4NCL Weekend 30 April – 2 May 2022: Roger Emerson (‘RE’)/Alexander Cherniaev (‘AC’) Incident

 

The 4NCL Management Board has considered the issues raised by the above, and our conclusions are as follows:

 

Alexander Cherniaev Eligibility

 

The Board accepts that rule 3.4 is defective in that it is silent on the question of how players with a FID registration should be treated for ECF membership purposes, and that on a plain reading of the rule AC, as a FID-registered player, was caught by the rule’s requirement and should therefore have been registered as a Gold member before being selected to play. However, rule 3.4 does not specify what penalty, if any, there should be for any breach, nor is any penalty mentioned elsewhere in the rules.

 

Under rule 14.3 ‘the Management Board may apply penalties as it sees fit for any flagrant or premeditated breaches of the spirit as well as the letter of the rules’. On the previous (rare) occasions when a player has not been registered as an ECF Gold member in time, the 4NCL’s custom and practice has been that there should be no penalty if the player is registered as soon as possible after the error is notified. In this case, Barnet Knights registered AC as a Gold member as soon as the matter was brought to the Barnet Knights captain’s attention by the Chief Arbiter.

 

Accordingly, by precedent, there was no impediment to AC playing in the 4NCL given that his membership status was addressed in a timely manner.

 

The wording of rule 3.4 has been amended to clarify that in the future any player who is a member of FIDE through another member federation or through FIDE itself need not be a Gold member of the ECF.

 

Barnet Knights Complaint

 

The Barnet Knights captain made a formal complaint to the Management Board on 5 May, claiming that RE’s behaviour during his game with AC breached rule 14.3.

 

The Management Board’s conclusions are as follows:

  1. There are two relevant 4NCL rules which need to be considered when deciding whether the letter or spirit of a rule was breached under rule 14.3: Rule 11.2 (‘A team will incur one game point penalty per default in addition to scoring zero on each defaulting board for each player, having been named on a team list, who fails to appear for the match in question within one hour after the start of play or arrives but is not prepared to play, or if a default is not notified until after the deadline’); and rule 12.1 (‘The FIDE Laws of Chess will apply to all games and the 4NCL Anti-Cheating Policy will apply to the event’).

  2. As regards rule 11.2, the Management Board has decided that it can be argued that the letter of rule 11.2 was not breached inasmuch as under article 5.1 of the FIDE Rating Regulations a game is considered to have been played if a move is played by each side. Regarding whether the spirit of rule 11.2 was breached, the Management Board’s is of the view that, as a matter of common sense, ‘is prepared to play’: (a) does not mean ‘is prepared to play a game only to the extent that just one move is played by each player so that it qualifies as a rated game under the FIDE Rating Regulations’; (b) does mean ‘is prepared to play a game of chess as “the man on the Clapham omnibus” would expect a game of chess to be played’. Indeed, the purpose of rule 14.3 when it was drafted (many years ago) was to allow the Chief Arbiter, the Appeals Committee and the Management Board suitable discretion in incidents such as this – and the Management Board considers that this purpose is consistent with the preface to the FIDE Laws of Chess: ‘The Laws assume that arbiters have the necessary competence, sound judgement and absolute objectivity. Too detailed a rule might deprive the arbiter of his freedom of judgement and thus prevent him from finding a solution to a problem dictated by fairness, logic and special factors. FIDE appeals to all chess players and federations to accept this view’. The Management Board is accordingly of the view that RE’s conduct breached the spirit of rule 11.2, while acknowledging that his conduct was occasioned by what he considered to be a matter of principle.

  3. As regards rule 12.1, the Management Board decided that there were three relevant articles in the FIDE Laws of Chess that needed to be looked at: Article 11.1 (‘The players shall take no action that will bring the game of chess into disrepute’); article 11.5 (‘It is forbidden to distract or annoy the opponent in any manner whatsoever’); and article 11.2.3.2 (‘Only with the permission of the arbiter can… the player having the move be allowed to leave the playing area’).

  4. Article 11.1: The Management Board has consulted with a number of senior arbiters and has been unable to find a clear consensus among them as to whether RE’s conduct amounted to a breach of the article. In the circumstances the Management Board is inclined to accept RE’s comment that he took a stance of principle against AC and so did not bring the game into disrepute.

  5. Article 11.5: Again, the Management Board has consulted with a number of senior arbiters and lawyers. Again, we were unable to find a clear consensus among them as to whether RE’s conduct amounted to a breach of the article. The matter depends on how the article should be interpreted, namely whether it should be interpreted as an absolute interdiction on distraction or annoyance regardless of purpose, outcome etc, or whether it should be read in the context of its presumed underlying intention of seeking to prevent a player from trying to gain an unfair advantage over their opponent through distraction or annoyance. In the end the Management Board was persuaded that the latter interpretation should be accepted – an example given to us in support of the latter interpretation which we found it hard to disagree with was ‘So, if I’m playing in the 4NCL and I know my opponent is desperate to finish early to watch his football team on TV, I can be in breach of article 11.5 for deliberately taking ages over simple moves or for carrying on playing in a dead drawn position?’ In that context it would be difficult to argue that RE was trying to gain an unfair advantage over his opponent, whether or not his conduct was distracting or annoying.

  6. Article 11.2.3.2: The Management Board understands that there is no dispute that RE left the playing hall when he had the move (so after AC played 1. …f5). RE has stated that ‘Mr McFarlane states that I left the playing hall without the permission of an arbiter, so contravening law 11.2.3 of the Laws of Chess. I had taken it from my explanation of intentions to Mr Carr and his response of “fine” that I did have such permission’. We have discussed with Matthew Carr (‘MC’) his recollection of RE’s and his conversation. MC has confirmed that he used the word ‘fine’ to make it clear that he understood from his conversation with RE that his intention was to play his first move, wait for AC’s reply and then either resign or let his clock run down while remaining at the board, or at least in the playing hall; he was quite clear to us that he did not regard use of the word ‘fine’ as giving RE permission to leave the playing hall, given that RE had not requested that he be allowed to leave the playing hall during their conversation (or indeed as condoning RE’s conduct generally). The Management Board is accordingly of the view that RE’s conduct breached article 11.2.3.2.

Summary

 

The Management Board has concluded that:

  1. By precedent, there was no impediment to AC playing in the game in question given that his ECF membership status was addressed in a timely manner.

  2. The wording of rule 13.4 as it pertains to FID-registered players is defective and has been amended accordingly.

  3. The Barnet Knights captain’s formal complaint that RE’s conduct breached rule 14.3 is upheld to the extent that in the Management Board’s opinion RE’s conduct breached the spirit of rule 11.2.

  4. The Barnet Knights captain’s formal complaint that RE’s conduct breached rule 14.3 is upheld to the extent that in the Management Board’s opinion RE’s conduct breached article 11.2.3.2 of the FIDE Laws of Chess.

  5. Under rule 11.2 the penalty for a breach is a game point penalty. Given the circumstances (see above) the Management Board considers by a majority decision that the appropriate sanction is a reprimand under the discretion afforded to it under rule 14.3.

  6. The appropriate sanction for a breach of article 11.2.3.2 of the FIDE Laws of Chess is a reprimand under the discretion afforded to the Management Board under rule 14.3.

  7. The decisions above should not be considered as precedents should other incidents of a similar nature occur in future.

 

4NCL Management Board

 

 


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