Chess - The Ethics of Tournaments
The rules of a chess tournament go beyond the way to act on the board. There is an ethic code do follow. It is illegal to use any kind of help, to disturb the opponent or to agree to a result beforehand. Like in any other kind of competition, these manners may lead to a warning, an exclusion or even a suspension of the sinner or sinners.
A chess-tournament is not fun. It is a kind of mental boxing, and it is psychologically very violent. For these reasons, there are rules that build an ethic frame of what is authorized and what is forbidden behavior.
Here are some of the things that are forbidden by the code of ethics:
- To give wrong information about your Elo-score.
- To read notes or books while playing.
- To distract your opponent by talking or by behaving in a disturbing way.
- To talk to other players about the game at hand.
- To walk out of the room when it is your turn to move, except if you have warned the arbiter first.
- To smoke in the game-room.
- Not to put the piece you are playing correctly on the board.
- To keep on asking for a draw, even if it is not your turn to ask (when your opponent refuses the draw, the right to ask passes over to him).
- To gaze at your opponent for a long time.
- To express feelings, like fear, regret, self confidence, loudly.
- To offer a draw to your opponent when it is his turn to play.
- To write your note on your scoresheet in an unreadable or incomplete way.
- To eat in an obvious way, for example, by putting your plate, knife and fork beside the board.
In the open tournament of Nice (France) in 2001, there was this Italian player who kept his jacket on his knees and who very often checked out what time it was by taking his watch from the pocket of the jacket. He was consulting a mini chess-computer. This kind of behavior is, of course, forbidden and relatively easy to catch and stop.
When you look at the results of any tournaments, you may note, that there are many draws. Too many to be true. This is because some players contact each other and agree to play a draw. Depending on how the tournament works out, it may be important for both players neither to lose, nor to win. So they play around 10 moves and end up agreeing to a draw. This is a very used, and illegal behavior, but very difficult to prove.
A chess-tournament is not fun. It is a kind of mental boxing, and it is psychologically very violent. For these reasons, there are rules that build an ethic frame of what is authorized and what is forbidden behavior.
Here are some of the things that are forbidden by the code of ethics:
- To give wrong information about your Elo-score.
- To read notes or books while playing.
- To distract your opponent by talking or by behaving in a disturbing way.
- To talk to other players about the game at hand.
- To walk out of the room when it is your turn to move, except if you have warned the arbiter first.
- To smoke in the game-room.
- Not to put the piece you are playing correctly on the board.
- To keep on asking for a draw, even if it is not your turn to ask (when your opponent refuses the draw, the right to ask passes over to him).
- To gaze at your opponent for a long time.
- To express feelings, like fear, regret, self confidence, loudly.
- To offer a draw to your opponent when it is his turn to play.
- To write your note on your scoresheet in an unreadable or incomplete way.
- To eat in an obvious way, for example, by putting your plate, knife and fork beside the board.
In the open tournament of Nice (France) in 2001, there was this Italian player who kept his jacket on his knees and who very often checked out what time it was by taking his watch from the pocket of the jacket. He was consulting a mini chess-computer. This kind of behavior is, of course, forbidden and relatively easy to catch and stop.
When you look at the results of any tournaments, you may note, that there are many draws. Too many to be true. This is because some players contact each other and agree to play a draw. Depending on how the tournament works out, it may be important for both players neither to lose, nor to win. So they play around 10 moves and end up agreeing to a draw. This is a very used, and illegal behavior, but very difficult to prove.
