We assembled with interest, hoping for extra insight into the workings of the law. Apparently the claim had been made properly, but instead of this halting the game the captains had allowed play to continue until the claimant's flag fell, which is more in line with arbiter present procedures. It was not apparent in the original submissions the exact point at which black had made the claim. The flag fall position is right, and on this a provisional ruling of draw had been made.

Fuller v Clifford after 49 ... Be4

There seemed no reason to overrule the captain's decision to allow continuation - it is hard enough to get captains without unnecessarily overruling them, and in this case both players were content that their positions had not deteriorated during the moves subsequent to the claim. Having heard the testimony of players and captains, which in truth contained nothing unexpected, Roger saw no reason to change his opinion, so the provisional ruling of draw stands.

The rule 10.2 is quite clear: "If the arbiter agrees the opponent is making no effort to win the game by normal means, or that it is not possible to win by normal means, then he shall declare the game drawn." By definition whatever the arbiter's opinion is is correct. Consequently it is no surprise that there is no appeal. Yet I confess that if the player's had found themselves subjected to my opinions the ruling would have been loss for the claimant.

Why? First I backtrack to the position (left) immediately after the exchange of queens, soon after which the claim had been made.

Fuller v Clifford after 35 Bxe2

The remaining moves were
35 ... Bb3, 36 Rd2 f6, 37 Bf3 Bc4*, 38 Be2 Rc8, 39 Kf2 Ke7
40 Bd3 h6, 41 Rb2 Rc7, 42 Bg6 f5, 43 Bh5 Ra7, 44 Rc2 Ra2
45 Rxa2 Bxa2, 46 Ke3 Kd6, 47 Bf3 Bc4, 48 h4 Bd5, Be2 Be4
* I suspect that the apparently strange behaviour of both players on move 41 are best explained by black's 37th move having been Bd5, with a recording error being made, though both players admitted that the double blunder could have happened without them noticing.

White has kept the bishops on with his opponent having a couple of pawns fixed on the same coloured squares, and has moved his king towards the action. These are not random moves, but show intent to seek a win. He is trying.

Is it possible for white to win by normal means? There is a danger that if you start with "if white does this, then black can do that" that you will end up looking at best play for both sides and so make an adjudication. Thus my preference is simply to find some wins and ask if they can be considered by normal means or require abnormal co-operation from the claimant. 50 g4 is the obvious move for white, giving black the chance of an immediate blunder with fxg4 losing the bishop.

There are other losses lurking in reply to g4, some are:
50 ... Kd5, 51 Ba6 fxg4 not noticing that Bb7+ wins the bishop, a variation on the previous blunder.

50 ... Bb1, 51 Bf3 occupying the long diagonal
51 ... fxg4, 52 Bxg4 Bf5, 53 Bxf5 exf5. Black has one pawn island to white's three yet is lost after Kd3. A good end-game study consists of the position after 54 h5 instead of Kd3 in this line - it is then easy to find wins for both sides as well as draws. Finding these is educational.

50 ... g6, 51 g5 h5 locking the pawns
52 Kd2 moving towards the open spaces on the queenside
52 ... Kd5 to tie the white king down to the defence of the d-pawn
53 Bxh5 1-0

I'm not convinced that any of these can be dismissed as not being by normal means as even piece blunders do happen in normal chess. Thus I reckon it is possible for white to win by normal means, so to me the draw is not proven - I wouldn't take it that black's previous defence could be taken to mean that he would defend successfully against g4. Roger's feeling was that as he had no reason to suppose that g4 would definitely be played he couldn't take the possibility into account - looking at particular moves would constitute adjudication.

Julian Kirk O'Grady v RR after 12 c4

Julian Kirk O'Grady v RR after 25 ... Bg6

Julian Kirk O'Grady v RR after 33 Qf3

We had both used quite a bit of our time to get this far, so the endgame needed to be played out relatively quickly, which with loose pawns all over the board could be a problem. Don't expect too much best play! Suffice to say that Fritz has us both with a clear edge at points in the subsequent play. Move 62 arrives and neeither side can make further progress - see diagram.

Julian Kirk O'Grady v RR after 62 Kb7

If 62 Rb1+ is met by Rb6, then 63 ... Rxb6, 64 Kxb6 Bd4+ and the position is a simple win for black. So nothing here for white. But RR sees the slighest glimmer that Julian will go wrong. A few seconds checking that the ending when Julian goes right is drawn and the game ends: