RuleSage cited table rulings
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You asked

How do I set up the game?

Abstained — no grounded answer; closest passages below counted as honest abstain

Answered before

This question didn't get an answer just now — but Chess has been asked something like it before. The corpus may have changed since, so check the date and the answerer on each one before you rule from it.

How do I set up the game?

Answered Aug 8, 2026 gemma4:26b read Chess

How do I set up the game?

Answered Aug 2, 2026 gemma4:26b

How do I setup the game?

Answered Aug 4, 2026 gemma4:26b read Chess

I looked through Chess's rulebook and couldn't find a solid answer to that one — and I'd rather tell you so than guess at your table. Try asking it another way, or ask me about setup, turns, or how the game ends: those I know cold.

The closest rulebook passages are below — check them before ruling.

RULEBOOK Chess — FIDE Laws of Chess (effective 2023-01-01) · p.28 · Guidelines I. Adjourned Games · Guidelines II. Chess960 Rules · II.2 Starting Position Requirements
I.12.1 If the envelope containing the sealed move is missing, the game shall continue from the adjourned position, with the clock times recorded at the time of adjournment. If the time used by each player cannot be re-established, the arbiter shall set the clocks. The player who sealed the move shal
RULEBOOK Chess — FIDE Laws of Chess (effective 2023-01-01) · p.27 · Guidelines I. Adjourned Games
I.2.6 the offer of a draw, if the proposal is current, I.2.7 the date, time and venue of resumption of play. I.3 The arbiter shall check the accuracy of the information on the envelope and is responsible for its safekeeping. I.4 If a player proposes a draw after his/her opponent has sealed his/her m
RULEBOOK Chess — FIDE Laws of Chess (effective 2023-01-01) · p.12 · Article 6: The Chessclock
complete the prescribed number of moves in the allotted time, the game is lost by that player. However, the game is drawn if the position is such that the opponent cannot checkmate the player's king by any possible series of legal moves. 6.10 Chessclock setting: 6.10.1 Every indication given by the
RULEBOOK Chess — FIDE Laws of Chess (effective 2023-01-01) · p.30 · Guidelines III. Games without Increment including Quickplay Finishes
announced beforehand. III.2.2 These Guidelines shall apply only to standard chess and rapid chess games without increment and not to blitz games. III.3.1 If both flags have fallen and it is impossible to establish which flag fell first then: III.3.1.1 the game shall continue if this occurs in any pe
RULEBOOK Chess — FIDE Laws of Chess (effective 2023-01-01) · p.20 · Appendix A. Rapid Chess
the opponent. A.5 Otherwise the following apply: A.5.1 From the initial position, once 10 moves have been completed by each player, A.5.1.1 No change can be made to the clock setting, unless the schedule of the event would be adversely affected. A.5.1.2 No claim can be made regarding incorrect set-u
🔧 debug — where this ruling came from
outcome
ABSTAINED — Abstained — no grounded answer; closest passages below
warm abstain
  • this ruling — W1 — generic warm abstain · receipt: none (generic)
corpus profile
live
answerer pin (deploy-frozen, attribution only)
gemma4:26b think:false 5571076f3d70
timings
search 229 ms · ask 14062 ms · total 14302 ms
single-flight (PR-5)
queued 0 ms · generation 14302 ms
retrieval refs (raw) — what the PASSAGE SEARCH returned, not what the answerer read
[{"page": 28, "score": 0.032522, "snippet": "I.12.1 If the envelope containing the sealed move is missing, the game shall continue from the adjourned position, with the clock times recorded at the time of adjournment. If the time used by each player cannot be re-established, the arbiter shall set the clocks. The player who sealed the move shal", "headingPath": "Guidelines I. Adjourned Games · Guidelines II. Chess960 Rules · II.2 Starting Position Requirements", "sharpsignalDocId": 167}, {"page": 27, "score": 0.031258, "snippet": "I.2.6 the offer of a draw, if the proposal is current, I.2.7 the date, time and venue of resumption of play. I.3 The arbiter shall check the accuracy of the information on the envelope and is responsible for its safekeeping. I.4 If a player proposes a draw after his/her opponent has sealed his/her m", "headingPath": "Guidelines I. Adjourned Games", "sharpsignalDocId": 167}, {"page": 12, "score": 0.030092, "snippet": "complete the prescribed number of moves in the allotted time, the game is lost by that player. However, the game is drawn if the position is such that the opponent cannot checkmate the player's king by any possible series of legal moves. 6.10 Chessclock setting: 6.10.1 Every indication given by the ", "headingPath": "Article 6: The Chessclock", "sharpsignalDocId": 167}, {"page": 30, "score": 0.028612, "snippet": "announced beforehand. III.2.2 These Guidelines shall apply only to standard chess and rapid chess games without increment and not to blitz games. III.3.1 If both flags have fallen and it is impossible to establish which flag fell first then: III.3.1.1 the game shall continue if this occurs in any pe", "headingPath": "Guidelines III. Games without Increment including Quickplay Finishes", "sharpsignalDocId": 167}, {"page": 20, "score": 0.0262, "snippet": "the opponent. A.5 Otherwise the following apply: A.5.1 From the initial position, once 10 moves have been completed by each player, A.5.1.1 No change can be made to the clock setting, unless the schedule of the event would be adversely affected. A.5.1.2 No claim can be made regarding incorrect set-u", "headingPath": "Appendix A. Rapid Chess", "sharpsignalDocId": 167}, {"page": 16, "score": 0.026137, "snippet": "11.1 The players shall take no action that will bring the game of chess into disrepute. 11.2 Playing venue and playing area: 11.2.1 The 'playing venue' is defined as the 'playing area', rest rooms, toilets, refreshment area, area set aside for smoking and other places as designated by the arbiter.", "headingPath": "Article 11: The Conduct of the Players", "sharpsignalDocId": 167}, {"page": 34, "score": 0.024185, "snippet": "| | rest rooms | 11.2 | Toilets, also the room set aside in World Championships where the players can relax. | | result | 8.7 | Usually the result is 1-0, 0-1 or ½-½. In exceptional circumstances both players maylose (Article 11.8), or one score ½ and the other 0. For unplayed games the scores are i", "headingPath": "Glossary of Terms in the Laws of Chess", "sharpsignalDocId": 167}, {"page": 34, "score": 0.024001, "snippet": "| penalties | 12.3 | The arbiter may apply penalties as listed in 12.9 in ascending order of severity. | | piece | 2.1 | One of the 32 figurines on the board. Or 2. Aqueen, rook, bishop or knight. | | playing area | 11.2 | The place where the games of a competition are played. | | playing venue | 11", "headingPath": "Glossary of Terms in the Laws of Chess", "sharpsignalDocId": 167}]
citations (raw) — what the answer cited, chosen from a retrieval this page cannot show
[]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3)
no registered errata card matched this query; base-rulebook boost: not recorded (this ruling predates it); rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base-rulebook boost: not recorded (this ruling predates it)
answered-before recall
past answered rulings were found and offered
similarity threshold in force: 0.55 (rulesage.answered-before.similarity-threshold; the exact-question tier is not gated by it)
  • ruling 1911 — matched by the same question (normalized, punctuation folded) — measured similarity 1.0
  • ruling 863 — matched by the same question (normalized, punctuation folded) — measured similarity 1.0
  • ruling 980 — matched by trigram similarity — measured similarity 0.8148
debug row retained until
Oct 31, 2026 14:37

