Like other sports, chess has its own code of conduct and its own idea of what constitutes sporting and unsporting behaviour. Some types of bad behaviour are expressely forbidden. For example you are not allowed to move a piece with one hand and press the clock with the other (Article 6.2.3 of the FIDE Laws of Chess), because this is an artificial attempt to shorten one’s own clock time and lengthen the opponent’s clock time. It is also forbidden to distract or annoy the opponent in any way during the game (Article 11.5).
One might argue that chess etiquette simply reflects the more general obligation to treat other human beings with respect and consideration. So, although not required by the rules of the game, it is the done thing to shake your opponent’s hand at the start and end of the game, and to say something polite like “Good luck” at the start and “Well played” or “Thanks for the game” at the end.
Not everyone behaves correctly, or course. Some of my opponents have remarked at the end of the game, “You were lucky to win that,” or “This was not one of your better games,” or “Tonight you did not play to your grade” (say that last one in a Russian accent and you’ll know who I mean).
Similar considerations apply in online correspondence chess, although notions of etiquette may seem more remote when you cannot see or hear your opponent. “Distracting your opponent” doesn’t have the same force when you have days rather than minutes to make a move, and you don’t have to sit at the computer or stay in the same room the whole time.
Even so, I was told at the start of my correspondence career that it is good practice at the start of a game to send a greeting or best wishes to your opponent. And I can see the point of ending the game on a gracious note as well. I regard this sort of thing as a virtual handshake.
What happens if your opponent does something during the game to which you object, but which is not serious enough to engage the ICCF code of conduct? For example if your opponent turns down a draw offer in a position which is objectively drawn, simply because he is higher-rated. This is, in my view, a sign of disrespect. I am often tempted to make some cutting remark in a message with my next move. Maybe “You must be either arrogant or stupid.” Or “I can recommend a basic guide to rook and pawn endings.” Or just “Seriously?”
However, I have so far managed to restrain myself. I know that it would be unacceptable to say these things over the board and I am trying to apply the same standards online. It’s better to remain silent and just keep on making moves.
Even so, I don’t think players should be able to get away with it, so I do allow myself a little licence. In respect of abortive draw offers, when the game comes to an end I don’t make the usual pleasant remark. Instead I say nothing at all. This is the virtual equivalent of refusing to shake hands. It doesn’t have the same effect if your opponent cannot see you ignoring his outstretched hand, but I feel that I am making a point, at least virtually.
Another, more concrete, way of expressing disapproval is if your opponent unreasonably declines your draw offer and the position later simplifies to one with 7 or fewer pieces on the board and so is amenable to a tablebase claim. In these situations I will (obviously) check that the tablebase verdict is going to be a draw, then I will simply claim the draw without making a further offer. Similarly if my opponent plays on in a losing position and we reduce to 7 pieces, I will simply claim a tablebase win.
By extension, if a position is drawn, and there are 7 or fewer pieces on the board, and neither side has made a draw offer, I regard it as bad practice to claim the tablebase draw without first offering the draw to your opponent.
Over the board chess is strictly time-limited and you do have to get on with things. In blitz you have to move so fast there is hardly time to calculate – you have to rely on knowledge and intuition to get you through. Even in the longest time controls at standardplay, you need a sense of purpose. You can’t just sit there wool-gathering.
By contrast, in correspondence chess you have so much time. The standard is 10 moves in 50 days (sometimes 40 or 30 days but it makes no real difference). When you have played 10 moves, another 50 days are added to your clock. If you used all your time then a really long game of 100 moves would take an elapsed period of nearly 18 months out of your life. Who needs that much time to play a game of chess? How long do you need to find the best move and play it?
My own approach is to use up only as much time as it takes and no more. I have the best commercially-available computer with the fastest processor running the strongest chess engines. It takes anything from a few minutes to an hour or two; and then I’m satisfied that waiting any longer is not going to improve the quality of the move, so I make the move. As a result, I always have the maximum time available although I never need it.
