If you have ever stood next to a board with a notepad in your hand while two players looked at you and waited for a ruling, you know that an arbiter's job is not to know the rules by heart but to know what is done when something goes wrong. Here we have gathered exactly those situations: illegal moves, touch-move, phones, draw claims and disputes. Everything is written following the logic of the FIDE Laws of Chess, but in our own words and with an explanation of why, not only what.
At the end there is the part everyone likes: famous situations from practice, from "toiletgate" to the castling that was not.
Note: this is a guide to understanding and application, not a substitute for the official text of the Laws. Before a competition always read the tournament regulations as well; they can tighten or soften individual penalties.
Illegal moves
An illegal move is any move that breaks the rules of how pieces move: the king stays in check, the king moves into check, castling through an attacked square, a knight moving like a bishop, and so on. The key word is completed: a move counts as made only when the player has released the piece and pressed the clock.
How it is handled depends above all on the time control.
Standard time control
In classical chess the procedure is calm and "repairable":
- The position immediately before the illegal move is restored. If it cannot be reconstructed exactly, the last known correct position is used.
- For a player's first illegal move, the arbiter gives two minutes to the opponent.
- For a second illegal move by the same player, the arbiter declares that player to have lost the game.
There is an important exception that is easily overlooked: if the opponent has no way of ever delivering mate (not enough material by any possible series of legal moves), then a draw follows instead of a loss. You cannot win a game you could not have won anyway.
A practical detail from the floor: if a player in a hurry knocks pieces over and then presses the clock, that in itself is not an illegal move, but they are obliged to put the position back in order on their own time. As a rule the arbiter does not touch the clock to help them.
Rapid and blitz
At faster time controls the story is sharper and quicker. In essence: an illegal move in blitz often means the end of the game.
- An illegal move is "completed" the moment the opponent's clock has been started.
- The opponent may claim a win, but only before making their own next move, and only if they themselves have material with which they could in principle mate. If they have already replied, the opportunity has gone and the game continues as if nothing had happened.
So the difference between blitz and standard is easiest to remember like this: in standard the first offence "costs two minutes", in blitz the first offence can cost the game.
There are also nuances that depend on the regulations: at stronger tournaments, when there are enough arbiters supervising the boards, rapid and blitz can also follow the standard "ladder" (added time for the first offence, loss for the second), except that the penalty minutes are halved. Read the regulations before the round and, better still, explain to the players at the start which regime applies. Half of all disputes disappear when people know the rules of the game in advance.
Touch-move (and "j'adoube")
This is the rule that stirs the most passion at the board, because it often comes down to "who saw what".
The basic principle: if you deliberately touch one of your own pieces, you must move it (if it has any legal move). If you deliberately touch an opponent's piece, you must capture it (if that is legally possible). Everything is done with one hand.
When a touch binds you
- You touch your knight -> you play that knight, if it can go anywhere.
- You touch your opponent's bishop -> you capture it, if that is legal.
- If the touched piece has no legal move, there is no penalty: the touch simply lapses.
A move is final only when you release the piece. While you are still holding it you may put it back and play something else, but this is treacherous ground and the source of many disputes (there is a famous one at the bottom of this page).
"I adjust": how and when
If you only want to centre a piece on its square, you have the right, but:
- you must announce it before touching it, with the words "I adjust" or "j'adoube";
- only the player to move may do it, and only with their own pieces.
You cannot "adjust" while your opponent is thinking, nor after touching ("oops, I meant to adjust"). The announcement has to come first. An arbiter who hears the announcement after the touch calmly applies touch-move.
Castling and touching
Castling has its own trap. The order matters:
- If you touch the king first, it counts as an intention to castle, or at least to move the king.
- If you touch the rook first, you have lost the right to castle with that rook on that move; you touched the rook, so you play it.
That is why professionals always pick up the king first. It is not superstition, it is the rule.
When there is no witness
The hardest disputes are the ones without evidence: one player says "you released the piece", the other says "I did not". If the arbiter did not see it and there is no reliable witness, as a rule no penalty is imposed and the game continues. The arbiter decides to the best of their judgement, aware that the burden of proof lies with the player claiming the offence. A calm tone and "let us continue, please write the move down" solve more than an argument.
Mobile phones and electronic devices
Here the rule is deliberately strict, because the integrity of the game is at stake.
- During a game a player may not have any electronic device in the playing area that the arbiter has not expressly approved.
- Under the strictest application, the mere fact that a player has a phone on them in the hall means a loss, even if it never rang.
- If a phone rings or makes any sound, at the vast majority of tournaments that is an automatic loss of the game.
The regulations may prescribe a milder regime (for example, a phone completely switched off and put away in a bag designated by the arbiter), but that has to be announced in advance. If you search a player on suspicion, do it with dignity, with their consent and with a witness. A player's dignity is part of the job, not just catching offences.
The golden rule for an arbiter: announce the phone policy loudly and clearly before round one. Anything that goes off after that goes off under rules everybody heard.
