Chess Scotland Juniors
designed by kids, for kids!
Anecdotes
Here are some anecdotes that
were sent in by arbiter Alex McFarlane (who I am sure
most people have heard of!)
If you click here you will be
able to see instalment 2 of Arbiter Alex McFarlane’s hilarious Arbiter
Anecdotes!!
To see instalment 3 click here.
To see instalment 4 click here.
Finally, to see instalment 5 click here.
To go back to the ‘Chess Thoughts’ page click here.
I was
asked by Amy Officer some time ago to write out some of the ‘incidents’ that
I have had to deal with as an arbiter.
I have finally got round to doing so between rounds at Hastings.
I
have controlled all level of events from top International events like the
British Championship and the Hastings Masters to events for novices. Indeed in one 15 day period I had a junior international
at one end and a European Club Championship match at the other, whilst in the
middle I had a Primary 5 and under novices where many of the players
struggled to remember how the pieces moved.
Each event produces its own types of problem. I give some of the incidents that I have
encountered below as a sample.
Many
times in events for beginners I have had to declare a game drawn even though
a player was a queen up. In these circumstances
the player with the extra material has had no idea how to win and I have had
to stand over the board counting until both sides have played 50 moves. My most amusing case with K & Q v K
happened when I was just a spectator.
Player
A with the queen realised that he did not know how to get checkmate but
instead of offering a draw, in a moment of madness, he RESIGNED!! I asked both players to remain seated
whilst I got the arbiter. He agreed
with my suggestion that the game should be a draw. Both players were also happy with this
result.
Arbiters
are on duty all the time. I was once
asked to alter the clock as both players had reached the time control. Nothing unusual in this you may think, but
I was in the Gents at the time. As he
presented me with the clock, I simply asked the player if he could wait until
I had both hands free!!
In
another clock dispute the Black player called me over to alter the clocks as
he had reached the time control. The
white player stopped me claiming he still had his last move to play. On asking him who had made the first move I
got an extremely funny look until he worked out that if his opponent had
reached the time control he must have also. He had failed to record a half
move on an earlier occasion so thought he still had to play.
In a
Primary Individual Championship match I had a player claim the game because
his opponent kept distracting him.
“What is he doing?” I asked.
“He keeps telling me to press my clock after every move”, came the
reply. The request for the point was
turned down and the opponent instructed that on this occasion he should let
the first player’s clock run out.
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