British Championships Tenders sought

[Stewart Reuben]

I have often thought of awarding a prize for the neatest set of scoresheets. But Mark Hebden would always win.
The errors are neither randomly nor evenly distributed. Viktor Korchnoi's scoresheets are totally worthless. There seems to be a Russian disease about the legibility of their scoresheets. Andrew Lewis used deliberately to make his scoresheets unreadable. Erik Teichmann once scored in Udemann Code with the numbers used being in binerary. I pointed out to him this was against the Laws.
Digital boards are an improvement. Even then the concluding moves are sometimes wrong as people analyse on the board, allthough told not to. Monroi is excellent, but the equipment is expensive.

[Sebastian Stone]

This season, only 1 of my games has been deemed worthy(!) of publication (Fortunately a victory, the first time I've had a victory published).

I am pleased to report they (chessdevon) seem to have reproduced the game accurately, however my name has been somewhat misspelt.

Maybe if I keep quiet, I won't have the games added to my grading (which considering how I performed would be a good thing). Edit: Further investigation has revealed unfortunately this is not the case.

So, I'll just keep it under my hat then.

[Geoff Chandler]

Hi Andrew.

"Out of interest, we're still getting one or two calls a week at the office from people
who paid for last year's bulletin, but we haven't seen hide nor hair of it yet."

Send them a scrap piece of paper with the words "Mickey Adams won it."
written in pencil.
If they insist on some games then send them the games from the 2010
British Championship. (simply change the date) they won't know the difference.

[Andrew Walker]

Jeez, Geoff, that's hilarious. Indeed, why should we care about the customer/punter/ECF member, eh? It's not as if they pay our wages. No ... wait ...

[Andrew Walker]

Doctor Upham
J A Lutton is the contact name we have for the bulletin - is this the cove you mean?

[Alex Holowczak]

I have often thought of awarding a prize for the neatest set of scoresheets. But Mark Hebden would always win.

Depends on the standard. Mark Hebden is pretty neat. If you're dropping down from GM level, Jack Rudd's are neat, and I've only ever found 1 mistake in them!

As tends to be the way, I can immediately tell you who the not-so-neat people are. Certain names strike fear into games-inputters...

[Paul Cooksey]

As tends to be the way, I can immediately tell you who the not-so-neat people are. Certain names strike fear into games-inputters...

In the spirit of reconciliation currently on the forum, I'd like to issue an apology to game inputers everywhere.

1. My handwriting is poor, and deteriorates as the game progresses.
2. My scoresheet typically has several crossing out, where I've missed moves. (This is an improvement - in the mid nineties I claimed a win on time, believing it was move 38 and it was actually move 43).
3. Occasionally I record entirely the wrong move, transposing ranks and or files.

I've seen small children with barely positive grades with better scoresheets than mine. It is a matter of considerable embarrassment to me, which has only increased as this forum revealed who was actually lumbered with doing the inputing. I promise the next one will be better. (Possibly, look I'll try)

[John McKenna]

Why give the worst offenders detention and make them input their own game until they get it right!?

[Alex Holowczak]

Why give the worst offenders detention and make them input their own game until they get it right!?

If we can't input the game, that's precisely what we do! At e2e4 events, Sean often asks the players to come to the Office to help. If you're doing them after the event, then this makes it very difficult.

The Laws of Chess require:

8.1 In the course of play each player is required to record his own moves and those of his opponent in the correct manner, move after move, as clearly and legibily as possible, in the algebraic notation (See Appendix C), on the scoresheet prescribed for the competition.

8.1 is probably the one of the least enforced laws in chess. Certainly no one much cares about people who write in descriptive notation. If someone deliberately writes illegibly (as Stewart mentioned was done), it is certainly within the arbiter's remit for the player to default the game, since violations for this jump to 13.4.

[Stewart Reuben]

Paul,
If you bought yourself a Monroi? They cost about £200. Many of your opponents will say, self-importantly, that they are illegal. They are not. It wold be illegal to use your mobile phone for the purpose, although I think that is mainly paranoia.
But you would need access to a computer to download the game which might be inconvenient at a 19th century tournament - which many are in England.

John, Requiring the players to help with the inputting of their own games is precisely what we do with Korchnoi.

But why should somebody keep score at all if they play on an electronic board or, as with the London League or Counties Championship, the games are not recorded for posterity?

[Alex Holowczak]

Paul,
If you bought yourself a Monroi? They cost about £200. Many of your opponents will say, self-importantly, that they are illegal. They are not. It wold be illegal to use your mobile phone for the purpose, although I think that is mainly paranoia.

There is a story locally of a player who bought a Monroi for use in congresses and league games, and informed the arbiter of one-such congress in advance. The arbiter refused to let him use it. I don't know the details of the story, but it irks him to this day.

But why should somebody keep score at all if they play on an electronic board or, as with the London League or Counties Championship, the games are not recorded for posterity?

In case there's an argument about what happened in an arbiterless situation. They're also handy for working out how many moves you've got to if you have an intermediate time control.

As the new Manager of the Counties Championship, I hope to have the games played in the Final - from the Open section at least - inputted for posterity.

[Stewart Reuben]

A first step towards the 20th century.

[John McKenna]

Monroi est mon droit mais c'est trop cher.

[Alex Holowczak]

As tends to be the way, I can immediately tell you who the not-so-neat people are. Certain names strike fear into games-inputters...

In the spirit of reconciliation currently on the forum, I'd like to issue an apology to game inputers everywhere.

1. My handwriting is poor, and deteriorates as the game progresses.
2. My scoresheet typically has several crossing out, where I've missed moves. (This is an improvement - in the mid nineties I claimed a win on time, believing it was move 38 and it was actually move 43).
3. Occasionally I record entirely the wrong move, transposing ranks and or files.

I've seen small children with barely positive grades with better scoresheets than mine. It is a matter of considerable embarrassment to me, which has only increased as this forum revealed who was actually lumbered with doing the inputing. I promise the next one will be better. (Possibly, look I'll try)

To be honest, I don't think inputters hold grudges. We just realise we're dealing with chessplayers.

The problems you describe are frequent. The other errors that frustrate me from time to time:
(1) The black player often has difficulty working out the square, and sometimes reflects his co-ordinates in one or two planes of symmetry.
(2) Disambiguation. People often fail to disambiguate things like rook moves. The best ones are when people write Nce4. They remembered to disambiguate, but forget there's a Knight on c3 and c5...
(3) Not putting a cross when a piece is captured. I always question whether or not the piece on that square was supposed to be there when that happens, which slows me down.
(4) Things like BxR. Bxf1 would be much easier for me. I can click on f1 far quicker than I look around the board for a Rook that a Bishop can take.

Children's scoresheets tend to be neater, but also tend to have more mistakes. The biggest mistake children tend to make is moves being missed out altogether.

[Roger de Coverly]

To be honest, I don't think inputters hold grudges. We just realise we're dealing with chessplayers.

Something I've spotted in my own games is that I will sometimes write down the square I am thinking about rather than the actual square. So if there's a Knight on b8 which wants to take up residence on e5, I might write Ne5 rather than Nd7 or Nc6. Usually I spot it and correct, but not always .