NSWCA: Alarm is not a ring

As we reported last week, Trent Parker lodged an appeal to the New South Wales Chess Association to overturn the result of a game he was involved in at the Ryde-Eastwood Open. The state's chess body has now returned with a decision.

In a posting on the Australian Chess Club Forum, Mr Parker says:

My NSWCA appeal has been rejected on the basis that the alarm is separate from the mobile phone. Also the fact that I should have asked for an appeals committee at the time and not played on.

This baffles me as my interpretation of the rules is that the game should end there and then.

The NSWCA's interpretation of the rule is actually an interesting one and, I have to say, TCG has some sympathy for it. But is that interpretation compliant with the FIDE Laws of Chess? A side-effect to this interpretation is that all arbiters in the land (at least in NSW) will now have to make a determination, on the spot, whether the "ring" was a ring or an alarm. Until such time that FIDE makes a clarification, we could be in for a confusing and argument-filled time over rule 12.2b.