Mobile phones and late arrivals

[Eoin Devane]

Interesting idea. Maybe my club could produce one...

We did one two years ago, but it didn't happen last season. I'm hoping to resurrect it this coming season. It needs someone quite dedicated to collate it and put it together. We had each of the team captains collect (at least some of) their teams games after each match, input them, and then send them to the editor. (We used carbon copy scoresheets so that the players still had a copy of their games for themselves). If anyone had any other stuff of interest or wanted to write an article or something, they could send it to the editor themselves as well. I think it's quite a nice thing for a club to do.

[A £5 app sounds fine. But, that app has to work on a £200 phone, where you're immediately hooked into an 18-month contract, despite the fact that the next version will be out in 12 months (rendering your current one worthless), and it'll be costly to upgrade it. If anyone thinks Microsoft is dodgy with its ploy of charging for everything, Apple are ten times worse. It may cost £5 for one version of the app, but I don't like the idea of paying £250pa (or thereabouts) for the use of the associated phone.

So, I would just need something that only worries about chess, and doesn't do the aforementioned malpractice. So we come to a £300 Monroi device.

Make me a cheap (i.e. <£50) Monroi-esque device, that has a decent lifetime, and I'll be interested. Until then, scoresheet and pen please.

As I said, give it 5 / 10 years and smartphones will be ubiquitous. Then what we're discussing really does become feasible.

[Alan Walton]

Alex,

The Monroi device is a transmitting device use for broadcasting games, if you just want a individual PDA for inputting personal games, you don't need the wireless technology and thus this kind of device should be significantly cheaper

[Alex Holowczak]

Alex,

The Monroi device is a transmitting device use for broadcasting games, if you just want a individual PDA for inputting personal games, you don't need the wireless technology and thus this kind of device should be significantly cheaper

This makes sense, but at the moment, they don't exist, do they?

[Eoin Devane]

Alex,

The Monroi device is a transmitting device use for broadcasting games, if you just want a individual PDA for inputting personal games, you don't need the wireless technology and thus this kind of device should be significantly cheaper

This makes sense, but at the moment, they don't exist, do they?

Well a normal PDA with Pocket Fritz or similar would do.

[Alex Holowczak]

Alex,

The Monroi device is a transmitting device use for broadcasting games, if you just want a individual PDA for inputting personal games, you don't need the wireless technology and thus this kind of device should be significantly cheaper

This makes sense, but at the moment, they don't exist, do they?

Well a normal PDA with Pocket Fritz or similar would do.

Well, Pocket Fritz 4 retails for £45... Plus you need to have a Pocket PC that runs Windows Mobile. Vendor lock-in much...

[Alan Walton]

I know they don't exist, so don't get too patronising, all I was saying is this is what is required for inputting games electronically for an individual

Eoin, unfortunately it has Pocket Fritz and its a PDA

[Alex Holowczak]

I know they don't exist, so don't get too patronising, all I was saying is this is what is required for inputting games electronically for an individual

Eoin, unfortunately it has Pocket Fritz and its a PDA

I wasn't trying to be patronising, it was just hard to ask that question in a non-patronising-sounding way.

[Eoin Devane]

Eoin, unfortunately it has Pocket Fritz and its a PDA

Yep, I know, but I was just suggesting that with what does exist, we're not really very far away. I presume there are cheaper alternatives, as we don't need the engine etc.. But I stick to what I said earlier, that being that this only becomes likely to be the way forward once smartphones are fairly ubiquitous, as I expect them to be within 10 years. Until then, sticking with pen and paper makes sense.

[Alex Holowczak]

The other problem here is that there are still leagues that have adjournments, and treat digital clocks as though they carry the plague. Given that we're 20 years behind FIDE (and counting!) on getting rid of those, I can still see scoresheets being the dominant force for the next 20-30 years at least.

[David Williams]

That's a bit dopey. I discovered my phone was still on once during a game. So I went to the toilet, switched it off, and returned to my seat. If it did make a noise, there would be no one there to hear it.

