Friday 8 June 2007

Add another to the collection

To prove that it isn't just kids who walk into stalemates, here's another for the collection. Played at the ANU Chess Club on Wednesday night, White had been winning for a while but both players were short of time (down to the 10s increment) and were basically blitzing out their moves. In the position Black had just moved Kb8 and White ,thinking the promotion path was clear, played that semi-fatal d7. As both players were short on time, neither of them realised what had happened, and it was only after Black tried to move his King into check (and was stopped by the arbiter) that it become clear to them that the game was over.
Now some people might argue that at that time limit Black should either be allowed to play an illegal move (and suffer some penalty) or that Black may even lose on time before realising it is stalemate, but the FIDE rules on this are clear.

5.2
  1. The game is drawn when the player to move has no legal move and his king is not in check. The game is said to end in `stalemate`. This immediately ends the game, provided that the move producing the stalemate position was legal.

No comments: