Announcing check

Isn't it illegal to move a piece other than your king/piece to remove check when you are in check?

And I'm accustomed to people say, "Check!".  I suppose that is because I only play scholastically at the moment.

 In a few tournament games I've played an old guy that will from time to time write QC on his scoresheet. After the game I asked what it meant; "queen check," he told me.

 I've watched in horror as it happened in a high school tournament (I was the coach of one of the players).

  I remember reading about a scholastic tournament (sorry, I don't remember where I read it) where one of the players came and asked the tournament director if he had to checkmate all his opponent's kings. The perplexed TD went over to the board and found that the players had been promoting their pawns to kings.

How are games, such as Ziryab observered and Indridcold read about, treated?

Are they played and scored, as is? Do they play on with 3 Kings? Is the game nullified? if so, do they replay?  

I am STILL lauging at this!

 not to me, but i have seen small children do this.

 i have played many tournament games and have only seen one person who announced check. that person was annoying. :)

once you hit about 1400 or so i think it is not necessary (and sometimes irritating) to say check. 

At this point I think the TD has to get creative outside the rules. If this was an adult tournament, I might double forfeit the game -- after all, neither player is actually playing a game of chess, it's like neither player showed up. You could try to rewind the game to the first illegal promotion, but for this level of player, I don't have confidence in the score sheets.

Since it's a scholastic tournament, I wouldn't double forfeit the game. They're just kids. In this case, calling the game a draw might be the most expedient thing to do. Another possibility is removing all the promoted kings from the board and having them play from there. My worry is that the game might not end of it's own volition. If the kid asking the question has already "checkmated" one of the kings, I might award him the win.

yes but we both realised two moves after so we just went back...

it was a friendly so it didnt really matter!

Dear All,

Thank you for all the above contributions. I think the general response is that announcing check is to be frowned upon, and I will have to give up my little idiosyncrasy. I have played chess for some 34 years (in my youth playing to about 2150) and never encountered so much as a raised eyebrow. Indeed, I had always believed that non-announcers were a little rude or lazy, but too polite to raise the subject. I suspect there may be a little variation of habit with geographical location. I went to France to play in a quick-play tournament last weekend (6/9 - finished 7th from 55) and didn't announce check even once. I consider myself at least partially rehabilitated. 

Regards Ray.

"The perplexed TD went over to the board and found that the players had been promoting their pawns to kings."

That's hillarious... I've seen children and new players remain in check for several moves, but I've never seen anything like that! 

 In scholastic tournaments, players often do not record their games, so rolling the game back before the illegal moves is not possible. It is not reasonable to expect a TD to monitor every game in a scholastic event, and the rule that spectators (especially parents and coaches) cannot interfere in games in progress is paramount.

It is up to the players to observe the errors, then the TD can offer a solution that brings the game back within the rules.

When I train judges for scholastic tournaments, I emphasize that the players must agree upon the result. If they say it is checkmate, it does not matter what the observers believe to be true.

SwissSys does not readily accommodate nullified games, nor does the pace of a scholastic event permit replaying games. If a situation is particularly egregious, the TD may adjudicate a draw.

When you read these forums and see the number of questions from those that thought they knew the rules only to learn that they did not, you can imagine some of the logistics of running scholastic events with 100+ kids and volunteer judges from among the parents and coaches.

At the last event that I ran, I watched five successive stalemates, each resolved by moving into a check that was not observed. Finally, the player that kept moving out of stalemate pointed out to her opponent that she was in checkmate, and it took a minute for the winning player to acknowledge the fact. Each of the stalemates was the result of a player missing a checkmate in one. Clearly the players were beginners. I accepted their result and then told them both that they should learn to recognize checkmate and stalemate, and that they should practice checkmating with a queen and rooks (it seems there may have been several queens).

Would you adjudicate a draw if you were in my position? Would this be fair if you were the coach of the girl that lost (and to whom you've now granted a draw)?