Tromsø 2.1: World Cup Snapshots

The FIDE World Cup is a knockout, starting with 128 players, with two games (90 min for 40 moves + 30 min for the rest, with 30 seconds increment) between pairs of players. The tiebreaks consist of two rapid games (25 min + 10 sec), then two accelerated games (10 min + 10 sec), and finally an Armageddon. The winner and the runner-up of the World Cup 2013 will qualify for the Candidates Tournament of the next World Championship cycle. The venue is the city of Tromsø, which lies in the northern-most region of Norway, almost 400 km inside the Arctic Circle. You can find all details and links to many ChessBase articles on Tromsø here. The World Cup starts on Sunday, August 11th and lasts until September 3rd (tiebreaks, closing ceremony). Each round lasts three days, while the final will consist of four classical games. Thursday August 29 is a free day. A detailed schedule can be found here.

World Cup Snapshots

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If you click on White's 65th move, and then on the 67th and 69th in the JavaScript player above you will see that the position occurs three times (with the same side to move).

We are told by Paul Truong, who captured it all with his camera, that the following transpired: Wang Hao claimed the threefold repetition, but did so without having written down the move that would lead to it. That is an incorrect procedure.

The arbiter awarded Dreev three extra minutes as a penalty for Wang. After his clock started to run again Wang wrote down his move and made the claim again, with only seven seconds to spare. At this time, it then became an official draw.

What Dreev now claimed, very emphatically, was that his opponent had to make a move first. This is incorrect: if Wang had done that he would have lost his right to make his claim. So even world class players sometimes do not know the rules. Here is the relevant paragraph in the FIDE Laws of Chess:

9.2 The game is drawn upon a correct claim by the player having the move, when the same position, for at least the third time (not necessarily by a repetition of moves):

a. is about to appear, if he first writes his move on his scoresheet and declares to the arbiter his intention to make this move, or

b. has just appeared, and the player claiming the draw has the move.

Positions as in (a) and (b) are considered the same, if the same player has the move, pieces of the same kind and colour occupy the same squares, and the possible moves of all the pieces of both players are the same.
Positions are not the same if a pawn that could have been captured en passant can no longer be captured in this manner. When a king or a rook is forced to move, it will lose its castling rights, if any, only after it is moved.

Explanation of the arbiter Ashot Vardapetyan

The situation is very simple. Let us again discuss it:

1. Before claiming a draw, Wang Hao offered a draw to his opponent as it is obvious that after the planned move is made, the position will be repeated three times. Getting no response from his opponent, Wang Hao claimed a draw by telling the planned move to the arbiter.
2. The arbiter was right when he did not react on the claim as there was an obvious failure in procedure. Then after the second claim, the arbiter felt that Wang’s incorrect procedure claim disturbed his opponent. Because of this, he stopped the clock.
3. The Chief Arbiter added time to Dreev's time to punish Wang Hao for disturbing his opponent. This is in accordance to the rule.
4. Dreev did not understand why his time was added, telling all that he has no connection with any of this.
5. Finally, after clarifying the situation and adding more time to Dreev’s clock, the arbiter re-started the clock.
   
   Here, let us make a note: in fact, no claim of draw (neither correct nor incorrect) is recorded at this moment since Wang did not write down his next intended move on the score sheet. There was only wrong behavior (procedure failure) that disturbed the opponent in time trouble. At least this was recorded by the arbiters.
    
6. The fact that Wang Hao told the move he was planning to make could have no consequence as the move was not written down.
7. It was clear that Wang Hao understood his mistake after the arbiter’s first intervention (and not after the arbiter’s tip) and was indifferent to the punishment of adding time to his opponent’s clock.
8. He wrote down the move immediately after the game was restarted, stopped the clock, and claimed a draw with no procedure failure, according to the FIDE Rules of Chess.
   
   Let us note that in the first case, if he wrote down a move which would bring to incorrect claim, indeed, he would make exactly that move and on that move he would have no right of three times repetition claim.
    
9. Then Dreev, probably, taking into no account of that nuance claimed that his opponent lost the right of claim on that move and all the rest conversations and explanations were only and only on that issue.
10. Finally, the two sides agreed on threefold repetition and no checking of position was required as the claim of draw is also the draw offer that is recorded immediately upon the sides agreeing to it.

I would like to thank all the minority who made the efforts to invite attention on the facts rather than speculation as there was really no mistake by the arbiters in this case.

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