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Welcome to USCF's Correspondence Chess Forum. We frequently offer a topic for discussion but welcome comments related to any topic already in the CC Forum. We do insist that the tone of the comments be offered and presented in a professional manner. USCF has sole discretion regarding comments not being appropriate for posting on its website. This area is an excellent opportunity for Correspondence Chess players to be heard and be involved in making USCF Correspondence Chess even better.

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The new topic for discussion in July is: What are your thoughts?

(This article was written for publication in Chess Life)

USCF Correspondence Chess committee chairperson, Harold Stenzel, recently notified the members of that committee about several rules which he and I, (Joan DuBois, Correspondence Chess Director) are evaluating. We offer a Correspondence Chess Forum area on our websitein an effort to generate feedback about various aspects of USCF's CC program.

Please feel free to write me at the USCF regarding any of the following items (and other items) if you would like the committee to evaluate them.

Offering of several Thematic events.

Time Forfeits: Should all events carry a rule whereby on a first offense a forfeit should occur or continue with the current procedure in that this would occur oonly in certain events and in all other events issue a warning on a first offense and if rules are violated again, forfeit? If you agree that a "no warning" procedure for a rule violation should occur, perhaps rule violations should each carry a specific time penalty? If a player has too many rule violations, the player would eventually run out of time and thus be forfeited? For each repeated violation of the rules, time penalty would increase (5 days for 1st offense; 7 days for 2nd offense, etc.)?

Time Penalties: Should all events carry a five day reflection time penalty for illegal/ambiguous moves? Currently the player is subject to a five day penalty only if the event is the Absolute or the Golden Knights Finals. Should the penalty be issued by the CCD or by the opponent and only if they disagree, should the CCD intervene? Should a time penalty occur if a player accepts an "if" offer but does not reply to the "then" move? Should a time penalty occur if a player forgets to note his reply move? (Note: the penalty time is over and above the accumulated reflection time, which would not change. A player is "on move" until a legal reply move is sent.)

Claiming an overstep of the time control: The current rules require that both players mark reflection time with each card. Does this mean that if a player neglects to note this on any one of his cards, his claim will not be upheld? It seems a little too strict to disallow a claim on move 20 because a player forgot on move 2, and this could lead to abuses. We propose that in order to make a time complaint, the submitting player must have recorded reflection time on the current, previous, and over 50% of the other cards he has sent. This would mean that at least 7 of the first 10 cards would need that information. If 50% seems low, please make another suggestion.

Unnoticed Illegal Move: How many moves should the game be allowed to go beyond noticing that an illegal move was played? OTB rules note that if more than 10 additional moves have been played, the illegal move stands.

Closeout Draws: When players reach the 30 month deadline for their game they have an option to apply for adjudication. If neither player applies for adjudication the game is closed out by the CCD as a ratable draw. Should this draw be ratable or should the game just be scored on the crosstable as draw and not rated. Currently, if the draw is rated and one of the players membership has expired the computer does not rate the draw. The expired member is notified, given a chance to renew. If the player does not renew his USCF membership, the game is scored and rated as a forfeit win for the opponent.

Reporting Results: Should both players be required to report the result? Currently the winner or if the game was a draw the player who had White is required to report the result. Requiring both would increase the workload considerably and in events where players are playing more than one game with each other could result in many duplicate reports being processed as original reports. Perhaps, the current procedure should remain in place but add that the reporter of the result include either a summary of all results and/or clearly state, "one of two games", "two of two games", etc. to avoid duplicate results being scored and rated.

E-mail Rules: USCF has offered rated e-mail events since January 1997. Although the CC rules are pretty much suited for playing any correspondence chess games (post office; telephone;fax, etc.) some modifications would be called for to cover situations unique to exchanging moves via e-mail. Any ideas on this would be most helpful.

If you could send me your comments quickly, I will review them with Harold Stenzel who in turn will discuss them with the members of the Correspondence Chess Committee at the CC Workshop to be held this August 1998 at the US Open in Hawaii. We appreciate your continued support for chess with the USCF.

Joan DuBois

Correspondence Chess Director

You can respond by e-mail to [email protected] regarding this topic or any other topic of interest to correspondence players.

Current topic

Comments received related to Current Topic: Penalties for Illegal Moves/No moves

Robert N. Webb notes, "The most important thing with Rules is to know when NOT to impose them! This seems like one of those occasions. After all, the affected player cannot invoke similar treatment a second time."

Douglas Ray writes, "There is a simple way to resolve a problem as this. After a few moves you really get a feel for the kind of person you are playing. Most of the time CC Players are on the "up and up" as it were. Usually putting down a few words of correspondence lets someone know how you {they} feel about CC. Sometimes they will tell you about past games and the people they encountered, for better or worse. Now the point. We must be able to trust our opponent, leaving it up to the other to prove his or her honor. This is a major part of postal play. Without that simple choice what's the point? The best method is to let players deal with things of this nature between themselves, and not by rules that discount our belief in our fellow CC players. Till next time...."

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