Opinion on illegal moves in OTB chess

In OTB tournaments, player walks from the board a lot.

What is your opinion regarding intentional illegal moves in an attempt to gain an advantage?

My opinion is they should be fine since they are considered in the chess rules (Additional 2min for one player, a second illegal move = defeat). One could argue a player using this sort of strategy lacks fair play and should be sanctioned more harshly than un-intentional illegal moves.

I had a discussion with a chess arbiter, where he said he would take sanctions against this and "fill a complain/ban the player from futur tournaments". I think this is going beyond enforcing the rules of chess and therefore unreasonable.

Thoughts?

You misunderstand the spirit of chess competition. There's no place for these kind of shenanigans in chess.

I accidentally made an illegal knight move once in a high school tournament. My opponent and I both didn’t notice it until after the game when we were analyzing. He won the game anyway so it was no big deal. Had I won the game, I think the arbiter would have been called. Lol.

@Le_Patzer83 You could have admitted an illegal move several moves after the fact (Don't get carried away) and have had the position Reconstructed to before the illegal move

@NowIAmDiscouraged said in #2:
> You misunderstand the spirit of chess competition. There's no place for these kind of shenanigans in chess.

Why not ? If this is considered in the chess rules, why shouldn't it be considered ok ?

I agree that it's definitely a low blow, but afterall, you are playing by the rules.

In any other sports, it doesn't matter how you win as long as it is by the rules.

I think the issue is that it's not considered within the chess rules. The 2 minute penalty, followed by the disqualification of the player is in order to dissuade the player from playing illegal moves. If they feel they need to sanction players who consider that a light enough sentence to risk it, fair enough.

For exemple, it is can be considered unsportman-like for a soccer player to "dive" for yellow card vs penalty kick; but it is still a common practice in professional play.

This is extremely unethical. This question, and your soccer analogy, are tantamount to asking if it's alright to use computer assistance in your games as long as you only get a slap on the wrist for your first offense. The answer in every single case is "no".

There are numerous practical reasons why this is bad in the first place:
* In an OTB tournament there are players all around you who will probably notice you cheating.
* Your opponent will probably notice you cheating if they return to the board and notice the pieces are on different squares.
* Every chess federation's rules impose numerous harsh penalties on players caught cheating.

Your soccer analogy isn't even very appropriate here -- in a game of soccer if a player gets a card, they're ejected from that game. In chess, if you try a similar idea, you may get banned from a federation for years or for life.

But finally, and most importantly: don't ever cheat in any game. You ruin the game for your opponent, you ruin the game for yourself (unless you're pathetic enough to actually be proud of yourself for winning a game by cheating), you start to rely on it as a crutch because you gain elo you have no business gaining, you're ostracized from the community as soon as you do it, and also...it's chess, not a high stakes game. Cheating some poor bloke out of a win in a weekend tournament is so antithetical to the spirit of chess as a noble sport I can't even believe that I'm answering this question.

@SebVC said in #7:
> For exemple, it is can be considered unsportman-like for a soccer player to "dive" for yellow card vs penalty kick; but it is still a common practice in professional play.

That's right. But we aren't professional football players. So do you want the guy with the bad reputation?

@dRr0x0rZZ said in #8:
> This is extremely unethical. This question, and your soccer analogy, are tantamount to asking if it's alright to use computer assistance in your games as long as you only get a slap on the wrist for your first offense. The answer in every single case is "no".
>
> There are numerous practical reasons why this is bad in the first place:
> * In an OTB tournament there are players all around you who will probably notice you cheating.
> * Your opponent will probably notice you cheating if they return to the board and notice the pieces are on different squares.
> * Every chess federation's rules impose numerous harsh penalties on players caught cheating.
>
> Your soccer analogy isn't even very appropriate here -- in a game of soccer if a player gets a card, they're ejected from that game. In chess, if you try a similar idea, you may get banned from a federation for years or for life.
>
> But finally, and most importantly: don't ever cheat in any game. You ruin the game for your opponent, you ruin the game for yourself (unless you're pathetic enough to actually be proud of yourself for winning a game by cheating), you start to rely on it as a crutch because you gain elo you have no business gaining, you're ostracized from the community as soon as you do it, and also...it's chess, not a high stakes game. Cheating some poor bloke out of a win in a weekend tournament is so antithetical to the spirit of chess as a noble sport I can't even believe that I'm answering this question.

I disagree, there is a big difference afaik between using a computer and moving a night to the wrong square. One indeed will get you banned, but afaik and understand the rules the other shouldn't. I would call one cheating vs the other advantage playing, where you use the rules to their widest extent for an advantage. The FIDE sanctions against one vs the other are widely different.

Similarly to insulting the referee vs diving in soccer.