I have been shocked by how many different possible angle shots exist in poker. I've read about and have experienced hundreds of different schemes that aren't necessarily illegal (most can't be illegal for good reasons) but are still in really bad form and etiquette when done intentionally.

Do such angle shots exist in chess? Post your experiences here.

I'm an online chess player looking to play more otb so I'd be interested to know of these so I know what to be careful for.

Mostly urban legends. A big one is supposedly sticking your hand out in a clearly resignable situation, and then claiming it was a draw offer and your opponent accepted.

Not being honest in a situation where the TD didn't see what happened is a big one, like the famous Kasparov-Polgar incident where he released his piece for a second and then claimed he didn't.

Can you give us some examples of the poker angle shooting that you've experienced? I'm not even entirely sure what you're referencing there. The handshake "trick" is well known and my Senior/National TD friends assure me that a handshake without verbal agreement means jack ****. So you don't need to worry too much there. If my opponent walks around all the time I'll sometimes wait for him to get up from the board before making a move. Not sure if that falls into this. Oh and if I have an opponent who counts the material that is OFF the board in order to check the material balance, especially if they insist on lining the pieces up next to each other (white/black/white/black) then I'll hide one of the pieces I captured under the table. That hasn't happened in quite a while.

Edit - hiding the queen/rook/whatever when your opponent is about to promote a pawn IS absolutely wrong (and I think it's against the rules) and should never happen. I did have to stop the clock (my opponent tried to restart it before I took the clock away from him) and request TD assistance because he was hiding the queen in a time scramble situation.

Examples of an angle shoot in poker:

On the river, when facing a bet, throwing your hand face up over in front of the player with a line like "I guess you got me" in the hope that the player folds because the cardroom has a 10 second rule on cards turned face up.

Making an innocuous common announcement that can be interpreted as "all in" as to get your opponent to fold without actually making the move.

At casinos with a bet line moving your chips right to the edge of the line in the hopes that the opp thinks that you call/raise so you can see his turned over hand and then really act.

At a casino with forward action rule making a forward action and then taking it back knowing that the floor will be called and you'll be forced to put it in when you are actually strong but will look weak in your opps eyes.
Artfully placing big chips in such a way that (while not illegal) is deceptive and difficult to see from opps particular angle.

Intentionally string raising, pretending like it was an accident.

Intentionally acting out of turn, pretending like it was an accident.

Intentionally calling, pretending like it was an accident.

Placing high denomination chip in the pot without announcing raise with the intention of getting people behind to fold with just a call.

Anything really that is deceptive in nature but not really specifically against the rules used to gain an advantage but is also unethical.

You've just made me very glad that I don't play live poker

I'd say hiding your opponent's queen/rook when he's about to promote is as close as I've seen. The handshake thing happens but never actually works if the TD is halfway decent. Otherwise there are a ton of little irritating things that opponents will do (unconsciously?) like chew or eat loudly, hum, clear their throat or sniff incessantly, etc. If this kind of stuff bothers you, I'd storngly recommend headphones or earplugs.

they do happen, mostly in blitz games. My favorite one is when in a pawn race, move h2-h4 h4-h5.5 h5.5-h7 and queen the pawn one move faster.

OTB, when people repeatedly make their move on your time and immediately hit the clock right after you, very tilting

If I ever caught a guy doing that to me, well, I'd probably just be annoyed because I'm neither violent nor large. But I'd be *really* annoyed.

It's against the rules, you can report it to the arbiter.

It's not against the rules. This has been gone over extensively following a US Women's Championship tiebreak game just a year or 2 or 3 ago.

EDIT: not as extensive on this forum as I remember, but elsewhere surely: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/14...ry-rap-846981/

I thought a move is not finished until the clock is pressed.

Oooh, forgot one. Moving your king next to your opponent's king in blitz time scrambles. If he insta-moves, then you capture his king with yours next move.

About 10 years ago back in Lithuania I used to often watch hustlers play and often play against them myself just for fun. The amount of tricks/angle shots I've seen in those games is incredible.. Some of the more amazing ones were:

1) castling and intentionally putting the rook between f1 and e1, then later on "adjust" it to e1, saving a move.

2) intentionally put a pawn between g2 and g3 (without making a move that is) and then while doing fianchetto hit the pawn with a bishop a bit so that it lands on g3. Fianchetto in one move!

3) Change the "color" of your bishop in a time scramble. Super effective in opposite-color bishop endgames

4) obv the famous pawn race. I once saw a novice guy (not a novice player in general, but novice to blitz tricks) play an experienced hustler and in the horrible time scramble in the end novice had his white pawn on a4, black pawn was still on h7, AND it was white to move. Black easily got to queening point faster by h7-h5-h3-h1, hilarity ensued as novice guy couldn't understand wtf happened.

In tournament games when there is mutual time trouble, you could "accidentally" write down a pair of moves twice on your score sheet, hoping that your opponent will look at it and believe you that 40 moves are played, while in reality you are still at move 39. At the very least, it should distract him for a moment.

Never saw it happen though, and now that most games have an increment, it probably won't work anymore.

