Insufficient losing chances

Insufficient losing chances, abbreviated ILC, is a specific US Chess concept. It concerns sudden-death time controls, meaning that all remaining moves must be completed within one final allotment of time.

The current main rule does not grant an ILC claim. The former procedure survives as Variation 14H, a rules variation that a director may adopt. A player should therefore not assume that it is available and must know which rules the event is using.

When the variation is used, the claim is intended for a game without a properly operating delay or increment clock. Delay protects a short interval before the main time starts running on each move; increment grants a fixed extra amount for each move. The claimant must be on the move, have two minutes or less remaining, and stop the clock before the flag falls. The director judges whether, with ample time for both sides, the claimant would have very little practical chance of losing the position. That judgment does not depend on the actual players' ratings and does not mean that checkmate is legally impossible.

The director may uphold the claim, deny it, or use one of the procedures for continuing the game, such as installing a delay clock. This separates ILC from a FIDE draw on time: the latter applies an objective test after time expires, while ILC is a practical pre-flag ruling under an optional US Chess variation.