English Chess Forum

Michael J R White wrote: Later on, it was alleged that death threats had been made by the player whose phone went off to his opponent, and this was one of the reasons the game continued (his young, female opponent had been intimidated into accepting to play on).

A death threat is a serious criminal offence. Surely the title of this thread should reflect the gravity of the allegations.
If true, then the police should be informed.

Martyn Jacobs wrote:There is no excuse for leaving a mobile phone on.

It can be difficult sometimes to switch them off.

A Windows based pc usually has four types of off

standby
hibernate
off
off and restart

Phones and tablets are all different by maker but I have a recent Android device which only has three

standby
hibernate
clear memory and restart

To the best of my experimentation, clear memory and restart followed by hibernate, best emulates the PC's "off".

There's also "Airline Mode" which disables all external communication. That would prevent call or text receipt sounds, but not the phone deciding to tell you that its battery was expiring.

Roger de Coverly wrote:

Martyn Jacobs wrote:There is no excuse for leaving a mobile phone on.

It can be difficult sometimes to switch them off.

A Windows based pc usually has four types of off

standby
hibernate
off
off and restart

Phones and tablets are all different by maker but I have a recent Android device which only has three

standby
hibernate
clear memory and restart

To the best of my experimentation, clear memory and restart followed by hibernate, best emulates the PC's "off".

There's also "Airline Mode" which disables all external communication. That would prevent call or text receipt sounds, but not the phone deciding to tell you that its battery was expiring.

Roger, there is another option that can be done for mobile phones, which is simpler than the above: Take the battery out!

That's what I have to do, because the only button to test whether it's on standby or not is also the button that turns the phone on again.

Alex Holowczak wrote: Roger, there is another option that can be done for mobile phones, which is simpler than the above: Take the battery out!

That's what I have to do, because the only button to test whether it's on standby or not is also the button that turns the phone on again.

I expect that's the case on most of them. It helps if you have a battery that can easily be removed which I cannot say is the case for my current model.

Other defensive methods are
(a) to engage airline mode (diverts calls and defers texts)
(b) set all alerts and notifications to silent

Alex Holowczak wrote:
Roger, there is another option that can be done for mobile phones, which is simpler than the above: Take the battery out!

Not sure that's possible on an iPhone.

When I played at one of the side-events at the London Classic I put my mobile into my coat pocket and checked it into the cloakroom.
When I play a county or league match and travel by car I leave it in the car. I can check for messages after the game, the same as if it were in my pocket.
If I need to leave the car some distance away, or use public transport, I might leave it in my pocket switched off, and if the worse happens, well, the world has not ended.
Granted, my phone is a £30 basic model, but I do question why anyone needs to have an expensive device at the board with them, especially if its switched off.

Michael J R White wrote:

John Foley wrote:

Michael J R White wrote: Later on, it was alleged that death threats had been made by the player whose phone went off to his opponent, and this was one of the reasons the game continued (his young, female opponent had been intimidated into accepting to play on).

A death threat is a serious criminal offence. Surely the title of this thread should reflect the gravity of the allegations.
If true, then the police should be informed.

Maybe some good news is that I was told he apoligised in a telephone video to the Maltese Chess Federation, but when I last checked out the Malta Chess website, I couldn't find any reference to this...

So it appears that there was a death threat to the opponent as well as threatening behaviour to a third party. This is far too serious a matter to leave to personal apologies to a foreign chess federation. The incident should be investigated further by the event organisers. The organisers would have a duty of care to participants. If there are witnesses to these events, then it is clearly a police matter.

Alex Holowczak wrote:
Roger, there is another option that can be done for mobile phones, which is simpler than the above: Take the battery out!

There is an even simpler option - leave it at home!

In a w/e tournament in Elstree, W. London the Intermediate was in a separate room, overseen by one roving controller.
Well into the final round, an English junior, playing a foreign adult, repeatedly begged a draw but was sternly rebuffed.
The kid began to cry - still no joy.
Nearby players began to shout and one jumped up and made towards the foreigner. Trying to separate them I found my fingers in a painful martial- arts lock.
My brother got me free with a (universal) tap on the foreigner's shoulder.

Reg Clucas wrote:

Alex Holowczak wrote:
Roger, there is another option that can be done for mobile phones, which is simpler than the above: Take the battery out!

There is an even simpler option - leave it at home!

Well yes, but that'd defeat the object of having a mobile phone!

I find it very useful for checking e-mails and even forum posts while waiting for/on trains!

Martyn Jacobs wrote:I just thought of an idea
If people are so dependent on their mobile phones these days, that they are unwilling to leave them at home, then -
how about the controller collecting all mobile phones before the round begins, and putting them in a safe place

Collecting and storing upwards of 100 mobiles, collectively worth £10,000 (at a very conservative estimate) and then successfully returning the correct phones to everybody at the end of the day sounds like a recipe for disaster.

Let's take one example - European Individual Championships Aix Les Bains 2011, the creme de la creme of European Chess.

393 players took part in that competition. Imagine the logistical nightmare in ensuring that all competitors who had phones gave them to the arbiters who would have to assign some sort of identifying tag to them all, find a suitably safe and quite place to put them and make it easy for the players to access once they had finished their games.

There would probably need to be some sort of security personnel to ensure nothing got stolen in addition to an arbiter being present to ensure that no-one who was still playing decided to take their phone mid-game.

I think a simpler solution would be to force all players with phones on them to place them on the table where they are playing so they are in view at all times. This may have to run in conjunction with some kind of random searching in order to be effective.

Phones are so small and powerful nowadays that action does need to be taken in order to stop them being a problem in the future.

"How about providing small soundproof containers for those competitors who are not absolutely sure about their mobile phone's status"

Indeed. Not sure where organisers could find such. Do you have the name of a reliable supplier at zero cost?
Or maybe players could make their own and bring. Shoe box wrapped in tin foil. That'll do the job.

This is what we need!

I'm not sure whether to be pleased that I recognised that picture or dismayed that I'm old enough to have done so.