Updated FIDE Laws of Chess
FIDE review the Laws of Chess regularly and revise them where necessary. The last revision was in 2018 and that introduced, among other things, 3 new categories of illegal moves under Article 7. This time the amendments are not so significant but there is one change that needs to be noted.
Penalties in Rapid Chess
Previously for an illegal move in Rapidplay the opponent would receive 2 extra minutes. This has now changed to 1 minute, the same as in Blitz.
This also, applies to Article 9 where a draw claim is found to be incorrect.
In standard play chess the penalty remains at 2 minutes.
A Standard play game is one where either all the moves must be completed in a fixed time of 60 minutes or more for each player: or the time allotted to each player plus 60 times any increment is of 60 minutes or more for each player (e.g. a time control of 50 minutes plus 10 seconds increment is standard play)
A Rapidplay game is one where either all the moves must be completed in a fixed time of more than 10 minutes but less than 60 minutes for each player: or the time allotted plus 60 times any increment is of more than 10 minutes but less than 60 minutes for each player (e.g. a time control of 20minutes plus 10 seconds is a Rapidplay game)
A Blitz game is one where all the moves must be completed in a fixed time of 10 minutes or less for each player; or the allotted time plus 60 times any increment is 10 minutes or less (e.g. 3 minutes plus 2 seconds is a Blitz game).
Resignation
Previously Article 5.1.2 read “The game is won by the player whose opponent resigns. This immediately ends the game.
This has been amended to “The game is lost by the player who declares he resigns (this immediately ends the game), unless the position is such that the opponent cannot checkmate the players king by any possible series of legal moves. In this case the result is a draw.”
A small change to avoid interpretation problems in cases such as when a player resigns against a bare King, in a drawn position, or both opponents resign simultaneously. I think it will only be able to be applied at an event where an arbiter is present to view and interpret the result and is mainly to cover situations where the players were unclear as to what was agreed.
Semantics
Although the rules are for women and men, they previously used him/he/his and this has now been changed to he/she, him/her, or his/her.
We don’t stop the clock, but we pause the clock and Article 6.11.4 has been amended accordingly. Too literal reading of stopping the clock could have led players to turn off the clock during the game, so this amendment should avoid that.
Chess players don’t “write” the moves: but they “record them using a pen on a traditional scoresheet or using an electronic scoresheet. This change to the Laws now recognises the possibility of using electronic scoresheets.
John Wickham