Wednesday 6 April 2016

Even in death

I have just completed my Tournament Directors exam for the ICCF, and thankfully I passed. The one question I did get wrong is one that is almost unique to Correspondence Chess, although OTB Arbiters might be interested in what it says.
It concerns the occasional occurrence of a player dying during an event, and how to handle uncompleted games. Opponents can either just claim a draw (the default case) or claim a win, submitting analysis to support this claim. The specific question was what score can a player receive if they follow this path. My answer of 'win or draw only' was actually incorrect due to one specific section.
A deceased player is considered to also be claiming a draw but without supporting analysis (obviously). If it turns out that the position is a 6 piece table base win for the deceased player, then the rules state that they are awarded the win. So even in death it is possible to score that one last victory!

2 comments:

Jim said...

Now I am curious! Has any deceased player ever won a Tournament as a result of the application of that rule?

Anonymous said...

I love it. Great trivia question.