Thought you might enjoy newly crowned US Women's Champ Irina Krush's victory rap:

http://main.uschess.org/content/view/10577/596/

Also, a response! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvJ2tBS_OKU

good to see she's as magnanimous in victory as she is gracious in defeat

Lol.

Also I can't believe you put Joey's video in there. He'll be so excited.

I tend to be not gracious in defeat when my opponent cheats as well.

do you feel you've been cheated every time you lose?

I have never felt cheated after any loss tbh. But I have yet to have an opponent punch their clock during my move. When that happens, I'll get back to you.

[ ] Zatonskih cheated
[ ] Krush cheated
[x] they were both playing with no regards to rules whatsoever, like in a drunken blitz game in some pub.
[x] that's how blitz should be played!

sigh no it should not. Krush imo was playing with regards to rules. She knocked over a rook but how could she have been expected to pick it up when he opponent was ALREADY moving while that rook was knocked over and before Irina had hit her clock. A friggan championship should not come down to that kind of utter ridiculousness.

Oh cmon, like miss Krush never started her move when Zatonskih hasn't pressed the clock yet.. That is against the rules too, you know? Yet everyone does that every time..

You are right about the bolded part, but it doesn't mean that blitz shouldn't be played the way I said It is no fun to play blitz according to all those rules, and to be honest NO ONE ever does play according to all the rules.. So the simple solution is to not use to decide such important championships

win

also, pyramidscheme needs to stay away from otb blitz tournaments for the sake of everyone

I take care to NEVER do it. And I watched the video, Krush didn't do it. Only Zatonskih. It would actually have been IMPOSSIBLE for Krush to do it, once one person begins doing it and doesn't stop, it becomes impossible for the other player to do it. Think about it.

FWIW I can't imagine myself slamming a rook off the table and storming out. But I definitely would have made some sort of complaint to the TD following that travesty. Basically, no game should EVER be sudden death without time delay, ever in any situation. At least 2 seconds or so. That game was being played with an ANALOGUE clock for christ's sakes and thats a joke. I also think it's a joke that analogue clock's in 2010 are still allowed in chess tournaments, much less a championship. How about we time the games with a sun dial?

Is there actually an official rule that says you can't start to move your pieces until the opponent has pressed the clock? If there is, it sounds like a pretty stupid rule to me. If this rule was implemented, players could start to game their opponents by delaying pressing their own clock in order to claim a forfeit. How would this be a fair result?

I know there is a rule that a player must be allowed to press the clock, but that is not the issue here. Krush was pressing her clock after each move, but her opponent was responding almost immediately so that no time was used. The bottom line is that Krush was taking much longer to make each move because she was trying to win on the board, while Zatonskih was making random moves as fast as possible. It's no fun to lose in this way, but everyone knows that clock management is an integral part of Blitz play.

Also, if there was a rules violation, Mrs. Krush should have appealed to the arbiter during the game, not days later. And to accuse her opponent of cheating was too harsh.. if anything it was a technical violation of the rules in a high-intensity situation. In no way was Zatontskih deliberately attempting to gain an unfair advantage.

of course there is, it's in the rule book authored by P. Scheme.

For standard length games, my recollection is that once your opponent has completed his or her move, then you can make your move; the clock doesn't come into play because "completion of move" is defined by touch-move rules. So, for example, if your opponent simply forgets to punch his clock (as happens on occasion) you aren't breaking any rules when you make your move.

I'm sure the details of these rules differ between federations, and honestly, no one would even notice if they were changed. Blitz plays by its own rules, though...

(I'm not sure what gamesmanship you're talking about.)

I was thinking of the situation where in a blitz game a player could fake to punch his clock and then claim a violation when his opponent starts to make his move.

Ah, I see. Yeah, that would be a problem.

I believe under FIDE's definitions "make a move" means move the piece and "complete a move" includes hitting the clock. You're still right, though.

...Edited by I. Krush.