I'm presuming that you had not obtained permission from the arbiter to have your phone switched on. Having discovered you were in breach of the first sentence of 12.3.b, I presume you informed him. Having obtained his (retrospective) permission, I'm surprised that you didn't ask his permission to leave the playing venue to switch the phone off. My phone makes a noise when I switch it off, and even if this was in the toilet and no-one but me heard, there is surely no alternative under the second sentence of 12.3.b but to concede the game. It's no different to touching a piece while your opponent is away from the board, realising your intended move is a blunder, and moving something else.

Or maybe you think 12.3.b is an unnecessary rule, given that making use of information or advice, and distracting and annoying your opponent, are against other rules. So you only pay lip service to it, like me and everyone else.

[Derek Pugh]

What's the correct form if during a game you become worried that you might have left your phone on (in the same way that you might leave home and worry that the gas has been left on)? Should you dig it out of your jacket and check, or surreptitiously take your jacket with you to the toilet and check there?

[Alex Holowczak]

That's a bit dopey. I discovered my phone was still on once during a game. So I went to the toilet, switched it off, and returned to my seat. If it did make a noise, there would be no one there to hear it.

I'm presuming that you had not obtained permission from the arbiter to have your phone switched on. Having discovered you were in breach of the first sentence of 12.3.b, I presume you informed him. Having obtained his (retrospective) permission, I'm surprised that you didn't ask his permission to leave the playing venue to switch the phone off. My phone makes a noise when I switch it off, and even if this was in the toilet and no-one but me heard, there is surely no alternative under the second sentence of 12.3.b but to concede the game. It's no different to touching a piece while your opponent is away from the board, realising your intended move is a blunder, and moving something else.

Or maybe you think 12.3.b is an unnecessary rule, given that making use of information or advice, and distracting and annoying your opponent, are against other rules. So you only pay lip service to it, like me and everyone else.

It was a league match. There was no arbiter, so I couldn't ask anyone's permission. My phone doesn't make a noise when it's switched off, I just went to the toilet in case some other noise came from it that I wasn't expecting. It didn't. The Birmingham League states re:12.3.b):

8.12 In accordance with Article 12.3b of the Laws of Chess, the taking of mobile phones into the playing area is permitted provided that they are switched off.

I wouldn't necessarily have to default the game though. The only default penalty applies if the device makes a sound, which it didn't. So the arbiter would be free to impose any penalty from a list he so desires, one of which is a warning. I shall consider myself warned not to do it again.

[David Williams]

Can't argue with that. Fancy working all that out at the time! To be on the safe side, I think you have to flush it if it happens again, though.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

That's a bit dopey. I discovered my phone was still on once during a game. So I went to the toilet, switched it off, and returned to my seat. If it did make a noise, there would be no one there to hear it.

I'm presuming that you had not obtained permission from the arbiter to have your phone switched on. Having discovered you were in breach of the first sentence of 12.3.b, I presume you informed him. Having obtained his (retrospective) permission, I'm surprised that you didn't ask his permission to leave the playing venue to switch the phone off. My phone makes a noise when I switch it off, and even if this was in the toilet and no-one but me heard, there is surely no alternative under the second sentence of 12.3.b but to concede the game. It's no different to touching a piece while your opponent is away from the board, realising your intended move is a blunder, and moving something else.

Or maybe you think 12.3.b is an unnecessary rule, given that making use of information or advice, and distracting and annoying your opponent, are against other rules. So you only pay lip service to it, like me and everyone else.

Oh, I've discreetly stepped outside before to turn my phone off after the game has started. It is usually in silent alert mode anyway, but even then the vibration can be audible. I tend to turn it off completely now, as that is safest and most correct.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

The other problem here is that there are still leagues that have adjournments, and treat digital clocks as though they carry the plague. Given that we're 20 years behind FIDE (and counting!) on getting rid of those, I can still see scoresheets being the dominant force for the next 20-30 years at least.

Wow, the "let's do away with scoresheets and go digital" meme I was pushing really took off in this thread!

Some fascinating comments here. Pity we can't hop in a time machine and see how things will turn out in 20-30 years time (well, some of us will get there the slow way). I wonder what other technological advances (not going quite as far as Stewart did with inbuilt computers) will change chess?