DG XXIX: On Littering

I re-read Ed Smith’s What Sport Tells Us About Life yesterday. Part of it, anyway. Specifically, chapter 10: When is Cheating Really Cheating?

I often find myself returning to this book. My inspiration this time was the brouhaha that blew up after Nakamura's double-handed castling in the Armageddon game with Nepomniachtchi at the weekend.

Nobody likes a cheat. Neither players nor spectators. Not in any sport. That’s how Smith begins, at least, and I think we’d all agree. Pretty quickly, though, he proceeds to drive a coach and horses through any certainty the reader might have had about what constitutes cheating.

Take what Smith has to say about cricket, his own sport, for example:-

• Not walking, but waiting for the umpire to give you out when you know you’ve edged a catch behind - considered acceptable (these days).
• Claiming a catch when you know you’ve not taken it cleanly - very much not acceptable.
• Ball tampering. Not acceptable, but it’s 'everybody does it’ commonplace.

The latter caused an international incident in 2005 when Pakistan were the equivalent of defaulted for not coming back out to play after they were penalised five runs for messing around with the ball during a test against England.

"Arguments about cheating in sport revolve around conventions more than laws. It’s not only a question of "Was he breaking the rules?’ but also 'Is that rule sacrosanct?' It is the unwritten constitution that exerts the stronger grip.

Ed Smith

So what about Nakamura? Using both hands to castle is obviously against the rules, but is it cheating? Not really, I would say. It’s far too minor an infringement of the rules to deserve that label.  Or maybe I mean it’s an infringement of a minor rule.

Whatever. The principle that the punishment should be proportional to the offence dates back to the late 1700s and the 'Father of Criminology' Carlos Beccaria, if not further. Certainly, the post-hoc award of a win to Nepo on the grounds that Naka had used one hand more than usual to switch his king and rook would have been an absurd over-reaction.

While Nepomniachtchi’s appeal rightly failed, the very trivial nature of Nakamura’s actions make me think much less of him too. Double-handed castling is like littering. The impact on everybody else may be small, but it really isn’t difficult to keep within the norms of acceptable behaviour. Anybody who fails to do so is making a pretty clear statement about their priorities.

The same - and here I finally get around to why this post is included in the DG series - is true about claims regarding chess and dementia. It’s really not hard to avoid making vague unsubstantiated claims in this area. Not hard to avoid saying things like, "There are many studies showing positive effect of chess on delaying, improving dementia/Alzheimer's" (Doctor Garry is In) or any of the other equally dubious claims that have we’ve seen in these posts over the past 18 months or so. Not hard, that is, if you have even the slightest sense that what you might happen to feel like doing or saying right now does not necessarily trump the conventions by which everybody else lives.

Let’s not spread misleading or outright factually incorrect information about health matters. Let’s not use both hands when we castle. Let’s not drop litter. Whether or not it matters that much to anybody else if we do these things, let’s not be bellends. Let’s just not do any of them anyway.

Chess and Dementia Index