Mouse Slips And Morals
We’ve all been there: you’re dragging your piece across the board in online chess and it just doesn’t land on the square you were aiming for – the dreaded mouse slip has struck again! At best, it’s annoying and you lose a tempo moving the piece again on your next turn, but in many situations it results in the loss of an entire piece and with it, the game.
Mouse slips were in the news this week as Carlsen blundered his queen and a winning position with a mouse slip on the first day of the Skilling Open. Carlsen resigned immediately, in a show of fair play citing that he didn’t want Nepo to have to decide if he should offer a draw because of the mouse slip. The question is ‘what would have happened if Carlsen hadn’t resigned?’. Nepo would likely have been commended on his sportsmanship in a situation where he offered a draw, but would he have been portrayed as a poor sport if he had played on, and would this be a justifiable portrayal?
Carlsen's 38...Qb4?? against Nepo made the news this week.
Assuming a player isn’t carelessly moving too fast, a mouse slip isn’t really “the fault” of the player that makes it (they didn’t mean to do it). So, is it fair that a player should lose a game because their piece didn’t end up on the square that they intended to put it? Probably not.
On the other hand, if your opponent makes a game-losing mouse slip, it definitely wasn’t your fault. We’ve seen in chess that even a losing position can be turned around in a game (“brain slips” happen), so even if you were losing before the mouse slip, offering a draw or even resigning to be “sporting” could get you a worse result than what you may have got if the opponent hadn’t mouse slipped and the game had continued as normal. Is this fair? Once again, probably not.
Herein lies the dilemma – no matter the outcome of the game itself, either the mouse-slipper or the mouse-slipee(?) comes out with what can be viewed as an unfair result.
In the comments section on the article where Carlsen’s mouse slip is mentioned and in forums on the topic, a number of suggestions are made. Here are some of these suggestions:
A "CLAIM MOUSE SLIP" BUTTON
One commenter suggested that players could be given one chance per game to claim a mouse slip, which would need to be done in a very short period of time after the move (e.g. 3 seconds) and which would grant the other player some form of compensation such as extra time. It is also mentioned that some sort of system would need to be in place to verify that it was a valid mouse slip claim. Given the number of times I’ve made a move and immediately noticed that I’ve made a blunder, I think a “claim mouse slip” button would almost certainly be abused by a number of players given the existing number of fair play violators caught every month.
While “drag and drop” mouse slips are easy to identify (and presumably it wouldn’t be too difficult to program that new moves have to be within one square of the mouse slip, with the same piece), harder to identify are the mouse slips that are done with the “click and move” method of playing – numerous times when I’ve been drawing arrows while streaming, I’ve clicked on a piece without realizing it, and then clicked on a square that’s legal for the selected piece to move to – this results in moving a piece that is completely different to the piece I was thinking of moving. This type of mouse slip couldn’t be corrected if new moves had to be within one square (with the same piece) of the mouse slip, and I don’t foresee chess website having the staffing power to manually judge if moves were mouse slips or not and keep track of those who may be abusing the “claim mouse slip” functionality.
Sadly none of these methods will solve mouse slips in puzzles!
A "PROPOSE A TAKEBACK" FUNCTION
Another suggestion was to implement a “propose a takeback” function on Chess.com, similar to that found on some other platforms. The difference between this and the previous suggestion is that “claim a mouse slip” would be automatic, but “propose a takeback” would involve the opponent’s approval.
My primary concern with this would be abuse similar to that of the “claim a mouse slip” function. To avoid opponents spamming takeback requests, the “propose a takeback” function would likely have to be limited to one use per game, but once again it is difficult to judge whether an opponent’s move is a mouse slip or not. This could result in incorrect use of the “was your opponent a good sport” feedback if an opponent declines a legitimate takeback request either because they moved already or because they didn’t believe that the move was indeed a mouse slip. Players who mouse slip and aren’t allowed to take back the move will likely be angrier than if they’d simply mouse slipped and lost the game under current circumstances. Additionally, players would likely use the “propose a takeback” to try undo blunders, not only to correct mouse slips.
WE DON'T SOLVE IT
The most popular view seems to be that mouse slips, like blunders, are just a part of (in this case online) chess. If you make a mouse slip, you can choose to resign immediately, offer a draw, or just keep on playing depending on what your personal morals/beliefs dictate. Your opponent has a similar choice based on what they think is “right” or “fair”, and neither side should be offended by what the other chooses to do.
This is the current situation, and most likely what will continue to be implemented in future, but it doesn’t make things any less frustrating or unpleasant for either player involved in a game where there’s a game-changing mouse slip. How do you deal with mouse slips in your games, and can you think of any other ways to solve the problem of mouse slips?
