Today we saw an incident in Radjabov vs. Smeets game.
Radjabov was in severe time trouble and in all the haste knocked black's e8 bishop off the board when he played 39.Re7 (he only had 1 or 2 seconds left on the clock). Smeets then pressed back the clock and demanded that Radjabov restores the piece he knocked off and Radjabov's flag fell. Radjabov protested about this. Arbiters re-read FIDE rules and tried to figure out what to do, but in the meantime players gentlemanly agreed to a draw (Radjabov had a winning position on the board).
This brings out a question what would happen if the players weren't so friendly. How would the arbiters decide? I don't think FIDE rules cover these kind of situations, and they don't say what an opposing player shall do about it when his opponent knocks off one or more pieces. In practice the players always press back the clock like Smeets did, but some say that Smeets shouldn't have done that. He should stop the clock and call the arbiter. But in the meantime Radjabov would already picked up the piece and put it back on the board. And he would have done it on "nobody's time". In fact he would even have time to think about the position and that is certainly not fair. Somebody could then even knock off pieces on purpose when in time trouble, just to have a "free time" while his opponent summons the arbiter. So I believe pressing back the clock and let the player who knocked off pieces to put them back on HIS time, is just fine and should be part of the rules (if it's not already).
What do you think? How should rules handle these kind of situations?
I think that's a perfectly good idea... either intentional or unintentional, the player who knocked over pieces should replace them on his time.
At least this incident was solved amicably. I remember that two years ago, there was a big to-do about Ivan Cheparinov refusing to shake hands with Nigel Short...
Video of yesterdays incident. It doesn't show how the bishop got knocked off, but it shows Smeets pressing back the clock, then Radjabov pressing back, and then arbiter intervened.
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