FIDE rule change: no phones in playing venue AT ALL

[Robert Stokes]

All this talk of cheating and alleged cheating reminds me of something I was told by an arbiter well over ten years ago. An ungraded player, aged about 20, entered the minor division of a weekend congress. He easily beat his first three opponents on the Friday evening and Saturday even though they were all near the top of that division.

On the Sunday he didn't seem to know what he was doing and quickly lost both games. It turned out that he was an electronics student and in the early games had some rudimentary form of communication with a fellow student who was a good chess player and standing outside. His Sunday performance was very poor because the communication device had failed.

So the idea is not all that new, even though this was before the days of mass mobile phone ownership. I've no idea how they found out what was going on.

Robert

[Sean Hewitt]

I am aware several players do this but it is their own idea and at their own risk. I would not like to insist that players left their phones unattended at their boards. If one was stolen then the congress would have to accept some responsibility. I have known items to be stolen at events (in all cases it was believed to be by outsiders).

Imagine the effect of a player not wanting to leave his phone unattended when he went to the toilet picking it up and exiting the hall. That is worse than having it in his pocket the entire time in my opinion. The opponent would certainly have grounds to be concerned.

I was thinking in the context of players being advised not to bring their phone with them but, should they choose to do so anyway then this is the requirement in order to play.

It would be at the players own risk if they choose to bring it with them.

[Mike Gunn]

>>>Imagine the effect of a player not wanting to leave his phone unattended when he went to the toilet picking it up and exiting the hall. That is worse than having it in his pocket the entire time in my opinion. The opponent would certainly have grounds to be concerned.<<<

Perhaps a solution would be that players place their mobile phones next to them on the table when playing and when they go to the toilet they hand the phone to an Arbiter for safe keeping?

[Alex McFarlane]

Mike,

Many players take a comfort break just after making the time control. At that point arbiters are watching others pass the time control or are catching up on the results which have come in just before this. To add phone watching at that point does not seem the best option. It also still leaves the opponent wondering if he will hand the phone to the arbiter or take it with him.

Sean,

As soon as you allow the option of having the phone in the hall but insist that it must be in open view then you are leaving yourself open to legal action regardless of any statement to the contrary. We all know that the phrase "left at your own risk" in cloakrooms etc has limited legal value. If the organiser had been warned in advance that thieves had previously operated in the venue then the insistance that the phones should be left out could leave him open to compensation claims. I certainly wouldn't want to risk it.

[Paul Buswell]

Tournaments might require players to put mobile phones next to their board, but switched off. The penalty for it making a noise could be a time penalty (as we've minimised the risk of cheating, this is clearly just an error) but the penalty for having a phone on your person (instead of on the table) is a loss - whether the phone is on or off.

If it gets to that stage I'll just give up playing in those events because I just couldn't be arsed to pay good money to enter and then go through that rigmarole.

PB

[Clive Blackburn]

Tournaments might require players to put mobile phones next to their board, but switched off. The penalty for it making a noise could be a time penalty (as we've minimised the risk of cheating, this is clearly just an error) but the penalty for having a phone on your person (instead of on the table) is a loss - whether the phone is on or off.

If it gets to that stage I'll just give up playing in those events because I just couldn't be arsed to pay good money to enter and then go through that rigmarole.

PB

I really can't see any problem with players just leaving their mobile phones either in the car or the hotel room during play. I can't think of any venue where it would be a very long walk to get to your phone between rounds.

Do people really want to make/receive calls or text messages when they are in the middle of a game of chess?

[IM Jack Rudd]

Do people really want to make/receive calls or text messages when they are in the middle of a game of chess?

Some need to be able to. I've run tournaments where the players included doctors on call and people waiting for kidney transplants.

[Richard Bates]

I really can't see any problem with players just leaving their mobile phones either in the car or the hotel room during play. I can't think of any venue where it would be a very long walk to get to your phone between rounds.

