Controversy erupted during the fourth round of the national Chess Open qualifiers at the Tower Hotel on Main Street yesterday which resulted in one of the players Roy Sharma refusing to continue in the tournament.
According to Sharma, the incident happened during his first game yesterday morning against president of the Guyana Chess Federation Errol Tiwari.
Sharma said Tiwari turned up half an hour after the scheduled 10am start went to tournament director Irshad Mohammed and then took the chair opposite him.
- Roy Sharma
The game commenced with Sharma playing the white pieces.
According to Sharma when the tournament director called the match his name was called first.
He said it is a fact that the player whose name is called first plays white. Tiwari was not present when the match was called.
The game, Sharma said lasted a mere six minutes on his clock and Tiwari had used 55 minutes for the 43 moves the game took before he resigned.
Sharma claimed that Tiwari signed the scorecard and all was well until half-an-hour later when he was told by the tournament director that he had played with the white pieces when he should have been playing with black.
He was told that the match would have to be replayed and he refused.
Tiwari admitted that he arrived late with some of the clocks which he said was because he had encountered transportation difficulties.
He said as he sat down Sharma said to him:”Errol you are playing black.”
Tiwari said ne accepted what was told to him in good faith even though he had previously been told by the tournament director that he would have the white pieces for the next round. He said after he lost the game he took the scorecard to the tournament director and saw on the table the sheet with the pairing with him listed as having the white pieces. He subsequently called Mohammed who called Sharma. A dispute then arose with Sharma claiming that Mohammed had called his name first and Mohammed denying this.
Mohammed then ordered the game to be replayed in his capacity as arbiter and after Sharma refused the game was awarded to Tiwari.
According to article 7.2 of Fide’s handbook “if a game has begun with the colours reversed then it shall continue, unless the arbiter rules otherwise.”
Sharma also claims that a similar situation happened between Dennis Dillon and Alexander Duncan where Duncan played with the black pieces and won against Dillon.
Sharma claims that this result was not reversed.
Mohammed said the players were told that they should replay the game but they declined.
le the FIDE handbook was not clear on the question of completed games using wrong colours. This year’s Chicago Open in Illinois, from May 23-26 saw a similar situation occurr in the match between veteran Grandmaster Tigran Petrosian and Russian Dan Wolf.
- Errol Tiwari
The game was won by Wolf who played with the black pieces when he should have played with white. But the result was not changed.
The only change was done to reflect that it was Petrosian and not Wolf who had the white pieces, according to a report on the tournament by the arbiter Chris Bird.
