What would you do here

[William Metcalfe]

I noticed on another thread writing on scoresheets came up.
In my game last night my opponent was wrighting his moves down before he made his move which i was ok with as he was a elderly gentleman.Then this incident arouse he wrote a move down checked the board changed his mind scratches it out wrote down another move checked it scratched it out he did this 5 times.I made no comment at the time so i would not break my concentration but i did comment after the game a game i won by the way so its not sour grapes

[James Coleman]

Wouldn't bother me in the least. I'd be happy to see that his thought processes were so disorganised !

[Steve Collyer]

I'd find it quite amusing if they punctuated their scoresheet on some of their moves with !, !! or !? and some of yours with ?!, ? & ??
I wonder if this ever happens...

[Peter Constantinou]

I'd find it quite amusing if they punctuated their scoresheet on some of their moves with !, !! or !? and some of yours with ?!, ? & ??
I wonder if this ever happens...

I admit that I used to do this when I was playing in my first few tournaments as an under 11!

I also used to write my move down before I played it, following the advice of my chess elders, and was rather puzzled at the rationale behind the rule change. I suppose William's example constitutes the "note-taking" aspect, as opposed to the final part of a routine when the move has already been decided.

[JustinHorton]

On the same theme

[Roger de Coverly]

and was rather puzzled at the rationale behind the rule change

I could see three possible reasons.

(1) arbiters

Some senior arbiters particularly the Dutch one had a pet hatred of this part of historic chess culture, considering it to be taking notes. In my memory, the change was introduced to follow the 2004 Olympiad without any prior warning (to the average player) that it was even under discussion.

(2) Monroi

Back in 2004, the Monroi gadget was being trialled. If you see the move on a screen before playing it, this was considered an advantage. The more obvious solution and less of an attack on established practice would have been to change the rules only for electronic scoresheets.

(3) anti-cheating

This one I think was valid. The problem was that it was possible for a coach or other connected party to look at the proposed moves and signal or depending on the quality of the move.

[TomChivers]

If I were confident of winning, I'd probably just let it go. Otherwise I would say something (and have in the past.)

I faced a junior once who adorned a few of his moves with ?s ---- quite accurately ---- during play. Perhaps it lulled me into a false sense of security; on the verge of winning I blundered into a drawn endgame.

[E Michael White]

An unforeseen snag with the new the rule, in July 2005, about playing the move before writing it down, was the effect on pawn promotion to a piece that is not immediately available. For about 30 years the required process was to write down the promotion move eg e8 = Q, stop the clock, find an arbiter, find the right piece and then continue.

When the new rule came in the move cannot be written down first. This might not seem much, why not just tell your opponent you intend to promote and stop the clock ? Well another rule says you can change the piece you promote to until a new piece touches the square, so a player could get some more thinking time in possibly compared to the old rule or at least cause a lot of confusion.

I was expecting this one to be fixed in the new rules by adding it as an exception alongside 3 move and 50 draw claims but the anomaly is still there.

[Jonathan Bryant]

While we're here ... what's the thinking behind recording draw offers.

I gather this is compulsory now.

[Stewart Reuben]

The reason people are not allowed to write down the moves in advance is mainly that people were using it as a means of making notes. It was what Fischer wanted in 1970, but they did not then bite the bullet because so many people did it, particularely in the USSR. In an Olympiad when Geurt Gijssen was Chief Arbiter, a Scottish player changed his mind about 5 times. This brought the deficiency of the Law to Geurt's attention and thus, after due consultation, and a vote it was changed. Had you been in the loop you would have known about the intention to discuss the change at the appropriate FIDE Meeting.
Some people deliberately wrote down bad moves, let their opponent see this, and then played the move they intended all along.

Offering a draw is part of the history of a game. Thus it should be recorded. It is mandatory, but I know I sometimes forget. Nobody gets penalised for this infringement.
I have discussed with Frederic Friedel (of ChessBase) the information being given in games. He had never thought of that.
In the Kasparov Kramnik match in London, if a draw was offered, a button was pushed. This lit a lamp so that the spectators could know what was going on. I used little cards for the Hastings Premier for the same purpose. That would be unsatisfactory for a Swiss, the cards might get muddled up.

