Win, loss or draw? What do the rules say?

Suppose this position comes up in a tournament:

Hvit claims he wins. Black has lost on time, and white has enough material to mate.

Black claims he wins. Though his time is out, any legal way to continue the game ends in White being mated. White's only legal replay is Bxg3, then Black has only two legal moves: hxg3 mate or fxg3 mate.

A spectator claims it's a draw. The rules specify that a game is drawn when a player's flag falls, and the opponent cannot checkmate by any series of legal moves.

Who is right?

Never mind, I see the problem now.

Unless there's some arcane rule I don't know about, the game looks like a draw to me.

Black is out of time and there's no mate on the board. Black definitely does not win.

White is making a claim of time expired, and that claim is valid. So white now wins or draws.

The rules of chess then say that there must be a checkmate possible through a sequence of legal moves for white to win. That is not the case. Therefore the match is a draw.

i would have to say white wins. if it was immediate mate for black, then u could argue for black. however, since it takes another move to mate, white wins on time.

If the clock wasn't hit in time then the move doesn't count as being made. My friend had a very similar situation happen to him. Mate was on the board but the clock wasn't hit in time. It was ruled as a lose for him.

I'm not an expert by any means, but I don't believe that the game is over until your opponent *calls* time, not just when your time runs out. If the player moved the piece, released on the square and hit his clock (even if it was out of time) before the opponent called time, the move is supposed to count.

When I made the example, I assumed White noticed in time that the time had expired. We can assume this is the order of the events: Black releases his queen on g3 - the time exipres - White claims the time has expired - Black hits the clock. The players agree on this order.

From the rules, Article 6.9:

"[...] if a player does not complete the prescribed number of moves in the allotted time, the game is lost by the player. However, the game is drawn, if the position is such that the opponent cannot checkmate the player’s king by any possible series of legal moves."

It's pretty clear from this that White has not won, as there is no possible series of legal moves leading to Black being checkmated. White has sufficient material, but that is irrelevant.

My concern was more about whether Black could claim a win. The mentioned rule says it's a draw, but chess rules must be understood from their intention. I read the intention of 6.9 as "when your opponent runs out of time, you cannot claim more than what is theoretically possible from the position". It rarely happens that an unfinished game has no other leagel outcome than one mating the other, so therefore it was not mentioned when making the rules. But it sounds not logical to (A) disallow White a point when he only can make a halfpoint in the game, but (B) to allow him a halfpoint when he only can loose in the game.

So when reading the rules literally, it's a draw, but from the intention of the rules, it sounds possible (for me at least) to give Black the victory.

But I am not sure, and that's why I started this topic.

If you release your piece and checkmate before your time is out, it doesn't matter if you hit the button to late. This was the immediate answer from an arbiter when I asked him, and it also agrees with the chess rules:

Article 6.9: "Except where one of the Articles: 5.1.a, 5.1.b, 5.2.a, 5.2.b, 5.2.c applies, if a player does not complete the prescribed number of moves in the allotted time, the game is lost by the player."

Article 5.1 a: "The game is won by the player who has checkmated his opponent’s king. This immediately ends the game, provided that the move producing the checkmate position was a legal move."

It's important to separate between when a move has been made (you have released the piece) and when it has been completed (the clock has been hit). When you have made a mating move, the game is over and you cannot loose the game, even if your time runs out after the move is made, but before the move is completed. At least, this is how I have read about it, but correct med if I'm wrong.

Don't know if this applies to the case of your friend though...

The trouble with your reasoning, lubaza is that the checkmate position comes "after" the final move was made by black. He/She no longer has time to deliver the Checkmating move..

I agree that this is a draw when black's flag falls after ...Qg3+ (i.e. if this flag fall is indicated by white or by the arbiter after the move ...Qg3+).

White cannot win with any sequence of legal moves, so this is not a win for white.

Black has not managed to mate his opponent in the time he had on his clock, so black does not win (If the checkmate position is reached on the board, that ends the game even if the flag falls before pressing the clock. In this position, checkmate is not reached, so black does not win when his flag falls in this position.)

