Repetition of position

My source of information is the FIDE website http://rules.fide.com/

Those relatively new rules on 75 move and 5-fold rep are fine and do not need to be removed.

Ok, thanks for the link, nice to have, I was using the current rules.

I'm afraid that it is still wrong, even after the proposed changes by FIDE.

First to summarise before getting buried in the detail:

9.1 Draw offer.

This section deals with draw offers.

9.2.1

The game is drawn, upon a correct claim by a player having the move, when the same position for at least the third time (not necessarily by a repetition of moves):

This section deals with 3 fold repetition.

Note that I highlighted the word claim, this is important.

Also note that in online chess and with chess engines this rule is automatic for practical reasons, you do not claim, the computer program enforces it automatically.

9.3

The game is drawn, upon a correct claim by a player having the move, if:

This section deals with the 50 move rule.

Note that I highlighted the word claim, this is important.

Also note that in online chess and with chess engines this rule is automatic for practical reasons, you do not claim, the computer program enforces it automatically.

Now we jump ahead to the problem section.

9.6

If one or both of the following occur(s) then the game is drawn:

This section deals with both the 5 fold repetition and the 75 move rule.

Note that I have highlighted the fact that it is an automatic (no claim) draw, this is important.

Also note that in online chess and with chess engines that this section is ignored completely because the programs enforce 3 fold repetition and 50 move rule automatically.

Why does this section exist?

Because the rules above it are claimed, they are not automatic.

It stops perpetual games, both players continue playing for whatever reason but never claim a draw.

So some sort of rule is needed for this ...

However ...

The problem is that the FIDE rules are mixing claimed draws and automatic draws.

Consider a situation where it is the FIDE World Rapid Championship.

An important game is being played in the last round on the top board to determine the WC.

It is rapid so the players are not recording moves, it is time trouble, both players are flashing out moves fast, the player that needed to draw to become WC loses the game and the other guy becomes WC.

Later the guy who lost is playing over the game, a DGT board and system was used in the tournament.

He notices that 5 fold repetition occurred or 75 move rule occurred during the game.

But hang on?

The FIDE rules says that those are automatic draws.

Warlord

You are correct that the FIDE rules could lead to a problem when the arbiter does not spot the 75 move or 5-fold rep and the game ends with a "win" for one of the players. We shall have to wait for the first occurance to find out what FIDE will do in such circumstance.

As far as 50 move and 3-fold rep being an automatic draw in online chess that is certainly not the case on chess.com

Ok, thank you.

Good to know that it is not automatic on chess.com

Not exactly sure if all the chess websites now comply with the written rule, I do not think that it is standard across the web.

If you play against a chess engine on chess.com then I think that it is automatic, at least as far as the chess engine is concerned, it will claim the draw because it can't really make human decisions.

Thanks a lot man for that link, I really needed that, I am working on something

Warlord

Well perhaps FIDE are not the best at drafting rules, but they do have a "catch-all" clause in the preface to the laws of chess... if it is not clear from the rules, the arbiter decides.

I know from discussions on here that a number of online sites do declare an automatic draw in these circumstances, and that has led to many threads on the subject. But there is no obligation on any website to adhere strictly to FIDE rules. Here on chess.com the rules relating to insufficient material on a timeout are more akin to USCF rules, and even then the implementation means this site uses a simple piece count which can throw up an anomaly. But like many things in life it is the expedient approach.

@Lagomorph

I agree.

Well I guess that concludes the first part of this forum topic.

The mistake in the current 2014 FIDE rules which will soon be replaced by the corrected July 2017 FIDE rules.

The loophole in the current 2014 FIDE rules and future 2017 FIDE rules that may result in automatic draws being missed by arbiters in the future.

I think that you hit the nail right on the head when you said that:

"Arbiters may miss ..."

That is really the whole point.

Most OTB tournaments around the world do not have the luxury of a sophisticated computerised setup like DGT boards, so you have to rely on the human element to enforce these rules to stop perpetual games.

For this reason alone the automatic draw condition for these rules perhaps needs to be considered by FIDE, misses by arbiters is almost certain in the future.

In the next part of the topic I will focus on why I think that the rule is too complicated and I will suggest ways that could simplify things.

Please note that I will be using the future July 2017 FIDE rules for this.

Warlord

Perpetual Check

Perpetual check occurs when one player can check the opposing king forever.

It used to be a written rule in chess but was removed because the game will eventually end in a draw for one of these reasons:

1. Draw agreed

2. Threefold repetition

3. Fifty move rule

The players will normally just agree to a draw.

If however there is a rule in the tournament saying no agreed draws before move 30 then it falls back on threefold repetition, they can claim the draw that way even before move 30.