what this block IS: the PASSAGE SEARCH's own results — the same search that fills this page's closest-passages list — and NOT the passages the answerer read. Answering runs its OWN retrieval: a far wider candidate pool, re-ranked down to a final handful, plus floors this search never applies — the base rulebook, surviving errata corrections, and one slot per book on a multi-book read. Each of those armed only if THIS ask sent what it needs: the boost block names the ids it forwarded, and the scope line names the books it read. A document the answer CITES that no row here names is therefore EXPECTED, not a defect: two searches, two candidate pools, two orders. How much wider that pool was is set gateway-side and is NOT REPORTED for this ruling, and neither are the answerer's final rows — so rulesage has nothing of its own to show beside these.

score = the fused retrieval score (reciprocal-rank fusion over the search arms) — NOT a cosine similarity. How many arms fused this ruling was NOT RECORDED (it predates the boost trail, ran on the path that stored none, or stored one that could not be read), and the ceiling depends on that count (ceiling = arms/(k+1) at k=60): 2 arms top out at 0.03279; 3 arms top out at 0.04918. So a score above 0.03279 here is not an anomaly: it is arithmetic proof a boost arm voted, and the measured band 0.016–0.033 (taken on two-arm asks) is what does not apply. A chunk only one arm ranked highly lands near 0.016 (that one arm's #1 vote), so 0.03 here is an excellent hit, not a 3% match.

per-arm ranks (the rank each search arm gave a chunk): NOT DISCLOSED by the gateway. Fusion happens gateway-side and only the FUSED score crosses the wire, so rulesage cannot show them without a gateway change. The rank column below is the FUSED rank (position in the returned list), which is real.

token count per chunk: NOT DISCLOSED — chunk token counts are not reported on the ask path. The character counts below are of the bounded snippet/quote rulesage actually received — a real measurement of what we hold, never an estimate of the chunk.