I certainly had never thought about the problem Michael White points out. When I'm the arbiter, it cannot be necessary if I am there because I will be armed with the four pieces. Had he pointed it out, it would have been considered.
Stewart Reuben

[Martin Benjamin]

Before the game starts, I underline move 36 or whatever the time control move is. I also record my time after each move (to give myself a proper perspective on the game if I ever have time in my life to look at it again), and I have recently started making a note against move numbers to give me a rough indication of how much time I "should" have used by various points in the game (e.g. 15 minutes at move 6, 30 minutes at move 12 etc.).

I suppose these practices all technically contravene the laws of the game, but I would be interested to learn if anyone has objected to such practices during a game and why. I think any transgression of the law has to be pretty serious and materially affect the game (e.g. deliberate distaction by an opponent, or touching a piece and then moving another) before I would object. I played an IM the other night who sometimes played his move in reply to mine before writing mine down. Some of my team suggested I should have objected, as it is against the laws of the game, but it seems a petty objection to me - he beat me fair and square. I once won a game against another IM who tried to bamboozle me in a quickplay finish when I was clearly better but short of time by - on several occasions - moving a piece to one square, keeping hold of it for several seconds, and then swiftly transferring it to a much better square and pressing the clock. Unsporting in my opinion (I could understand it happening once, but not four or five times), but whether it was against the laws of the game, I neither know nor particularly care. More effective to follow the example of Botvinnik and train oneself to get used to such distractions rather than complaining about them.

[IM Jack Rudd]

Underlining move 36 is fine. Making a note of how much time you've used after each move is fine, and indeed, is worth encouraging. (It makes it much easier to reset the clocks to the appropriate places if you find an illegal move has been made, for starters.) Writing down how much time you should have used to reach a particular move is almost certainly against the rules - it's not information generated from the game itself; it's advice to yourself on how to play.

[Roger de Coverly]

Before the game starts, I underline move 36 or whatever the time control move is. I also record my time after each move (to give myself a proper perspective on the game

I suppose these practices all technically contravene the laws of the game,

I think we established on the other thread that both noting the time control and recording the clock times are completely valid.

I played an IM the other night who sometimes played his move in reply to mine before writing mine down. Some of my team suggested I should have objected, as it is against the laws of the game,

I don't think it is - he only has to record both his move and your reply before playing his next move.

Particularly in time pressure, I have seen players employ the sequence

opponent moves
player moves
record opponent's move
record player move

which I believe is completely legal.

It's in 8.1 in the current laws

http://www.fide.com/fide/handbook?id=124&view=article

A player may reply to his opponent`s move before recording it, if he so wishes. He must record his previous move before making another.

[Jonathan Bryant]

Offering a draw is part of the history of a game. Thus it should be recorded. It is mandatory, but I know I sometimes forget. Nobody gets penalised for this infringement.

Stewart,

thanks for your reply but perhaps you (or others) could answer a few follow ups.

- first I can understand demonstrating draw offers have been made when there are spectators but ignore that for now, I'm talking about club games where, in my case at least, nobody is watching.


So a few more questions

1. if nobody is penalised for the infringement of a law why bother having a law?

2. I can understand why moves should be recorded. If there's some kind of dispute - e.g. is it really a threefold repetition or just two - then the arbiter/players can reconstruct what happened. Therefore moves are part of the history of the game and there's a *need* for them to be recorded.

But with the offer of a draw ... what would the problem be if a player didn't record a draw offer. I can understand somebody wanting to record draw offers for their own records by why the *need* to do so.

I suppose I'm asking you why does officialdom need to know?


Jonathan

PS: I'm curious because I didn't record draw offers for nearly 20 years purely because I didn't realise I was supposed to.

[IM Jack Rudd]

There are potential issues in a game with regard to repeated offers of a draw - this can be construed as attempting to distract the opponent. If you don't record draw offers, you leave yourself without evidence in such cases.

It usually doesn't get penalized because it usually doesn't matter too much. It's one of those laws where the penalty is at the arbiter's discretion, and lawbreaking that doesn't harm anybody usually doesn't get anything harsher than a warning. (For example, if you play a move with the right hand, wait a few seconds, and then press the clock with your left, immediately removing your hand from the clock, you'll probably get nothing harsher than a warning. If, on the other hand, you move with your right hand while keeping your left hand on the clock all the time, the arbiter is rather more likely to award your opponent extra time.)