In rare cases, usually with the checked king on a very open board and being checked by major pieces, it will fall back on the 50 move rule, one of the players will eventually claim a draw.

Note that the removal of the perpetual check rule had another benefit ...

If you completely ignore the 3 fold rule and the 50 move rule writing code to enforce a perpetual check rule is probably almost impossible due to the horizon effect that chess programs have a problem with.

They can't see past the game horizon (deepest search depth) just like you can't see what is over the actual horizon.

Here is an example game.

The grandmasters agreed to a draw because they saw that it would be perpetual check.

I did however run the end of the game against a chess engine and those moves are shown at the end.

Those moves show 3 fold repetition with each player making 5 moves in the sequence starting with white capturing the knight.

Game position vs. Game state

The title of this topic is repetition of position.

You will often see it called this or threefold repetition.

Technically however if somebody wants to be really anal it could be called:

Threefold repetition of game state.

The reason for this is not only must the position be the same but all possible moves in each of the repeated positions must be exactly the same.

This means that the game state comprises the following:

1. actual position

2. player to move

3. castling rights

4. en passant square

In addition it is further complicated by these clauses in the rules.

1. position has just occurred or is about to occur

2. a player can claim if he repeated the position or his opponent repeated the position.

Confusing?

Well even the world champions get it wrong when playing under time pressure.

I will show examples for Fischer, Spassky and Karpov later in the forum topic.

For now I will just focus on the basis of the rule, position.

Note that pieces of the same type and colour are considered the same with the repetition rule, it does not matter where they came from, all that matters is the square that they are currently standing on.

In the example below all the knights switch starting squares across the board.

The position after the last pawn move by black is identical to the position after the last knight move by black.

Player To Move

The player to move must be the same in all the repeated positions because all the legal moves in all the repeated positions must be the same.

Here is an example game from the 1972 Fischer vs. Spassky match.

Both players got it wrong

Fischer claimed the draw incorrectly because in the first two repeated positions it is black to move but in the last repeated position it is white to move.

Black lost a move by triangulation: Kc6, Kc5, Kd6

White did not triangulate: Kd2, Kc3

Also note that more than one piece was moved by each player in the move sequence, each player moved a king + knight.

Yet another clause in the rules...

There is another clause in the rules that says that a claim for a draw is also an offer of a draw.

In this example Spassky made a mistake by just signing his score sheet when Fischer claimed the draw, so in effect he accepted the draw offer.

Complicated

For me there are just too many variables and overlaps with this repetition rule, there is no need for it to be so complicated.

A claim for a draw should not be considered an offer of a draw, just get rid of the overlap in the rules.

Simplify it so that either player can claim a draw based on a position that occurs after an actual move has been played by either player. The player to move must be the same in all repeated positions.

Forget about all this has just occurred or is about to occur stuff.

If black makes a move and wants to claim he stops the clock after making the move, otherwise he just presses the clock to start whites time.

White could then claim (for the position created by black with white to move), he just stops the clock, or

If he does not want to claim he makes a move (white could then claim for the position that he just created with black to move)

Just keep it simple, the rules do not take into consideration that most players are in time trouble when they have to figure out what is going on.

In the example:

Position 1: After white move 48

Position 2: After white move 50

Position 3: After black move 54

Castling Rights

The castling rights have to be the same in all the repeated positions.

Note that this is the permanent castling rights, so it only matters if a King or a Rook is moved.

It does not matter if the temporary castling rights have changed, for example if a King is checked or a square between the King and Rook is attacked.

Here is an example game between Karpov and Miles

Karpov claimed the draw by repetition but it was actually incorrect as the first time black played Ra4 the castling rights changed for black on the Queenside.

The players should have played one more cycle each in order for it to be a valid repetition of position claim.

Miles however just agreed to a draw, as a claim, even when incorrect, is also considered to be a draw offer.

The repetition rule could be further simplified by simply removing this additional clause, it is very rare that this occurs in practice and it does not really change anything if the players are repeating, it just means that one extra cycle has to be made by each of the players.

En Passant Capture Rights

The en passant capture rights have to be the same in all the repeated positions.

This is a confusing choice of words, a simpler way of explaining it is that it should not be possible to capture by en passant in any of the repeated positions.

In the diagram below black just played c5 and white can capture on c6.

If white tries to repeat the position by just moving his knight to f3 and back to g1, and black does the same with his knight on f6, then the position right after black played c5 can not be one of the repeated positions because as soon as white makes a move in the diagram the en passant right to capture on c6 changes.

Does that mean that any position that is created after any pawn double steps is invalid as a position that can be repeated?