Well just to take a topical example, i imagine that a large number of players at the London Classic will neither be travelling by car, nor staying at a hotel near the venue. It obviously isn't a problem if you aren't one of those players!

[LawrenceCooper]

I really can't see any problem with players just leaving their mobile phones either in the car or the hotel room during play. I can't think of any venue where it would be a very long walk to get to your phone between rounds. :

What about those travelling by public transport each day?

[Ian Thompson]

Well just to take a topical example, i imagine that a large number of players at the London Classic will neither be travelling by car, nor staying at a hotel near the venue. It obviously isn't a problem if you aren't one of those players!

It's not obvious to me why it is a problem if you are one of those players - leave the phone at home. Do what people did 25 years ago when hardly anyone had a mobile phone.

[Roger de Coverly]

Do what people did 25 years ago when hardly anyone had a mobile phone.

25 years ago, you used the public call phones. There are not very many left.

The solution of leaving the phone in the hotel room doesn't work on the last day if you are travelling by public transport. You've probably got a laptop with you as well, even if packed as luggage.

[Clive Blackburn]

Well just to take a topical example, i imagine that a large number of players at the London Classic will neither be travelling by car, nor staying at a hotel near the venue. It obviously isn't a problem if you aren't one of those players!

It's not obvious to me why it is a problem if you are one of those players - leave the phone at home. Do what people did 25 years ago when hardly anyone had a mobile phone.

I totally agree Ian - many people have the idea that they can't exist without their mobiles for more than about 10 minutes at a stretch!

[Richard Bates]

Well just to take a topical example, i imagine that a large number of players at the London Classic will neither be travelling by car, nor staying at a hotel near the venue. It obviously isn't a problem if you aren't one of those players!

It's not obvious to me why it is a problem if you are one of those players - leave the phone at home. Do what people did 25 years ago when hardly anyone had a mobile phone.

Well it obviously isn't a problem if you don't want to carry a phone around with you. But Clive wasn't suggesting that.

The reality is that many people do, and feel much more secure doing so. Even if it's simply a case of being able to let people know where you are if something goes wrong and/or plans get changed. Or to allow others to get in contact with you. What happened 25 years ago really doesn't come into it.

[Ray Sayers]

It's pretty clear from all of the above that there is no good way to stop potential cheating using electronic means. All the permutations of not taking phones, storing them, making them visible etc. have drawbacks. Plus, there are other ways of cheating such as receiving messages through hearing aids. I think one cheater in Gerrmany had a briefcase and pen?!

The sad thing is that if people are going to cheat using programs like Fritz, it is going to ruin tournaments etc. for others. It got me thinking that these aids are a bit like using drugs in sport. So perhaps the plan should be to do what sports do - if you are caught cheating you are banned from competitions for 2 years. Mandatory. I'm not talking about phones going off accidentally, I mean caught using software via some device. More emphasis on deterrence than detection.

For tournament chessplayers, a ban would be a terrible thing. Bad enough to discourage cheating if the penalty was harsh enough.

[Jonathan Rogers]

Agreed, and I would suggest something higher than a two year ban; not as a deterrent (effective deterrence necessarily involves the perceived likelihood of catching the miscreant) but simply because I think that, in the chess community, it is an extremely grave offence which merits a very heavy penalty for those few who might be caught.

Other than that, tournaments should include as part of their blurb that all entrants are taken to agree to show to an arbiter on request any electronic device in their possession and to provide any passwords as may be necessary to enable him or another authorised person to see if and how how the device has been used since the game began. Failure to co-operate leads to the loss of the game and ideally, also to a mandatory ban, say for two years.

Quite how the bans would work is another matter, presumably one which would require the ECF to get its act together and have a system for such cases. A panel should hear the evidence and if the allegation is proven, no doubt the ECF could enforce it by failing to grade/rate any events in which the player might wish to participate during the ban. I mean, threatening to do that would hardly be revolutionary for the ECF, now ...