Some of my opponents seem to have a similar approach. Our games are played at a fast tempo with several moves being exchanged each day. The record for my completed games is vs the Italian player Mario Palladino where we each made 34 moves in less than one day. In just under 10% of my completed games, each player made at least 10 moves a day. Sometimes I get a message from my opponent at the end of the game thanking me for playing at a fast pace (the unspoken point is that many players slow the game down).
I wouldn’t want people to conclude that I and my opponents in these games think too fast and don’t play the best moves. We take as much time as we need and often that isn’t long at all.
But this post is going to be a rant, so now I’m going to focus on players who take much more time than they need. These seem to fall into two main categories.
First, players who realise they are losing and play as slowly as possible. Either they want to delay their final hours as long as they can, or they simply lose interest and the game becomes their lowest priority in life.
Second, players who take the maximum time available even if they don’t need it. This approach is diametrically-opposed to mine and I am still trying to understand the reasoning. It may be psychological.
Let’s start with an extreme example of the first category. This is my game against Player C. He is from Latvia, he has been playing correspondence chess for over 30 years, and his rating is currently similar to mine, although it was over 2500 at one point. The game is so short that I’m simply going to give all the moves.
Player C v Rodney Barking 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.Qc2 0-0 5.a3 Bxc3+ 6.bxc3?! Very unusual. 6.Qxc3 is almost always played, preserving the purity of the pawn structure. Otherwise why take a move putting the queen on c2 in the first place? 6…c5 7.e4 c5 8.e5 Ne4 9.Bd3 Nc6 10.Ne2 cxd4 All this has been played before. There are 11 games in my database. White normally recaptures with 11.cxd4. But in this game… 11.Kf1?? I do not understand this move. It leaves White a pawn down with misplaced pieces and no compensation. The evaluation goes from about 0.00 to –2.5. Maybe it was a mouse-slip and he meant to play 11.0-0 although even that loses a pawn and White doesn’t have enough for it. 11…dxc3 12.Bxe4 dxe4
Now White can’t take the pawn on e4 because it’s mate next move on d1. Taking the pawn on c3 with the queen leaves Black two pawns up: 13.Qxc3 Qd1+ 14.Qe1 Qxe1+ 15.Kxe1 Nxe5. So does taking on c3 with the knight: 13.Nxc3 Qd4 and the c4 pawn drops. Developing moves like 13.Be3 allow 13…Qd3 with an overwhelming position.
So far my opponent had taken 4 days for his 12 moves, not lighting-fast but still a reasonable pace. But now he stopped. I waited. And I waited. Maybe it was the horror show in front of him but he did not make any more moves at all. 41 calendar days later, the server automatically terminated the game with a loss on time for White. The relevant provision in the 2023 ICCF Rules is section 2.6.2:
If a player does not move or otherwise indicate the player’s intention to continue during 40 full calendar days (plus 24 hours’ buffer time, not including any leave time) for the same move, the game will be scored as an ETL (exceed time limit) loss.
And there’s a further penalty beyond losing on time. Section 2.4.4 provides:
A player who has exceeded the time allowed shall forfeit the game. If the player is not under any ICCF suspension when this occurs, the player will be restricted from registering for any event on the server for a period of 30 days.
So Player C will not be able to sign up for any new events for a whole month. But it does not affect his participation in any existing events. As it happens, Player C is part of the lineup for an event which has already been organised but has not yet started, in which I am also playing. That’s going to be interesting.
I did wonder whether his failure to move in this game might reflect some traumatic event in his life which had taken him away from the chess board and for which he had not taken the period of leave which the server allows. But that is not the case. During the 45 days in which the event has been running, Player C has completed 7 of his allotted 16 games as well as losing this one on time. So it was just a one-off personal tragedy of a game.
