It seems time to share another thing that occurred this past weekend as a Tournament Director at a scholastic tournament. Although I did not witness it directly, there was a sufficiently informal investigation into it to merit a description of it. Unfortunately, the "wrong" could not be "fixed" due to the fact that the game had ended and both players had reported and accepted the result and no TDs were involved until it was too late.

Remember one of the core principles in a tournament is that the game is between the players. The Tournament Director is almost never going to intervene except in very specific situations. Remember that principle and you can understand and even predict what a TD is likely to do even if you don't know the explicit rules in play. The Tournament Directors are there to make a tournament run smoothly and correctly and to arbitrate when one or more players request clarification, assistance or make a claim of some sort.

The rule in question is the Touch-Move rule. This rule, when invoked is especially dreaded in scholastic tournaments as it often means a death sentence. For kids, it is also very often a psychological hit of heavy proportions.
In this last weekend's case, what seems to have happened was that there was an older more seasoned tournament player playing a younger player with far less experience in tournaments. Their rating difference was also a rating difference of more than 200 points in favor of the older player. The younger player reached with his right hand to move a piece and inadvertently touched another piece with his wrist. The older player immediately said "Touch Move!" to his opponent. The young opponent tried to explain that it was accidental but the older player insisted that the rule was the rule and that the touched piece had to be moved. After a while the younger player caved in and moved his touched piece. Not too long after that the younger player lost. No doubt being forced to move a piece he didn't intend to had something to do with it from a psychological perspective as well as a tactical perspective.

At no time in the above situation did either player raise their hand or ask for a Tournament Director for a ruling or clarification. The players talked between themselves. As Tournament Directors, we often tell kids that in any dispute or situation where they are unsure, they can and should call for a TD.

Let's see what the rule book says:

10E. Accidental touch of piece. A director who believes a player touched a piece by accident should not require the player to move that piece. For example, a player’s hand reaching across the board may inadvertently brush the top of a nearby king or queen, or a player may hit a piece with an elbow….

So, clearly accidental cases of touching a piece as described above is not a valid case of Touch-Move.

Let's also look at another aspect of Touch-Move claims:

TD TIP: Without a neutral witness Rule 10 depends on the reliability of both the claimant and the opponent. If they disagree then the TD should strongly consider denying the claim. In most cases, by denying the claim the TD shuts the door to all false claims. Upholding a false claim usually does more harm to more players than denying an accurate claim.

Chess parents please pay attention. Now is the time to teach your kid this if you don't want the above scenario to happen to your child. The TD cannot be watching every game and we sure don't have video cameras around like the NFL so we can't do instant replay. Maybe someday I'll stick up a video camera on the top board or two but it is a lot easier for your kid to learn this now than having to suffer from an inadvertent Touch-Move claim.

What TDs have been known to do on Touch-Move claims is to give a warning and to stick close by and even watch the game. In the above situation that happened this past Saturday, some might speculate if the older player uses this kind of tactic on younger more naive players to rattle them into losing. Maybe; maybe not. In any case, I'll tell you something else about TDs and frequent Touch-Move claims from specific kids. Some TDs tend to remember who the claimants are and they keep an eye out whenever those claimants play at tournaments they work at.