Some Things I Stumbled Upon...

Welcome to my world.

lol Even a genius lose to a weak player but A.H.Beckman is not a "weak player",Capablanca face a decent opponent even in a simul and lost. A bad day for Capa.

Here is something that I never considered, though it's an entirely reasonable occurance during WWI.

Beckman was a correspondence master. I didn't find it so strange that he beat Capa in a simul, but rather that the loss came so quickly.

Had anyone ever heard of the consequence for making an illegal move with a piece was to be forced to move the King?  It doesn't even make sense.

Check out Edward Winter's Chess Notes 5381 and 5384.

Presumbaly the rationale behind the penalty was that in most positions making a King move is either a waste of a tempo or weakens the position. It seems like a "lose a turn" penalty to me.

Also see Section VI here:

https://books.google.com/books?id=M7BAAAAAcAAJ&pg=PR70&lpg=PR70&dq=chess+illegal+move+penalty+king&source=bl&ots=TnBMUJiGcr&sig=vLWWZE2GDZ-guCF_qcH4Csvq_WQ&hl=en&sa=X&ei=VT8BVbK6LfLjsASk-oLoBw&ved=0CB0Q6AEwADgU#v=onepage&q=chess%20illegal%20move%20penalty%20king&f=false

And one more!

https://books.google.com/books?id=mIICAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA41&lpg=PA41&dq=chess+illegal+move+penalty+king&source=bl&ots=EtqnlLj-X4&sig=DX52lamKhyeDF2lYkf05NHZMPE8&hl=en&sa=X&ei=VT8BVbK6LfLjsASk-oLoBw&ved=0CCkQ6AEwAzgU#v=onepage&q=chess%20illegal%20move%20penalty%20king&f=false

Thanks Landloch, I appreciate your reponse.  

I'm not sure if everything (the anecdote, the rules, the Chess Notes) is saying the same thing.  The rules and the story someone sent to Winter seem to indicate that if an illegal move is made with a piece or pawn, and there are no legal moves for that piece or pawn, the player must then move his King, if possible, rather than any piece or pawn of his choosing.  While this rule doesn't apply today, it at least has some merit and makes a certain amount of sense.

In the Blackburne anecdote above, Harrwitz made an illegal move with his attacked Knight as a diversion that was meant to indicate that he wanted to move that piece (although he really wanted it captured) but was now forced to move the King.  As I read it, there's no other way to interpret this other than he did have a legal move for the Knight (otherwise, why the charade?) but wanted to forfeit the opportunity of taking seeming advantage of move that "saved" his Knight.

So, I interpret the anecdote as saying that if a player attempts an illegal move with a piece of pawn, the default is always to move the King if possible, while the rules seem to state that the default is to move that piece to a legal square and, only if that isn't possible, to move the King (again, if possible).

I agree with your assessment Batgirl; the rules, etc. and the Blackburne anecdote don't jibe. I wonder was there ever an any illegal move = king move rule? Or might the Blackburne story be apocaphyl (not that he made it up, but that it was attributed to him)? 

I don't know if the Blackburne story was contrived by the editors (or by Blackburne himself).  It's from an Australian newspaper and Blackburne did tour Australia in 1885 (though the story didn't appear in the ACB until 1915).  Blackburne supposedly could spin a yarn, but it doesn't seem likely he would confuse the rules of chess at that time or even in Harrwitz' time. However, the story seems completely impossible to relate without the force King move and the possiblitiy of a saving Knight move.

Here's a little bit more on the topic, although it does not slove the mystery.

http://en.chessbase.com/post/edward-winter-s-che-explorations-56-/42

Thanks.  That was a pretty interesting side story.  Although it doesn't answer thequestion about the forced King move, it does show how anecdotes get around.

The amount of research and work going into something you share with us for fee is amazing.

Thanks a lot for yet another high quality article

Hey Dirty_Sandbagger, I'm just happy when someone enjoys any of it.

I know it's Wikipedia which can have accuracy issues, but it does talk about the history of the touch-move rule:

The touch-move rule has existed for centuries. In the Middle Ages strict rules were considered necessary because chess was played for stakes. Luis Ramirez de Lucena gave the rule in his 1497 book Arte de Axdres (Sunnucks 1970:462). Benjamin Franklin referred to it in his 1786 essay The morals of chess (Truzzi 1974:14).[7] At one time the rule also required the player who played an illegal move to move his king. In the first half of the nineteenth century, Rule XIII of the London Chess Club provided:

If a player make a false move, i.e., play a Piece or Pawn to any square to which it cannot legally be moved, his adversary has the choice of three penalties; viz., 1st, of compelling him to let the Piece or Pawn remain on the square to which he played it; 2nd, to move correctly to another square; 3rd, to replace the Piece or Pawn and move his King. (Staunton 1848:37) (Marache 1866:24)

While this rule existed, it occasionally led to tragicomedies such as in the 1893 game between Lindermann and Echtermeyer, at Kiel.[8] In that game, after 1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Qxd5 White, probably intending the usual 3.Nc3, instead placed his queen's bishop on c3. Since that move was illegal, White was compelled to instead move his king. After the forced 3.Ke2??, Black gave checkmate with 3...Qe4# (Chernev 1974:119).

In England, the 1862 laws of the British Chess Association rejected the above rule. The Association's Law VII provided instead that if a player made an illegal move, "he must, at the choice of the opponent, and according to the case, either move his own man legally, capture the man legally, or move any other man legally moveable." (Gossip & Lipschütz 1902:31) (Steinitz 1889:xxi).[9] The German chess master Siegbert Tarrasch wrote in The Game of Chess (originally published in 1931 as Das Schachspiel) that the former rule requiring a player who made an illegal move to move his king had only been changed a few years earlier (Tarrasch 1938:37).[10]

Thanks LesuhAn.  It's interesting that in these old, pre-codification rules that the opponent had his choice of three penaltied for the player who made an illegal move.   I wonder what the primary source of that information is?

It seems that the wiki article doesn't correspond with Staunton's rule for the 2nd London International Tounament or 1862:

However, an ealier work, "Amusements in Chess," by Charles Tomlinson, gives wiki's explanation:

Tomlinson's 1845 work was before there were tournaments to speak of.  The London 1851 called on participants to follow the rules given by Surratt in his "New Treatise on the Game of Chess." Unfortunately, in both an 1821 copy and an 1828 copy, just as Sarratt starts to discuss this rule, the text ends unnaturally.

Nice research, Batgirl. :) Perhaps, you should add your information to Wikipedia!

I've written about a dozen articles for wiki and have given input on several dozen more. I really don't like the cliquish and insolent nature of many of the editors, but I figure I've paid my dues for my use of the site.