That’s not a legal move

Venue: Open FIDE Rated Chess Tournament

Time: 9:30 AM

Timers pressed. Game began.

My opponent was a little girl, not more than 10 years old.  And when the game started I noticed that she had a wrong placement of king and queen (Or something like that, I don’t remember exactly).  I thought, “Oh..this innocent kid, poor girl, why should I make her in trouble” I told her to correct it and the game restarted.

After sometime, she called the arbiter.  Did I make any mistake? My eyes scanned the entire board..no, nothing is wrong.. then what’s wrong with her..I thought.

The timer was placed on my left side, so I was moving pieces with my left hand to meet the law of pressing the timer with the same hand which made move. And as a poke-yoke, I kept a pen in my right hand too and was writing the moves in the notepad.  The cautious me, no..;)

The little girl assumed that I was playing with right hand, as it is the normal way. And when she noticed that I was pressing the timer with left hand, a bulb lighted in her head. Anyway, it didn’t take much time to make it clear for her as the arbiter was the real witness to shield me.

Another 10 or 15 moves over. I did a short castling. Again she stood up.. I scanned my board..the cycle repeated, found nothing wrong. The arbiter came and at once she said that I moved into check. Castling is only forbidden when an opponent’s piece controls a square that the king has to cross. Thanks God, I am saved this time, too. She might have got mistaken by the rules.

After a few more moves, she called the arbiter again. My heartbeats started to increase. And this time, she had a complaint about the table, that it’s not steady.. Anyway the arbiter solved this problem too…the match continued..

Please don’t ask me who win or lose the match, I give full credit to that little girl as she gave me an alternative insight to her generation.