Grandmaster stops clock to demand draw with only 3 seconds left

With a big advantage but running out of time, Grandmaster Nihal Sarin stopped the clock and called the referee to draw Daniel Dardha at the Global Chess League.

Sarin held the white pieces against Dardha at table 6, in the match between PBG Alaskan Knights and Alpine Sg Pipers in round 5 of the Global Chess League 2024 in London on the evening of October 6.

The two players entered the endgame, with the Indian representative having a rook, a bishop against a rook, and an advantage over a pawn. Of course, Sarin had the advantage of winning, and tried to find a way to checkmate.

However, after move 99, Sarin had only 3 seconds left, while Dardha had 17 seconds. There was no time added after each move, and 3 seconds would probably only be enough for the Alaskan Knights player to make a few more moves, not enough to checkmate. If the time ran out in that move, Sarin would be declared a loser.

At that moment, Sarin had the idea of ​​stopping the clock, and called the arbiter. He said that White could not lose in this move, so he wanted to declare a draw to avoid running out of time. The arbiter reviewed it and agreed, then confirmed the draw, and Sarin and Dardha shook hands.

Sarin was 20 years old, ranked 58th in the world with a standard Elo of 2,668. With this draw, Knights had just enough points to beat Pipers 9-7. If Sarin had been declared a loser, Pipers would have won.

According to Article 10.2 of the FIDE Chess Rules, if there are less than two minutes left, a player can stop the clock and call the arbiter. If the arbiter determines that the opponent is not trying to win, or cannot win on the board, the game is a draw. If the arbiter disagrees with the player's request, the game continues and the opponent is awarded two minutes.

So Sarin's decision was considered wise and timely. "Sarin was amazingly cool-headed," commented Chessbase India. Knights' first-table player Anish Giri said the team had "won fairly and legally".

The game was controversial, as the Pipers' first-place player was Magnus Carlsen. Two days earlier, Carlsen had lost to Alireza Firouzja in a winning position but had run out of time. The world's number one did not adopt the same strategy as Sarin, and accepted defeat.

After Sarin's game, Carlsen said he could have done the same against Firouzja. However, the 34-year-old said the problem was that Sarin made several illegal moves near the end of the time limit. These were times when Sarin placed his pieces on the wrong squares, knocking down both his own and his opponent's pieces. Dardha could have stopped the clock, called in the arbiter to penalize the error, or disqualify Sarin.

Carlsen also disliked the fact that the Global Chess League did not apply time accumulation for each move, even though it was a board game. Almost every match had pieces knocked down.

The Global Chess League 2024 is the second edition of the tournament, taking place in London from October 3 to October 12, in a rapid chess format, with each side having 20 minutes, applying FIDE rules, with a prize fund of 1 million USD. The difference from most other major tournaments is that the Global Chess League does not have time added after each move, at any stage. The organizers believe that this rule is more attractive to the audience.

This year's tournament has six teams, each with six players. The teams play a round-robin twice, calculating points to select the champion to receive a prize of 500,000 USD. After five rounds, or halfway through the tournament, the Knights are leading with 15 points from an all-win record. Carlsen's Pipers and Alireza Firouzja's Triveni Continental Kings are in second place with 9 points.