That was a case of a player delaying the game through loss of interest. Here’s a more common case where a player realises he is losing but continues to play, although at a much slower rate. I was White against Player D, who is from Poland. At the start of the game he outrated me by about 130 points.
Earlier in the game (by move 18) I had won the exchange through a tactic which my opponent did not see. I guess he was playing without engine assistance at that point. This is the position after White’s move 37. My opponent had already started to slow the game down. His moves 1 to 28 took only 11 days. Moves 29 to 36 took a further 60 days. And now he is clearly losing. My immediate plan is to push the c-pawn to c7, then play Rc4 forcing him to move his knight, then capture his advanced pawn on a2. After this the game is trivial.
My opponent must have worked out this was going to happen because he slowed the game down even further. The game continued 37…Qc6 38.Qxc6 Nxc6 39.Rxa2 after which queens are off the board, I’ve rounded up the a2 pawn, and I have the exchange and two pawns with a completely won position. His moves 37 to 38 took a further 40 days.
The ICCF recognises that players may slow the game down considerably in an attempt to postpone the inevitable. This strategy is known as the “Dead Man’s Defence.” Section 2.15 of the 2023 ICCF Rules concerns the Code of Conduct for players and has this to say:
Extremely slow play in a clearly lost position is not proper behaviour in correspondence chess play, and is subject to a warning from the TD, and will result in disciplinary action if it continues or is repeated in other games. This type of extremely slow play has been nicknamed the dead man’s defense (DMD). The defining characteristics are (a) being in a position that appears clearly lost presuming reasonable play AND (b) dramatically slowing play in that specific game.
The provision is activated when the opponent of the slow player makes a claim. I waited a further 10 days after my move 39 and then contacted the tournament director. He then followed the notification procedure set out in this part of the Rules, requiring my opponent to speed up and start playing at a normal rate again. There are severe penalties for a breach of the Code of Conduct, mainly taking the form of a ban from ICCF events for a certain period. At this point my opponent decided he’d had enough and he promptly resigned the game.
The ICCF does try to hurry players up if they take a long time over their moves. When a player is considering his next move, Rule 2.4.2 provides that real time applies for the first 20 days but after that double time applies (this is known as “duplication”) so that every extra day taken counts as two days on the player’s clock. The rule gives the example of a player taking 23 days over a move, which uses up 26 days on his clock. In other words, 20 days of normal time and 3 days of double time counting as 6 days on the clock.
The penalty for losing on time is based on calendar days (real time) rather than clock days. In the first example I gave, the game against Player C, the penalty was applied after 41 calendar days, but he had actually used up 62 days on his clock. He still had 38 days of clock time left in the game, but his inactivity for 41 calendar days amounted to a loss on time under the rules.
My view – others may not share this view – is that the initial period of 20 days reflection time is too generous. I think the ICCF should reduce this to 15 days or even 10 days. This raises the prospect of players running out of clock time (the clock reaches zero) before the period of 41 calendar days is used up. It would certainly focus the mind. I don’t know whether the ICCF has considered this idea.
But I now realise that this provision is the wrong target and the real problem lies elsewhere in the Rules. This brings me to the case of Player E. I am not going to give any details of his identity or the particular games in question since these are still live. Player E behaves in an extraordinary way. Whatever the standard period of time allowed for a set of 10 moves, he does nothing until almost all the time is used up and then makes a move at the last minute. So for example he might have only one day left for his next 10 moves and then he would finally make a move. You might think he would have to make 10 moves in one day to avoid his clock running out of time. But no. This is what Rule 2.4.2 provides:
Time is counted in days, not in hours, minutes, or seconds. If the first 24 hours has not yet been fully consumed, the reflection time used is counted as zero days. For the next days, a similar method of accounting time consumed will apply. Playing time is accounted for in whole days (24-hour periods). A player will have 24 hours of reflection time to respond to a move before one day of time is charged against the player’s clock by the ICCF webserver.
