Yasser Seirawan shares a funny story about Reshevsky

[@ryans9094]

Yasser laughing at his own stories is better than the stories

[@hardiksharma1428]

Nothing like Yasser stories, keep em coming please

[@benoplustee]

"according to talmudic law" that's fking hilarious/ awesome xD

[@soflynn22]

Yasser is just pure positive energy :)

[@ahmadayman8169]

Reshevsky's reply is a checkmate to the arbiter lol

[@Oddtester]

Can't get enough of these stories.

[@ravendon]

Reshevsky. Legend.

[@stephenlubera7517]

Love the story, love yaz!!👍!!

[@jedinxf7]

HAHAHA I did not see that ending coming, but he was a rabbinical student so it checks out. and the quote is recognizable in translation lol

[@dmsalomon]

אשתו כגופו

[@Boleslav4]

We need a modern tournament with Talmudic law rules.

[@kirkspockyuss]

Great story! But is it true? How did the arbiter square Reshevsk'y assertion with chess rules? Do we have any documentation about this ruling?

[@panda4247]

If the opponent's time ran out, isn't the game automatically over? Why should it be the player's responsibility to check the opponent's time?

[@sharpcube8959]

Some rules are just made for practical reasons. In open tournaments, you cannot have an arbiter at each board. So let's say, it's move 30, both players in time trouble, no increment, at move 40 additional time is added. In those cases, it might happen that both players can neither watch the clock nor do exactly know how many moves have been played. Let's say, these players reach move 40 without them knowing and one side's flag falls without them knowing. In those cases, at some point the players will realize, the additional time will simply be added and the game will continue, as no one knows whether the flag fell first or whether move 40 was reached first. In those scenarios, it might be a HUGE advantage for one side, if he has a friend watching from the side who only intervenes when the "right" flag falls first. To avoid these scenarios, there is a rule that only the players (or the arbiter?) are allowed to claim a flag. I mean, these days we have the technical possibilities to avoid these scenarios altogether, but back in the day this was an important rule.

[@panda4247]

@@sharpcube8959 While I understand what you are saying and I can see the reasons why it might have been implemented this way, I still find it weird. It may be similar as if you wanted the crowd on hockey or football or whatever no not cheer the goal, until after the referee confirmed it. Because it might get the team a moral boost and what it the goal was invalid, then this would be unfair... If you wanted to penalize the player when somebody shouts 'flag' (by having the game to continue and giving the flagged player extra time ...or how else could the game continue?) then the situation would reverse - a friend of the flagged player may shout 'flag' in order for his friend to gain time... That would be even worse than the situation that happened. I would be OK with the person who shouted 'flag' having to pay a monetary fine, or something like that. But the game should be considered as finished. PS: what would happen if a spectator just shouted some moves? Again, the spectator should be banned from the venue, but how could you distinguish whether he shouted it to help a player, or to get that player penalized? PPS: history question, I really don't know - did they add additional time after move 40 with analog chess clock? I'd say that it's impractical and I would guess that it was only implemented with the digital clock (which can also count how many moves were played based on the number of pressing the buttons by players).

[@sharpcube8959]

@@panda4247 Back then it was just best practice. Without this rule, one player would just have a huge disadvantage in every time scramble. Obviously, there was always a huge discussion how to handle those instances in case they still happen. First of all, the person who shouts some kind of advice can be banned from the tournament. That alone is enough reason for most people not to do anything stupid. In team events, there might be penalties for the whole team. And even in single competition, in most cases it is known who is friends with whom and so you would never get away with "helping" a friend like this. Obviously, increment makes things much easier than having such a complicated rule book. But even 20 years ago, the rules have been good enough to avoid most of these situations.

[@ooaaveehoo]

@@panda4247 Answering your PPS question, yes. Even when I played tournament chess 10-13 years ago they still had analog clocks a lot of the time, and the time was added by the players after you had 40 moves in the score sheet you kept of all the moves of the game.

[@SamuelPearlman]

Talmud to the Rescue!!

[@jt4369]

Gassy laughs are the best.