Daily Casefile · Detective
A Clock Runs Fast in Round Four
≈ 6 min
The Larchford Open's decisive Round Four ran on the club's flagship board, where reigning champion Dev Aroyan was grinding a winning endgame under a shared digital chess clock. At move 41 the clock's display seized, its increment stopped adding time, and Aroyan's flag fell before an arbiter could rule — costing him the game and the title on a technical loss. The clock, opened afterward, had a shim of folded card jammed under the reset contact: someone had made it fail on purpose.
Subject
The Larchford tournament clock
A club-owned DGT digital match clock, roughly fifteen years old, used only on the flagship board; sabotaged mid-game so a leading player would lose on time.
The suspects
- Mara Ostrolenk — Chief arbiter
- Lionel Frayne — Aroyan's Round Four opponent
- Priya Sandhu — Equipment steward and club treasurer
- Toma Renke — Live-feed operator and rival contender
Play today’s Detective.
This case first aired on September 25, 2026. A fresh detective runs every morning — same rules, five minutes, one solution.