This means that if you have only 10 minutes remaining on your clock, and you then move, the clock resets itself to 24 hours and that is the time you have remaining for your next move. In effect you can make one move a day indefinitely and you will never lose on time. It’s similar to the incremental time control in OTB chess. You may be down to increment time on the clock (“living on the increment”), but as long as you continue to move within the increment period of, say, 30 seconds, you will never lose on time. The game will continue until it reaches its natural end. This is what happened in the infamous game T.Foster–P.Lalic (Guildford 2023) which ran to 214 moves after 7 hours of play before the final blunder and resignation.
This is being remedied in OTB chess for the next Guildford congress with a stricter time control. Should something similar be done for online correspondence chess? The obvious solution would be to remove the increment so that the clock does not reset itself to 24 hours every time you make a move. This already happens in the alternative timing arrangement known as “Triple Block” used for some ICCF events. Rule 2.4.2 sets out the relevant provision:
Time is counted in days, hours, and minutes. All time while “on-move” used counts and is never given back by rounding to the last full day.
I do not know how long Triple Block has been in use. Maybe this kind of provision is the future. It still leaves me with the problem of how to understand players who deliberately use up almost all of their time rather than only taking the time they need. I don’t think such players are simply disorganised. You have to be organised in order to make one move a day every day until you reach the next time control. I do wonder if the reason is psychological. The player is indulging in mind games by creating an expectation in his opponent’s mind of an imminent win on time, only to dash that hope at the last moment, so as to provoke the opponent into moving too quickly (“blitzing”) and making an error. Who knows? Only Player E can tell us and he’s not saying anything.
I do have one further idea to encourage quicker play. This could be implemented without any changes to the time control arrangements. The server knows how much time has elapsed in every game played by each player in an event. If there is a tie between two or more players and none of the tie-breaks can separate them, for example they have exactly the same number of points, the same number of victories, no advantage in direct encounter, and the same sum of opponents’ scores, then an additional tie-break could be implemented to favour the player who has used the least amount of elapsed time.
In what circumstances do you offer or accept a draw in online correspondence chess? I apply a number of tests.
First, I look at the position from the point of view of an experienced OTB player. Is the position simple or complicated? Is it likely to be drawn with correct play? What is my technical knowledge about this particular kind of ending?
Then I check the engine evaluation. If all the lines on all my engines point to 0.00 or close to that, I know the engines don’t think either side is winning. These engines outrate me by over 1000 points. I have to respect that.
Also I take into account my opponent’s play so far. Has he played sensible moves of the kind that a strong human or an engine would play? Does it look as though he is playing with engine support?
If all these boxes are ticked, then I will offer or accept a draw. Notice one test that’s missing – the difference between my rating and my opponent’s rating. I will gain a few points if my opponent is higher-rated and I will lose a few points if my opponent is lower-rated. That’s just how it goes. I am trying to be objective about the position.
In an ideal world, my opponents would take the same approach as me. Many of them do. Unfortunately some of them do not. Let me illustrate that with some examples.
This is from the game Rodney Barking – Player A.
Player A (not his real name) is from England. He has been playing correspondence chess for many years. He is a prominent figure in the world of English correspondence chess but as far as I can tell has never played rated OTB games. At the start of our game, he outrated me by about 150 points.
In this position, I have just played 31.Rbe1. It seemed to me that neither side could make progress. The engine evaluation was 0.00 or slightly better for me across all lines going nearly 50 moves deep. So I offered a draw… which he declined. In correspondence chess you are limited to one draw offer every 10 moves. So I had no choice but to play on.
This is the position after I played 41.Rf4. The position is even more drawish than before. The pawn structure is symmetrical. Neither side has any threats. The engine evaluation is even more firmly 0.00 at over 50 moves ahead. Again I offered a draw, and again my opponent declined.
A few moves later, queens came off leaving a rook and pawn ending that not even Magnus Carlsen could win:
At this point, after his move 49…Rd7, he offered a draw which I accepted.
