
Now (assuming all of this to be a correct ruling), are we then to understand that if Black had seized the moment and responded to Kg1-h8 with ...Qg7#, this would stand? It's hard to imagine a GM delivering this mate without (on some level) 'discovering' that White had made an illegal move.
The original game that was submitted is a very clever example of the issue because 3...g6 is a natural response to 3.Qh5. So intent is unusually tricky to discern. That's why I held open the possibility that the players were ready to continue the game, but maybe the arbiter stopped it because of mate on the board.
BTW, the person who originally submitted the game said that he had made it up as an example. But one still has to consider human states like intent, because other human states like "discovery" are written into the rules.
Qf3 is the move which is most often silly. The other move Qh5 is usually more double-edged so it must be the most common mistake.
ReplyDeleteConsidering the vast number of scholastic games, and the relative popularity of Qf3 and Qh5 in those games, it's hard to think otherwise.
Leon once made a huge blunder with Qh5. The black king was on g8, missing his h-pawn, and Leon's d3 bishop had clear access to h7. It was a team game at a Midwest Amateurs, and I groaned when Leon played Qh5. After ...g6 2 Bxg6 there was a shaking of hands. It turned out his opponent had resigned without noticing that 2...fxg6 was a discovered check on Leon's king on f1.
Ok, so maybe one could argue that Qh5 was silly.