Default time and zero tolerance
"Default time" is the time after which a player who has not arrived at the board loses the game. It is set and announced by the arbiter or organiser before the tournament.
- If the default is 30 or 60 minutes, a player has that long from the start of the round to arrive before losing without a move.
- Zero tolerance means the default is zero: you must be at the board at the moment the arbiter announces the start of the round. One second late and the game is lost.
Zero tolerance is used at stronger competitions and demands discipline from the arbiter too: the round starts exactly on time, publicly and equally for everyone. If you apply it, say so unambiguously; this is a rule that can hurt badly, so nobody should be taken by surprise.
Draw claims
A draw has several roads, and each has its own procedure. Most mistakes are made right here, not in judging the position but in the way the draw is claimed.
Offering a draw
The correct order is: make your move, then offer the draw, then press the clock. The offer stands until the opponent accepts it (by word or a handshake) or declines it (by word or by making their move). Once made, an offer cannot be withdrawn. If you offer before you have moved, the offer still stands, but your opponent may ask to see your move first.
Threefold repetition
A draw may be claimed when the same position appears (or is about to appear) three times, with the same player to move and the same possibilities (castling, en passant). "The same position" means literally the same arrangement of the same pieces with the same rights, not merely "similar".
The 50-move rule
A draw may be claimed when 50 moves by each player have been made without a single capture and without a single pawn move. The counter resets on every capture and every pawn move.
How a claim is properly made and recorded
This is the part an arbiter has to know by heart, because players get it wrong all the time:
- If you are relying on a move you intend to play (because it would create the third repetition or complete the 50 moves), write that move on your scoresheet but do NOT play it on the board.
- Stop both clocks and call the arbiter.
- If the position has already occurred (the opponent created the third repetition with their move), you may stop the clock and claim straight away, without writing down a future move.
Remember: a claim is at the same time a draw offer; once you have made it you cannot withdraw it, and you are bound to the announced move.
What if the claim is incorrect? The arbiter gives two minutes to the opponent, the game continues, and the announced move must be played (as if you were bound by touch-move). So count twice before claiming.
Automatic draws
Two situations the arbiter declares alone, without anybody's claim:
- The same position has appeared five times.
- 75 moves by each player have been made without a capture and without a pawn move.
Exception: if the last move was in fact mate, mate takes precedence. These two rules exist so that no game can last forever if the players dig their heels in.
Dead position
A dead position is one in which neither player can deliver mate to the enemy king by any possible series of legal moves. As soon as such a position arises (by a legal move), the game is immediately a draw; no claim is needed.
The most common examples are king against king, king and bishop against king, king and knight against king. But a dead position can be subtler: a completely blocked structure in which, despite the material, neither side has any physical way of reaching mate. Here the arbiter does not wait but declares the draw.
Mind the difference: when someone's flag falls and the opponent could not mate them by any series of legal moves, the result is a draw, not a loss. There is no penalty for running out of time if that time would have changed nothing anyway.
The clock and the scoresheet
Handling the clock
- The move and the press of the clock are made with the same hand. You may not hover a finger over the clock while moving a piece with the other hand.
- First make the move, then press the clock, never the other way round.
- Deliberately banging the clock, pressing with two fingers or other tricks are penalised by the arbiter according to the ladder of penalties.
Recording the moves
- Each player keeps their own scoresheet, writing down both their own and their opponent's moves, move by move, legibly, in algebraic notation.
- As a rule the move is written down after it has been played. Writing a move down in advance is not allowed; the only exception is when you write an intended move for a draw claim (threefold repetition or the 50-move rule).
- When a player drops below five minutes and there is no increment of at least 30 seconds per move, they are released from the duty to keep score until the end of that time control. The arbiter may then help with the reconstruction.
- At the end of the game both players sign both scoresheets. The scoresheet is the property of the organiser, and worth its weight in gold when a disputed course of play has to be reconstructed.
The flag
The flag has "fallen" when the arbiter observes it or when one player makes a valid claim. In classical chess the responsibility lies primarily with the players; a good arbiter watches but does not run over to announce that someone's time has run out, because helping is not their job. A similar principle applies to illegal moves in unsupervised blitz: the arbiter does not signal on a player's behalf.
The arbiter's role and disputes
The most important principle of the whole profession: an arbiter does not help. They see to it that the rules are respected and that playing conditions are good, but they do not intervene except in cases the rules expressly provide for. They do not point out a check, do not warn about a falling flag, do not advise. Their invisibility is a sign that everything is running as it should.
When they do have to act, the arbiter has a ladder of penalties, from milder to stricter:
- a warning;
- adding time to the opponent;
- deducting time from the offender;
- declaring the game lost;
- deducting points;
- expulsion from the competition.
Rule of thumb: start with the smallest penalty that solves the problem. The big stick comes out only when a warning does not help.
And finally, a player who disagrees with an arbiter's decision has the right to appeal to the appeals committee. That is not an insult to the arbiter, it is part of the system. A good arbiter accepts that decision as calmly as their own.