In short:

Black's flag fell while white cannot mate black with any sequence of legal moves, and the position on the board is not yet the checkmate for black, so this is a draw.

After Fides Laws of Chess, its a draw, because of Law 6,9

http://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=124&view=article

This looks like a perfect opportunity for testing your "chess laws" skills.

under the rules cited, it seems drawn.

However, from a personal perspective, I would prefer to see the mate take precidence over the clock: black ought to win, so long as he knows that the win is forced.

Blackadder, some similar examples:

When you're up a queen and a king versus a lone king, you know that you have a forced mate in something like 10 moves or less, but you will still have to be able to put that mate on the board within the time you have on your clock if you wish to win this in time trouble or in a blitz game.

Same thing with king, knight and bishop versus the lone king: This is a forced mate in something like 35 moves or less, but you will have to be able to show this on the board within your time if necessary.

Having a position that is winning by force does not relieve you of the necessity of making your moves within the time you have and of showing that you can win it.

I should have been more clear by my use of the word "force"...

really I meant "where it is impossible to do anything but win" ... eg. Q+K vs K isn't "forced" in this sense because you could always blunder away the queen. I mean, a position where ALL legal moves lead to mate (eg. post#1), not some.

Gee, lubaza, it's a good thing you started this thread; after reading through the responses, I'm truly shocked that so few people (only Crudus and FullmetalAlchemist, so far) understand the FIDE rules regarding this matter!

In this (unlikely) situation, White would win on time. Because Black failed to hit the clock before his flag fell, Qg3+ was never really "played", technically speaking (as Crudus has already pointed out). Therefore, a legal continuation would be: 1...Qh7  2.Qa1 Qb1  3.Qh8#, ending in checkmate for White. The only exception to this rule occurs when a game-ending move is made (checkmate/stalemate/valid call of threefold repetition or 50-moves rule); when this happens, the game is over and the clocks become irrelevant.

Getting back to lubaza's hypothetical scenario, the game would have been drawn if Black had managed to hit the button in time, but then his flag fell immediately after Bxg3 (before he had time to even reach for either of his pawns that could deliver mate). If Black, in this case, had been even faster, he could have won with fxg3/hxg3#, even if he was unable to hit the button before time expired.

Hope this helps   

Cobra, an FIDE rules issue with your evaluation:

"4.6

When, as a legal move or part of a legal move, a piece has been released on a square, it cannot be moved to another square on this move. The move is then considered to have been made"

The piece was released on the square, so it has been made but not completed. Regardless, no other legal move is allowable for that move. Qh7 is not longer a legal option, and there are no legal options that lead to mate

I'd feel that way, but my chess play continually proves that nobody is stupid but me :)

Blackadder, sorry for having created confusion by choosing a wording that was more general than absolutely necessary.

Even if the moves are the forced only possible moves, one still needs to have the time to make them on the board in order to win the game by giving mate.

The rules do not spare anyone from playing out the entire game until mate even in such cases. (The only one who can do that is the opponent who could end the game by resigning.)

I've had something similar happen to me in one of my games. My understanding is, and this was probably mentioned in the previous comments, that if the Qg3+ move is made then it's a draw (since there is no possible way that White can win). If, however, the Qg3+ move is not made then it's a loss for Black because there are sequences of moves (ie Qxg2+) which can lead to a win for White.

 This rule is frequently misinterpretted; all it means is that the player who moved the piece can no longer take back his move. However, the move is not officially recorded until after the player actually hits the clock.

To illustrate this, let's say that some really poor sport makes a huge blunder, and then just before hitting the button he realizes his mistake. He cannot take back the move, but instead of continuing the game he simply storms out of the room. His actual losing move would not be recorded; instead, he would lose on time, with the game's "last move" having been made by his opponent.

In the instance presented by the OP, the last move Qg3+ is invalidated as soon as the flag falls (because the move does not actually give checkmate, or end the game in any other way), thus any next move by Black (such as 1...Qh7) is a valid determinant of whether White can mate via a legal continuation.