Chess Scotland
Juniors
designed by kids,
for kids!
Alex McFarlane
Here is the second in a five part series of Arbiter Anecdotes sent
in by Alex McFarlane.
To go back to part one, just click here.
To view part 3 click here.
To view part 4 click here.
To view the final part click here.
To return to the Thoughts page click here.
If anyone else has any anecdotes (or anything for the site!)
please drop me a mail at amy_sitemanager@yahoo.co.uk.
A
‘cunning’ ploy which I have come across a few times is for a player to play a
good move which appears to lose a piece whilst actually gaining a big advantage
if the piece is captured. The player
follows up the move with a groan of disgust as if playing a horrible
blunder. When this has happened I have
stepped in and said, “Would you stop distracting your opponent by groaning
when you have played what you know to be a good move.” It is, of course, then up to the opponent
to see why it is a good move. If this
offence had been repeated I would award a win to the opponent on the grounds
of bringing the game into disrepute.
(The arbiter must obviously be certain that it was an attempt to con
the opponent – this is where being a teacher can be useful!)
One
player received a two year ban for swearing at me across the board. Well, to be more exact he was refusing to record
because his opponent with less than 5 minutes on the clock was not
recording. Having been told several
times that he had sufficient time so must record, he lost his temper and
started calling me names. These were
repeated loudly several times. This,
and his repeated refusal to record, resulted in the opponent being awarded
the game and his ejection from the tournament. He was subsequently put on a ‘blacklist’
for two years.
The
arbiter must not just be knowledgeable in the Laws but must also know how to
do pairings under various systems.
Throughout Europe more and more
tournaments are being paired by computer because players think that this is
fairer. I wonder how they would react
to a situation at the Scottish Championship this year. The pairings were being done manually but a
computer was being used to work out rating changes and title chances – it
also did pairings. The computer
excelled itself in the last round by suggesting that a player should play
himself!! Not content with this it also
insisted that another player (who should have played the first player) should
be either withdrawn or given a bye.
But the computer would not give him the bye itself, instead insisting
that the arbiter must. Finally the
computer warned that the first player was about to get his third black in a
row.
Certainly,
computer pairings might have stopped a conversation I had with Croatian Grand
Master Bogdan Lalic. He came up to me
and said “You’re draw is probably correct, but I want it changed.” He went on to explain that he felt that one
of his nearest rivals was getting a far easier game than him and that this
was unfair. I pointed out that he had
benefited from the same rule in the previous round and asked why he hadn’t
complained then. I still await an answer. Needless to say, the pairings remained
unaltered.
If
anyone wants to know all the problems I have had with computers they only
have to ask – but set aside a day or two for the complete answer.
|