I have been trying to understand why he turned down the first two draw offers. One possible explanation is that he does not understand the basic principles of chess endings and simply plays whatever move his computer recommends. Maybe he does not know that this type of position is drawn. I think this is unlikely given his high rating and his many years of experience.
A second possible explanation is that he is using a different chess engine that tells him, contrary to the range of engines that I use, that Black is winning these positions and therefore he should play on. Again I think this is unlikely. From what I know of chess engines and how they evaluate positions, none of them would regard this as a winning position. Unless maybe it had become corrupted and had accepted a bribe from Player A in the form of a promise of a processor upgrade.
The only other explanation is that Player A thought his rating advantage of 150 points was sufficient for him to outplay me from a drawn position or that I would make a mistake. In order to think this he would have to set aside the progress of the game so far, in which I (in fact both of us) have played error-free chess. He would also have had to close his mind to the possibility that I might have engine assistance, so that he is not playing a 2200-rated player but a 2200-rated player with the backup of a range of 3500-rated computers.
In short, I think he turned down the draw offers, not because an objective evaluation of the position led him to think he could win, but simply because his rating was higher than mine. That’s rating snobbery and it does him no credit.
Here’s a different example of the same thing.
This is from the game Rodney Barking – Player B (also not his real name). He is an American player who has been playing correspondence chess for less than five years. At the start of this game, he outrated me by over 350 points.
The position is quite different from the other game. It’s unbalanced and tactical in nature. Black has a dangerous advanced b-pawn. I was the exchange up, but have just offered it back by capturing his bishop on e6 (31.Rxe6). He has only one good move (recapturing the rook) – everything else loses – and then my queen and rook combine against his exposed king to force perpetual check resulting in a draw by repetition within a few moves. The engines see this instantly. The lines are forcing, and at all critical points Black’s only choice is between perpetual check or an immediate loss. So I offered a draw… which he declined.
The game continued 31…Rxe6 32.Rc8+ Kf7 (forced since 32…Kh7 33.Qd3+ wins for White) 33.Rc7+ Re7 34.Qd5+ Kg6 (the only other legal move, 34…Kf8, also results in a quick draw after 35.Qd8+ or 35.Rc8+) 35.Qd3+ Kf7 (all other moves allow a forced mate in at most 9 moves) 36.Qd5+ Kg6 and at this point he offered a draw which I accepted.
What made him refuse the initial draw offer? Any engine would have told him that the best he could hope for was a draw by repetition. Was he not using engines and relying on his own natural ability to outplay me in a tactical position?
Or was he simply making the point that chess etiquette requires the draw offer to come from the stronger player? I understand that point, but in online correspondence chess with computer backing, the concept of the “stronger player” no longer means anything. Nor does “higher-rated.” Come on guys, it’s time to join the 21st century.
We remember Fischer as the unbalanced genius who became World Champion in 1972 at the age of 29 in one of the most famous title matches ever played. The mature Fischer is both attractive – in the beauty of his play – and also disturbing in his personality. Was he always like this? What did observers make of him at the start of his chess career?
I recently came across this report of the Interzonal Tournament at Portoroz in the October 1958 edition of Chess magazine. It was closely-contested: only 2 points separated the top 11 players. Tal won the event on 13½ points, ahead of Gligoric, Benko, Petrosian, Fischer and Olafsson. The top six qualified for the 1959 Candidates’ Tournament. See the table below, from the News section of the magazine.
This section includes a long report on the event, unattributed but presumably written by Baruch Wood, the founder and editor. Here is the assessment of the young Fischer, in the kind of breathless prose that you simply don’t see these days.
Nothing short of amazing is the success of America’s Bobby Fischer. As qualifying for a Candidates’ Tournament earns the title automatically, he is already a Grand Master of Chess at fifteen – an achievement unlikely to be matched in our lifetimes, if ever.
