Alexander ONISCHUK: “I PROPOSE TO PROVIDE EVERY CHESS PLAYER WITH A PAGER”
The American Grandmaster Alexander Onischuk has his personal opinion of the situation with the Chinese Grandmasters Wang Yue and Li Chao. To recollect the situation: they were 2 minutes late for their second games of the tie breaks. According to the regulations of the tournament their games were forfeited.
– I was very disappointed with the situation with the Chinese players, – starts Onischuk. – To my mind a lot had been solved unwisely. We all know the rules: who is late, loses a game. But there is a difference with the two late appearances. If a player knows that a game starts at 15.00 sharp and he comes at 15.01, he deserves a defeat. No matter why he was late. But here we have another situation in principle. The participants of the tie breaks are ready for 14 additional games. But no one knows the exact time of the next game. I mean everyone can miss the start of the next game. Today the Chinese players were unlucky, tomorrow – someone of us can be in the same situation. Now tell me, what is good in the fact that two brilliant chess players lost the opportunity to fight for the World Cup because of an unfortunate misunderstanding. Not only they who suffered. Their fans suffered with them. Chess in general suffered.
– What can be done to avoid such situations?
-There are several variants. They can fix the exact time of the next round. As the Chinese players proposed, a big screen with the relevant information of the tournament can be settled. But the easiest way is to provide every participant with a pager. They will receive a message about the start of the next round. In American fast food restaurants every visitor receives a token, which starts to vibrate when an offer is ready. It costs “two cents”. It is not difficult and expensive to distribute such a token among the players.
– Is it so difficult to follow what is going on the stage?
– Yes, taking into account that you can finish your game in two minutes and the rest games could last about an hour. Or less . Or more than less. It means that each participant should come into the playing hall every five minutes, in order not to miss the start of the next game. It is awfully uncomfortable .
– The Chinese players were late for their games because they were smoking… Everyone remembers that since Soviet time the smoking in the stadiums and Sport palaces were strictly prohibited.
– Thanks God, we don’t live in the USSR anymore. But I agree: an excuse of the Chinese players does not sound convincingly. But anyway, they could be in the toilet or in the bar. In general, I just hope that the organizers could make a conclusion of this incident. They are interested in it not less than us.
http://ugra-chess.ru/eng/interv_19.htm
Onischuk should be the USCF President and not all the idiots who are running the show now. He’s a leader and he knows what he’s talking about.
The rule with forfeit is stupid.
Wow ,cant beat’em cheat’em! Susan that reminds me of Ron Lohrman and Pavel Blatny in mid 90s this td turned that guys clock back 20mins!!! hahaha, so its pointless to have any respect for theses bums or bother to play in their events. Susan do u know theses idiots had the nerve to challenge me on the icc with this guy, within an hour of my promise to crush this fish the next time we meet ,they actually went and got him!!! hahaha. i let him keep his exchange on d7 then i smashed him!like im doing the top guys now!They think i need to be at their silly event to beat them!! Garry and da boys! hahaha. “im confused”, i wanna quit!!! THE CHESSGODS ARE AGAINST ME!!! HEHEHE. My stomach, Susan help meeeeeee!!!!!!!!!
No, that wont help much. Some players wouldn’t hear the beeper, or would be wondering what is beeping, and miss their games anyway.
I propose that the tournament organizers provide an arbiter for each player who holds the hand of his assigned chess player and follows him EVERYWHERE (holding his hand of course). That arbiter is responsible for hand-leading his player to the right table at the designated time. The role of this arbiter can be taken by players parents (they have practice).
That is what it must be done, because chess players absolutely can not be handled like adults, but like children.
P.S.: I apologise to children older than 5 years.
LOL Onischuk’s idea is pretty awesome. Why did they decide to change the rules to forfeit a late-arriving player instead of just starting his clock anyhow?
“Forfeiting” in this condition is a too harsh punishment and a better solution should be found as suggested by GM Onischuk.
BTW, they should quit smoking!
Onichuk says “we don’t leave in the USSR” commenting on the non-smoking laws allegedly used in the USSR. Should the “American GM” be pointing this out?
I did leave in Leningrad for 32 years and don’t recall the exact rules on non-smoking. Most Soviets smoked in public places anyway.
Where the smoking habbit is very unwelcome is the US and NYC in particular (where I have been leaving since 1991).
The most glaring thing in the interview is his words:
“It means that each participant should come into the playing hall every five minutes, in order not to miss the start of the next game.
Does this imply that the round in question did not start “on-the-hour”? That’s a prerequisite for enforcing a zero-tolerance rule.
In general I feel there needs to be some distinction between a player being late to the playing site and on-site but late to the board. As I researched when this came up during the Chinese Championship fiasco, the published rules of the Association of Tennis Professionals tie their “Punctuality” paragraph to an onsite-signup provision—but this may suffice because they already have in place the kind of infrastructure GM Onischuk is talking about.
My other main suggestion is putting the start times 5 minutes off-the-hour, as done with many US professional sports. This received express support from GM Kevin Spraggett here.
(Hi, Lionel—thought you might make a joke along lines of, “Is the pager Rybka-enabled?”:-)
The problem with pagers is that they can be lost, or maybe Ivanchuk takes the wrong pager, and Karpov gets buzzed to play? Or Ivanchuk gets wrongly paged and starts playing Karpov’s game.
However there are better technical solutions. What about GPS electronic monitoring bracelets like they have for prisoners on home release? That way the TD can tell where all of his players are and intervene more quickly if they seem to be getting in trouble or straying for the path.
This would have told the TD exactly how many times Kramnik uses the restroom and if he is crawling around in the building ducts trying to get moves from Deep Fritz.
If the device included some kind of mild shocker, like they use to keep dogs from straying outside a yard, they could prevent GMs from falling asleep at the board when they drink too much, or breakup a fight between two GMs by shocking them both, or forcing them to shake hands, or prevent early draws.
If the technology was available in the time of Fischer it would have prevented Fischer from no-showing for a game against Spassky. Ditto for Kramnik no-showing for Topalov. Kramnik would have showed up at the board instead of facing the hours of electrical agony inflicted by FIDE President, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov.
Talking about “Chinese Championship fiasco”, Hou Yifan was punished for being 3 seconds late to sitting down on the chair.
It is just ridiculous.
Why not a cell phone? 😉