Monday, May 14, 2012

FIDE Laws of Chess - Article 4

Article 4 deals with "The Act of Moving the Pieces". We dealt with a couple of proposals and tidied up some wording. However I am surprised that there are still large numbers of chessplayers who still don't understand all the clauses.
For example I still get asked at blitz events whether two handed capturing/castling is allowed. Short answer - NO. 4.1 states "Each move must be made with one hand only". Seems pretty straightforward to me. (NB we did not change this rule at all).
We made a slight change the 4.2 to clarify who can adjust pieces after saying "Adjust" etc. It is the player who has the move, and only the player who has the move. However he is still allowed to adjust his opponents pieces.
In 4.3, we have removed "deliberately" before "touches" and instead added the phrase "with the intention of moving or capturing" at the end of the first sentence. This is a refinement if the previous wording, to make the intention of the rule clear.
While the initial discussion concerning the issue of pawn promotion did not lead anywhere, I have proposed an addition to 4.4 to deal with the case of pawns not being placed on the back rank before promotion takes place. My draft wording for 4.4d is
intends to promote (3.7e), the player may remove the pawn from the 7th rank and then place the promoted piece on the promotion square.

and the current 4.4d becomes 4.4e. The idea is to 'legalise' a common way of promoting a pawn. At this stage the proposed wording is still being discussed, so I do not know whether it will be a recommended law change or not.
Otherwise the changes are mainly cosmetic, removing instances of repeated expressions, or in the case of 4.7, making the wording consistent with 4.3

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