We give later in this issue, several of his Portoroz games which all our readers will be eager to see. Cool, deep in calculation, equal to any emergency, he exhibits a power and skill almost beyond belief for his age.
Politiken recently published an article by its New York correspondent who had interviewed Bobby Fischer: “The tufts of brown, cropped hair, which cover the edges of his ears, make him look more childish and neglected than he really is. Regardless of that, however, he looks like anything rather than a chess, or, for that matter, any other sort of genius. Long fingers on his disproportionately long arms are his only prominent features. Sentimental people might think it is a pity that his poor mother, who is a divorced nurse from Brooklyn, was unable to send him to a school of music. His shoulders have already become slightly drooped, his face is yellowish pale in colour and he has a high forehead. He wore a colourful wool pullover that evening and, every now and then, he would pull into it almost the whole of his thin neck. It is only after observing him for some time that one convinces oneself that the fifteen-year-old champion is no ordinary Brooklyn teenager. He finds it more difficult to control his youthful instincts when his position is good. He is then, in his own way, more natural and likeable. His small, deeply-set eyes sparkle with confidence and joy; he can hardly keep still in his chair, he gesticulates proudly and, assuming the pose of an experienced magician, he entertains the bystanders with witty remarks at the expense of his speechless opponent. At such times, he is happy, restless, aggressive. If the luck is against him, he suddenly becomes more quiet, more serious, and turns all his attention to the chessboard, as if there were a vital decision to be made. He falls silent, bites his nails. He now looks older than his age and more like a chess player. It is easier to spot his true qualities: exceptionally quick reflexes, ability to concentrate, complete self-control, ambitious imagination and enthusiasm for the beauty of chess.”
Bobby Fischer was six when his sister taught him chess. He is fond of sports and competitive pastimes of all kinds. He is keen on learning Spanish but shelved this language for some months in preference for Russian (for obvious reasons).
He is not in the U.S. team for Munich [the 13th Chess Olympiad held in October 1958, won by the Soviet Union]. It is said he demanded a big appearance fee.
There is a sense of wonder and potential in this positive and illuminating account of this young genius. But already there are negative signs: his contempt for his opponents and his large ego.
Fischer’s games are of course very widely available. It’s interesting to compare three sources.
(1) This October 1958 edition of Chess magazine contains six of the 20 games played in the Interzonal. All given without analysis at the end of the magazine – presumably they came in too close to the copy deadline.
(2) Fischer’s own collection in “My 60 Memorable Games”, first published in 1969. This contains two of his games from the Interzonal, his draw with Black against Petrosian in a King’s Indian, and his win with White against Larsen in a Sicilian Dragon. His annotations to this game contain his famous summary of the right way to play against the Dragon: “I’d won dozens of skittles games in analogous positions and had it down to a science: pry open the h-file, sac, sac … mate!” In general his annotations are concise and clear, with analysis of the key variations.
(3) The largest part of Volume 4 of “My Great Predecessors” by Kasparov, published in 2004, is devoted to the life and games of Fischer. Kasparov covers the famous win against Larsen in nine pages of analysis and comment, which are also a commentary on Fischer’s own annotations. Kasparov finds a remarkable defence, for Larsen to offer an exchange sacrifice on move 24 in a very complicated position, which would have resulted in equality. Both Fischer and Larsen missed this.
I was interested to see this and so I played through the game and analysed it with the latest version of Stockfish (15.1). This confirms the soundness of Kasparov’s analysis of the resource 24…Rc4!, which does indeed seem to hold for Black. Kasparov goes on to say:
It is psychologically understandable why Fischer missed this possible defence in his analysis: it casts doubts on the entire conception of his commentary, beginning with ‘the losing move’ 15 … Rac8.
Kasparov may have rehabilitated the line for Black, but the original game and Fischer’s commentary have cast a long shadow. Larsen’s move 15…Rac8 has not been repeated in any recorded game since 1958, according to the very large 2023 database that I’m using.
For ease of reference, the game is available on Lichess here.
