BIG problem

could be.. here's the link
https://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?id=124&view=article

Yeah, those rules only impact events started before July 1st, 2014.

@Martin In the rules you linked, the same rule with slightly different wording is in G.5a - same heading "quick play finish".. but like I said, I don't know under what condition that rule applies.. just mentioning it because people have said in previous posts that they think they've seen a rule about that situation.. That's probably what they are remembering reading..

off

 

If you are talking about 5.2 b, you need to read the whole thing.  It says checkmate is not possible by any series of legal moves. That allows the possibility of help-mates, so is very different than the old rule.

No I'm talking about G.5 - in the rules that you linked to.. The section on Rapid Play Finish.. It's there.. I pasted the para below.. It says that if the arbiter agrees that the opponent has been making no effort to win my normal means, he can declare the game drawn.. I only mention it because others have mentioned that they've heard of rules like that.. This is probably what they're thinking about..

G.5
If Article G.4 does not apply and the player having the move has less than two minutes left on his clock, he may claim a draw before his flag falls. He shall summon the arbiter and may stop the chessclock (see Article 6.12 b). He may claim on the basis that his opponent cannot win by normal means, and/or that his opponent has been making no effort to win by normal means
If the arbiter agrees that the opponent cannot win by normal means, or that the opponent has been making no effort to win the game by normal means, he shall declare the game drawn. Otherwise he shall postpone his decision or reject the claim.
If the arbiter postpones his decision, the opponent may be awarded two extra minutes and the game shall continue, if possible, in the presence of an arbiter. The arbiter shall declare the final result later in the game or as soon as possible after the flag of either player has fallen. He shall declare the game drawn if he agrees that the opponent of the player whose flag has fallen cannot win by normal means, or that he was not making sufficient attempts to win by normal means.
If the arbiter has rejected the claim, the opponent shall be awarded two extra minutes.

I agree that it was poor sportmanship on your opponents part. It isn't such a big problem though since everything was within the rules. Just censor him if you don't want to face such behaviour and move on.

 

Ah, not sure why the stuck those in an appendix in the newer rules. At the very bottom even after 960, adjournments and blind player rules 

 

Sorry about that 

Dead draw - I feel it is unreasonable for anyone to go to such lengths to win - as you say, it's a cheap win and unsporting IMO...

I don't know about 'unsportsmanlike' - just because everyone has different opinions about winning on time especially it seems when playing on line. I can understand why someone who's played a lot OTB (which I haven't, really myself) would think so. But for people here, a lot of us have this as our only chess playing venue. I don't think it's some sort of character flaw on the part of someone like that to think that a win is simply a win, and that the platform itself is the arbiter, so a win in time is a win.

But then again, I like the OP's point about how this absence of judgement wrt drawn positions takes away from the game as it has been played for ages. If a position is drawn, then it should be a draw. In a position like the one he posted, both players can only make moves that maintain the drawn position, protecting their pieces in doing so, and any attempt to try anything else is absolutely losing. But I don't think it's as easy as he thinks it is for a computer to make that judgement with the sort of reliability that C.c would need in order to implement it. There would be more arguments than now about it. A human would have to review the positions to get it right every time.. (at least that's what I think)

Then why have a clock if you can't win on time?

To finish rounds at fairly predictable times, primarily. And you can win on time,  just not in positions where it makes no sense for a win. 

then why clock???

Clock is a part of the game, just look at chess.com for example. A dead draw can be won on time!!!

FIDE and USCF have rules to prevent completely drawn games from turning into flagging attemps. Chess.com can't really implement those rules and can't have an arbiter always available either.

 

So yes, the clock is part of the game but completely drawn positions, in OTB, are draws. The same type of situation occurs at flag fall if the opponent with time doesn't have suffucient mating material. The clock is not the most important thing. 

 

Ideally, all games would be decided on the board.

"Sorry, that's the breaks. I myself have lost games in positions like that. It is infuriating but each time I resolve to play faster."

Going to have to agree with notmtwain on this one.