Here's how the rules came down:

http://www.chesscafe.com/text/geurt150.pdf

BTW, there's a ton of angles in all his articles: http://www.chesscafe.com/archives/ar...#39;s Notebook

One of the angle shots i've seen were people purposely dumping rating points to enable them to compete in the section of a tournament lower than they should. (an 1815 player purposely getting thier rating lowered to 1750 or so so that could play in the 1600-1799 section of a tournament instead the higher one.)

This one is funny.

-Accusing your opponent of cheating in a world championship event to psych them out. In one instance, the person who was accused of cheating didn't show up for the next game as a form of protest and forfeited a point.

-Having everyone play hard against a tough opponent to wear them down, while playing relatively short, easy games against each other.

-Running your clock down out of spite in a completely lost position just to make them wait. Additionally, when in a losing position, if your opponent has only a small amount of time left and you have a lot of time, then as soon as they get up to walk around, make your move and try to get them to timeout.

-From the 2010 US junior championship, copying someone else's game (like if you don't know how to play a certain opening) by either getting up and going over to their board or observing their game on the monitors.

These have all been done before in major events.

I've always wondered, if your opponent constantly makes their move before you hit your clock, what would happen if you make your move but do not hit your clock, resulting in your opponent making there move on your turn with evidence that they had done so. What would the arbiter's ruling be? I don't play live chess, but this is what I would do in this situation.

I answered this already 2 posts ago.

It's perfectly legal so long as there is nothing stopping you from hitting your clock.

It didn't say anything about the arbiter's actions or the consequences. I just always assumed it was illegal so I thought that there would be consequences. But apparently it's perfectly legal.

Some of the ones that come to mind:

-- taking a long time to make a move, acting indecisive etc. even though you've already decided what to do. Why? Because the opponent forgot to hit the clock.

-- setting a trap and acting like you've blundered to make the opponent less suspicious

-- as has been mentioned, making a move right after the opponent leaves the table (to be an "angle" this would be if you were ready to make a move but the opponent looked like they were about to get up so you wait a few seconds)


Other ones from blitz esp. in mutual time trouble:

-- changing the color a bishop by making a long move, making a "long" knight move (3 up and 1 over), moving a rook over 1 rank or file perpendicular to a long rook move, etc

-- intentionally hang a piece in a totally lost position, such that if they miss it then their piece is hanging (works best with queens a long way apart)

-- one I had against me in a mad scramble last week (that was by accident I think): promote a pawn to a queen but leave the pawn on the 7th rank, ready to be promoted again a few moves later!

-- refuse a draw in a dead drawn position (K+R vs. K+R, or K+opposite color bishops, say) because the opponent will run out of time before 50 moves can be made.


-- And a favorite in blitz without touch-move (most of the casual blitz I play is "clock-move", touch and fiddle around all you want, nothing is final until the clock is hit): Take a piece and move it somewhere for a few seconds, appear to move it back but actually place it on a different starting square, then make a normal move. 2 moves in 1! (e.g. move knight from e7 to d5, then "replace" it on f6, also works well with king moves in K+P endgames).

how is this angleshooting??

Fair enough, it's an attempted swindle. Some of the other ones are just plain cheating of course, not really angle shots.

In these cases you can just demand a draw if you have less than 2 minutes to go.

While hiding the pieces is a cheap trick it doesn't do much. You have every right to stop the clock to get the piece once you promote your pawn. You just push your pawn to the back rank and announce what piece you want and stop the clock.

If my opponent restarts the clock I fully expect the arbiter to give him a warning and give me additional time (2 mins most likely).

IIRC Korchnoi once did this to a young Magnus Carlsen.

Other angles could be to not point out your opponents illegal move if it allows you to mate him. The rules state that an illegal move cannot be corrected once the game finishes and that a game finish with mate. So if the mating move is legal the game is over. For example would the following game be over:

1.e4 f3. 2 Lb5 d5 (+) 3. Dh5. While 2...d5 is clearly an illegal move that game would be over.

If you play by USCF rules following situation could occur. White has a forced mate with his last remaining minor piece and black simply lets his time run out. According to USCF rules white needs to be able to mate with his remaining pieces and K+B/N can't mate against a lone K.

I've never seen any of them happen.

The closest I've been personally was a game I played a couple of days ago. It was a rather special case though. My opponent is a pretty good chess player (2200+ elo) but he was also blind. So he had all the remedies of a blind chess player (a separate board where he could touch the pieces, a special clock where he could pluck in earphones and get the used time etc.).

We were nearing time trouble (10 moves in less than 5 mins). And I think it was even worse for him as he obviously would have trouble "seeing" everything once it gets hectic. And you can't move as quickly because you have to announce the moves before you press the clock.

Anyway he makes a move and I start thinking. After a minute or so I realized that when he tried to press the clock he had missed the button and his time was still running. I'm pretty sure I would have done nothing illegal by just letting it running out and win the game when he flagged. Obviously I told him as soon as I realized it, but that minute was still pretty important at the time and it allowed me to calculate through a forced sacrifice that mated him.