fused rankdocumentheadingpage fused RRF scoresnippet chars
#1 RULEBOOK Chess — FIDE Laws of Chess (effective 2023-01-01) (corpus doc 167) Guidelines I. Adjourned Games · Guidelines II. Chess960 Rules · II.2 Starting Position Requirements p.28 0.032522 (inside the measured healthy band 0.016–0.033 (measured on two-arm asks; this ruling's arm count was never recorded)) 300
#2 RULEBOOK Chess — FIDE Laws of Chess (effective 2023-01-01) (corpus doc 167) Guidelines I. Adjourned Games p.27 0.031258 (inside the measured healthy band 0.016–0.033 (measured on two-arm asks; this ruling's arm count was never recorded)) 300
#3 RULEBOOK Chess — FIDE Laws of Chess (effective 2023-01-01) (corpus doc 167) Article 6: The Chessclock p.12 0.030092 (inside the measured healthy band 0.016–0.033 (measured on two-arm asks; this ruling's arm count was never recorded)) 300
#4 RULEBOOK Chess — FIDE Laws of Chess (effective 2023-01-01) (corpus doc 167) Guidelines III. Games without Increment including Quickplay Finishes p.30 0.028612 (inside the measured healthy band 0.016–0.033 (measured on two-arm asks; this ruling's arm count was never recorded)) 300
#5 RULEBOOK Chess — FIDE Laws of Chess (effective 2023-01-01) (corpus doc 167) Appendix A. Rapid Chess p.20 0.0262 (inside the measured healthy band 0.016–0.033 (measured on two-arm asks; this ruling's arm count was never recorded)) 300
#6 RULEBOOK Chess — FIDE Laws of Chess (effective 2023-01-01) (corpus doc 167) Article 11: The Conduct of the Players p.16 0.026137 (inside the measured healthy band 0.016–0.033 (measured on two-arm asks; this ruling's arm count was never recorded)) 298
#7 RULEBOOK Chess — FIDE Laws of Chess (effective 2023-01-01) (corpus doc 167) Glossary of Terms in the Laws of Chess p.34 0.024185 (inside the measured healthy band 0.016–0.033 (measured on two-arm asks; this ruling's arm count was never recorded)) 300
#8 RULEBOOK Chess — FIDE Laws of Chess (effective 2023-01-01) (corpus doc 167) Glossary of Terms in the Laws of Chess p.34 0.024001 (inside the measured healthy band 0.016–0.033 (measured on two-arm asks; this ruling's arm count was never recorded)) 300

what this block IS: the passages the ANSWERING read put in front of the answerer, in the order it read them — the other half of the two reads described above, and the one that decides what the answer could possibly say. Each row names the book it came from and where in that book it sits, what it scored when the search arms were fused, which arm carried it there, and whether the re-ranker chose it or a floor guaranteed it a slot. A row here that no passage-search row names is EXPECTED: a far wider pool, re-ranked, with floors the passage search never applies.

the passages the answerer read: NOT RECORDED for this ruling. Any of three things leaves this empty, and they are all different from the answerer having had nothing to read: this ask may never have reached a gateway at all; a multi-book ask keeps each book's own context on that book's own page rather than here; or the gateway build that answered may simply not report it. What this NEVER means is that the answerer read nothing — an answer was composed from passages either way, and their absence here is a gap in what we were told, not in what it read.

token count per chunk: NOT DISCLOSED — chunk token counts are not reported on the ask path. The character counts below are of the bounded snippet/quote rulesage actually received — a real measurement of what we hold, never an estimate of the chunk.

#documentheadingpagequote chars
timing split
retrieval 229 ms · first delta 14181 ms · total 14302 ms (retrieval and first-delta both measured from the START of gateway work, so first-delta INCLUDES retrieval — do not subtract)
full breakdown
queued 0 ms · retrieval 229 ms · ask 14062 ms · gateway work 14302 ms · total 14302 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read)
4365
tokens out (what the answerer generated)
9
tok/sec
116.9 tok/sec — 9 output tokens in 0.077 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child)
answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 34s ago)
stream path
streamed — the gateway pushed at least one accumulated draft
watchdog
first-token watchdog: 30s per arming window (rulesage.table.first-token-watchdog-seconds), re-armed once by the passages frame — so the worst case before a reader falls back to polling is 60s. Whether it actually fired is a BROWSER-side decision that never reaches the server, so it is not recorded here. The stream path above is the server's half of that story: whether a delta was emitted at all.
num_ctx · think posture
both are the CHILD's settings, not rulesage's, and no ask reply carries them — an answer never states which context window or think posture produced it. The live-seat line above reads them from the running child instead, where the gateway can answer for itself; it describes the child NOW, not this ask.
outcome
ABSTAINED — Abstained — no grounded answer; closest passages below
abstain rationale
I don't have enough information.
the answerer's own words, verbatim — hostile corpus/LLM text, rendered escaped
decision
NO_APPROVED_CHECKLIST — setup-shaped, but no approved setup checklist exists for this game
pattern that matched
SETUP — "setup" / "set up"
matched words (in the normalized question)
set up

this game registers NO errata cards (edition 90), so "no registered errata card matched" above could never have matched one

Errata scope: the gate above matched this ruling's own edition only. When an ask also reads an expansion, that expansion's own registered errata cards stay outside the match — a stated phase-1 limitation, not a failed lookup.