From: sloan@cis.uab.edu (Kenneth Sloan)
Subject: Re: Tournament Report from Berkeley Quads last Saturday, 11/14...
Organization: CIS, University of Alabama at Birmingham
Distribution: usa
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1992 20:23:30 GMT

In article <1eglfnINNkbm@agate.berkeley.edu> ding@wish-bone.berkeley.edu (Howard Ding) writes:
>In article <1992Nov19.022558.11746@cis.uab.edu> sloan@cis.uab.edu (Kenneth Sloan) writes:
>>In article <1992Nov19.004603.23878@pony.Ingres.COM> jrb@Ingres.COM (John Black) writes:
>>>
>>>...I was the lowest rated player at 1673...
>>>...  This meant I would get 2 black's and a white (great). 
>>
>>This doesn't follow - te TD should have (and probably did) toss for
>>colors in the last round of a quad.
>Actually, I've been to the Berkeley Quads, and they do NOT
>toss for color in the last round, although they obviously 
>should.

Right - they should either toss for color in the last round, or shuffle
the four cards.

>
>An amusing thing happened to me there as well.  I was running low
>on time (well under a minute) and my opponent still had plenty of
>time (over 2 minutes left) _and_ a won position.  When I had 
>about ten seconds left, we were in a K(me) vs. K+P position, and
>all he had to do was make the standard win by putting his
>king in front of the pawn.  Instead, he tried to force a time loss
>on my part, let me in front of the pawn, and was quite dissapointed
>when I assured the draw by getting my king in front of the pawn and
>asking the TD for an adjudication, which was granted after I played a
>few more moves showing knowledge of the drawing technique.  At the end
>of the game I had 3 seconds left in SD.
>
>Moral: If you can win without relying on the clock, why not do it?

Moral: try to play in tournaments where the TD doesn't follow the rules.

Based solely on your description of the facts, I claim that the TD
screwed up again.  There is nothing in the rules that says "TD watches
play and forms an opinion on the skill of the opponents, or the likely
outcome given their skill levels".  The rule talks about *positions*
that are clearly drawn - *not* adjudications with arguments offered by
the players.

Now, that's not to say that I disagree with the result of your game -
simply that I don't believe that the rules *as written* were followed.

The rules, of course, are a pile of garbage.  Sudden Death at a
slow-to-moderately-fast pace is an abomination which should be resisted
by all right-thinking 'Muricans!  But, if you are goind to play by these
foolish rules, you might s well play by the rules.

In your game...if you can't force a triple repetition (and have the
scoresheet to prove it), then you ought to lose the game.  You knew how
much time was on your clock when you started the game.  Don't like SD?
Don't play in SD tournaments!

(this from someone who runs unrated tournaments, without clocks, roughly
30 minutes per round, for elementary school kids - our rules are: at the
end of the round, if you are still playing, the TD adjudicates the game.
I've never had an argument!  In rated games, the rules are: when a flag
falls, show me the position and I'll apply the rule - *not* adjudicate).




-- 
Kenneth Sloan                   Computer and Information Sciences
sloan@cis.uab.edu               University of Alabama at Birmingham
(205) 934-2213                  115A Campbell Hall, UAB Station 
(205) 934-5473 FAX              Birmingham, AL 35294-1170
Newsgroups: rec.games.chess