No, if the pawn can not be captured by en passant then the position is valid.

Just another subtle clause in a very complicated rule.

I have never seen this occurring in any practical game.

The repetition rule could be further simplified by simply removing this additional clause, it is very rare that this occurs in practice and it does not really change anything if the players are repeating, it just means that one extra cycle has to be made by each of the players.

Keeping It Simple

Here is a summary of the possible changes that could be made to simplify the repetition rule.

The rules are from the future July 2017 FIDE Laws of Chess

Article 9: The drawn game

9.1.2.3 A claim of a draw under Article 9.2 or 9.3 shall be considered to be an offer of a draw.

Remove this, avoid overlaps, a draw claim is not a draw offer.

9.2.1.1 is about to appear, if he first writes his move, which cannot be changed, on his
scoresheet and declares to the arbiter his intention to make this move, or
9.2.1.2 has just appeared, and the player claiming the draw has the move.

Change this, make it one rule, repeated positions always occur after a move has actually been made, either player can claim if his clock is running, he stops the clock to claim.

9.2.2 Positions are considered the same if and only if the same player has the move, pieces of
the same kind and colour occupy the same squares and the possible moves of all the
pieces of both players are the same.

Change this so that it is just the actual position + player to move that must be the same in the repeated positions, the possible moves in each repeated position is not considered.

9.2.2.1 at the start of the sequence a pawn could have been captured en passant
9.2.2.2 a king had castling rights with a rook that has not been moved, but forfeited these after
moving. The castling rights are lost only after the king or rook is moved.

Remove all this, no longer applies.

9.6 If one or both of the following occur(s) then the game is drawn:
9.6.1 the same position has appeared, as in 9.2.2 at least five times.
9.6.2 any series of at least 75 moves have been made by each player without the movement of
any pawn and without any capture. If the last move resulted in checkmate, that shall
take precedence.

Remove all this, rules should not have loopholes.

Arbiters could miss automatic draws that are not spotted during a game.

FIDE are mixing claimed draws and automatic draws and that is the real problem.

If you remove that section what do you replace it with?

Do you think that FIDE knows the solution?

Warlord

I have the distinct feeling that you have not run chess tournaments as a director, and probably have not played in many.

As a player, when my opponent attempts to claim a draw, I should have the opportunity to accept his offer before the arbiter intervenes. This could save much time. Forcing a player to first offer, and then claim a draw unnecessarily complicates matters.

As a tournament director, the fact that a draw claim is a draw offer is of inestimable practical value. I cannot count the number of times that this dual-purpose has simplified adjudication.

I think the 5 move repetition and 75 move draw is because there were instances of players playing on for a very long time, neither claiming a draw, and there was nothing in the rules that allowed the TD to end the game for that reason.

Although I may be wrong about that (are adjudications still around?)

You have been blocked.

Goodbye

Warlord

You are very correct.

The loophole is that those are automatic draws in the rules but the arbiters may miss that it actually occurred in a game, a player can still "win" a game after the missed automatic draw has occurred.

Consider that rules should apply at all levels, from school clubs all the way through to world championships.

Consider that rules should apply to all time controls, from blitz to rapid to classical.

Consider that most OTB games around the world, at all levels and time controls, do not even have a record of the moves, either on score sheets or computerised systems.

Consider that all FIDE rated games are played OTB.

Yet the section in the FIDE rules relating to automatic draws by 5 fold repetition and 75 move rule requires recorded moves to enforce the rules.

Warlord

No, FIDE write their rules for FIDE tournaments and FIDE sponsored games.

School clubs; games between friends; and games online such as this site can choose their own rules. Nothing to do with FIDE.

I agree with you, about what you said about FIDE.

They also have a clause in the FIDE rules that says that national bodies can choose not to use certain rules, or that they can introduce their own rules, something like that, like USCF does, it's rules are not exactly the same as the FIDE rules.

However...

Notice the section in bold above, it says consider and rules, it does not say FIDE rules.

The FIDE rules does not really concern me or interest me, what they do is their business.

Why have I done all this then?

1. to break it down and get it out of my head.

2. to perhaps help some chess players that may find the rule complicated.

And finally, the most important reason ...

I made a game man.

Warlord

@innerspace50

1. You created your account 8 days ago.

2. You have not played any games on this website.

3. You spam a lot, 322 points for posting in just 8 days.

4. You just spammed 4 comments on my topic.

A user that I blocked on this topic has posted a note on your profile:

@Ziryab

"Be careful with the truth in the draw by repetition thread. The OP does not want truth."

So for these reasons:

You have been blocked.

Goodbye

Warlord