Famous and entertaining situations
Now for the reason the rules stick in the memory: moments when everything above came to life in the most dramatic way. Everything that follows really happened.
The phone that costs a game
The strict rule about phones did not come out of spite, it came out of experience. Ruslan Ponomariov is remembered as one of the first grandmasters whose phone rang in the middle of a game (2003), at the very time when he was at the top of world chess. Since then halls around the world have seen countless instant losses caused by a single ringtone.
The other side of the same coin is abuse: in 2019 the Latvian grandmaster Igors Rausis was caught with a phone in a toilet at an open tournament in Strasbourg. The photograph went around the world, he admitted cheating, and a suspension followed. It is precisely because of such cases that today's rules treat phones without mercy.
Toiletgate: Kramnik - Topalov, Elista 2006
The reunification match for the world championship title between Vladimir Kramnik and Veselin Topalov turned into a quarrel about bathrooms. Topalov's team accused Kramnik of going to his private toilet too often, implying illicit help. The organisers locked the private bathrooms; in protest Kramnik refused to play game five and forfeited at a board where nobody appeared.
The crisis was later resolved (a shared bathroom, new rules), the match continued, and Kramnik took the title in the end in the rapid tie-break. "Toiletgate" has been a synonym ever since for how a dispute away from the board can decide the game on it.
The touch that is remembered: Kasparov - Polgar, Linares 1994
The most famous touch-move dispute. Garry Kasparov touched a knight, moved it, and then (according to later footage) released it for a fraction of a second, took it back and played something else. Judit Polgar suspected the piece had been released, which under the rules would have bound him to the first move, but the arbiter did not intervene and no formal claim was made at the time. Kasparov won the game. Years later the footage was proof of how thin the line of a "released piece" is and how precious an arbiter's eye can be.
The castling that is not: "vertical castling" and "rook first"
Two gems about castling.
The first is an everyday rule: whoever touches the rook first has lost the right to castle with that move, so a player who wanted to castle suddenly finds themselves obliged to move the rook alone. Arbiters see this all the time.
The second is the famous "vertical castling", popularised by the Dutch writer Tim Krabbe. He exploited a hole in the wording of the rules at the time: if a pawn reaches the eighth rank and promotes to a rook, and the king and that rook end up on the same file, may one castle "upwards"? The letter of the old rule did not expressly forbid it. FIDE later made the text precise (in castling the king and rook must be on the same rank) and clearly outlawed vertical castling. A lovely example of how one piece of wit can force the lawmaker to reword a rule.
Stalemate as salvation: Evans - Reshevsky 1963
Stalemate is a draw, and it is the finest lifeline in chess. The most celebrated example carries the nickname "the swindle of the century": at the 1963/64 US Championship, Larry Evans engineered a position from a lost game against Samuel Reshevsky in which Reshevsky, if he takes what is offered, is left without a single legal move: stalemate, a draw. A game that should have been a loss ended in a split point. The lesson for an arbiter is simple: stalemate occurs at once and is a draw in itself, without any claim.
Underpromotion: the Saavedra position, 1895
Not every pawn has to become a queen. Sometimes a queen is exactly the mistake. The finest proof is the Saavedra position (1895), named after Fernando Saavedra: the white pawn reaches the end, but promoting to a queen leads to stalemate and a draw. The solution is to promote to a rook: the humbler piece avoids stalemate and gives White the win. Underpromotion to a knight (for a check or a fork) and to a rook or bishop (to avoid stalemate) appear regularly in compositions, and occasionally in practice too.
A practical point for arbiters: promotion is complete only when the new piece stands on the square. If a player releases the pawn on the eighth rank before putting the new piece down, the move is not yet finished, and the moment they touch, say, a queen, a queen it must be.
Small curiosities
- En passant is now or never. The capture in passing has to be made immediately, on the very next move; miss it and the right is gone.
- No game can last forever. Fivefold repetition and 75 moves without a capture or pawn move bring an automatic draw, rules introduced precisely so that stubbornness cannot last indefinitely.
- A pawn does not choose freely. Promotion is to a queen, rook, bishop or knight of its own colour, never to a king, and it may never remain a pawn.
- A dead position does not wait. The moment mate becomes impossible for both sides, the game is drawn at that very moment, even with plenty of material on the board.
A short checklist for the arbiter
- Announce before round one: the time control, the default time (and whether zero tolerance applies), and the phone policy.
- Illegal move: standard = +2 min and a loss on the second; blitz/rapid = usually a loss on a claim made before the next move.
- Touch-move: "I adjust" is announced before the touch and only on your own move; for castling, the king first.
- Draw claim (threefold repetition / 50 moves): write the intended move down, do not play it, stop the clock, call the arbiter. An incorrect claim = +2 min to the opponent and an obligation to play that move.
- Automatic draws: fivefold repetition or 75 moves, declared by you (unless the last move was mate).
- Do not help: do not announce check, a fallen flag or mistakes. You intervene only when the rules expressly require it.
- Penalties go from the mildest upwards. The big stick is the last resort, not the first.