Chess did not have when invented, and still does not require, a clock. As I stated earlier, and as Martin_Stahl has also said, the clock was introduced primarily at events where many games were needed to be played in a set amount of time. But the goal was always, in OTB chess, to have the outcome determined by board play, never the clock. But whenever a new element is introduced, you must make sure it is equal and fair for both sides. Losing by time became a possibility to ensure that you did not gain an advantage by taking more time than was agreed upon as reasonable for the event. But since the goal of introducing the clock was merely to help keep a schedule, board play has always been given precedence. A draw on the board where only meaningless moves can be made is declared a draw no matter time remaining on eaither player's clock. Likewise, a person who flags, but who still has the potential to win while his opponent does not, is given a draw, not a loss, because his opponent did nothing to win the game on the board. In USCF, the TD will declare the draw in the drawn position if one player refuses to acknowledge the draw to keep the integrity of the result of the board play, since the clock was never meant to be anything more than a schedule aid.

This is why I made my observation about online chess seemingly having developed a different culture than OTB chess. Blitz, as has been pointed out by others, is a chess variant, and the variable is that in blitz the clock is elevated to a primary factor, not merely a secondary piece that aids in the progression of the tournament. I have since learned that there are G10 blitz tournaments, but I always thought the longest blitz time controls were five minutes. So when my opponent forced my loss in what I considered a standard chess match in a drawn position but he won time by making arond 90 pointless moves with no attempt at winning, I was royally ticked because it, in my opnion, was both unsportsmanlike (only in scholastic tournaments do you regularly see players refuse to accept a draw offer in a drawn position) and he was taking advantage of a hole in the system that I could not call a TD over to declare the draw.

I won't go into the whole history of chess - suffice it to say it's old. It hasn't even had a major rule change in 500 years, long before clocks for individual players were introduced. The game was brought over to Europe in the middle ages, but it had already been in Asia for centuries (the oldest chess set was found in a tomb in India, and had elephants in place of knights). Shogi, another descendent of the same Asian game as chess, is also widely played in Japan and has enthusiasts across the globe. Used to, tournaments were only held among the wealthy who could afford to travel and just hang out in foreign cities for days. As chess began to become popular among middle and working class players, they too wanted to play in tournaments, but needed to play several matches in a, relatively, much shorter time, as they had to get back to work, and clocks began becoming more commonplace (they were invented before, but had not seen much use). But always board play was seen as the goal, clocks as a necessary meta-device for events. Hence why people like myself that have played almost exclusively OTB until recently feel that winning by time is "cheapens" the win - it was why I resigned a losing (but not lost, I still had a queen and minors) when my opponent had 30 seconds left on his clock in an OTB tournament. Even in OTB, I would have been awarded the win, but I had not earned that win with my OTB play, yes, my opponent had used more time than me, but he was up because I made an instantaneous blunder (dropped a rook by placing it where it could be forked), therefore I resinged rather than take a paper win that I felt I had not earned. Even in OTB, that is a bit extreme, because it was a rated tournament so I forfeited potential rating points (I didn't lose many, he was 300 points higher than me, but I would have gained a lot). But he also would have lost a lot of points by losing to me, and since I had not outplayed him, that didn't seem fair. I offered him a draw first before I dropped the rook when he still had a full minute and he refused (actually, acted insulted). I think he took it as me pitying him, but pity had nothing to do with it, even before I dropped the rook, I was down two pawns. I was extrapolating from the rule that if the game progressed further and he was in time trouble, the best I could have done was draw when he flagged. But he saw it as charity. But once I dropped my rook, I would definitively have lost the game - I could have all the time in the world and still not found a way to win. So rather than claim a win from a lost board position, I resigned, not out of pity to him, but because I value the integrity of board play, not claiming an empty victory on a technicality - yes, I would have been within my rights to do so as we both agreed on the time terms by participating in the tourney, but I believe that keeping the integrity of board play by always giving precedence to board play is much more important than claiming a win in an individual game purely on time.

 I wouldn't call it a band-aid idea.  Here's FIDE's solution to the situation that you were in, however, it doesn't apply to blitz.  The USCF's rule is similar.  Both rules are pretty much obsolete because of the use of time delays or increments (FIDE's rule doesn't apply when when increments are being used, and I think that the USCF rule applies only when analog clocks are being used).

the time limit is part of the game don't slam ppl for talking advantage of that.