Large tournaments should probably start providing a “phone check” facility, whereby at the start of the round you can drop off your phone with tournament officials, and they keep it in a locked box or drawer, and you can pick it up after the round. There should be no need for officials to look at the content on the phone, because you should never have the phone in your possession while your game is in progress.
If players are searched for hidden electronics or other hidden cheating devices, and this involves any kind of touching, be extremely careful with minors. If the touching could be construed as in any way molestation, a signed consent form might not save you.
When I play in a CCA tournament, I usually don’t worry about it. I’ve always had my cell phone with me. I’ve never had a problem.
If I have a negative score, nobody’s going to be complaining – we’ll just be PLAYING. If I have a positive score … well, I guess I’ll take my chances.
I guess I might start asking TD permission to leave the phone on vibrate, but how would the TD know, anyway?
Since I’ll be playing one class higher in my next CCA tournament, I’m probably not going to worry about it at all. I’ll be surprised if I have a very positive score.
It’s a little strange, though. Seems like I heard from a CCA survey that 60% (could be wrong, but that’s the number I recall) of players IN CCA TOURNAMENTS bring their cell phones with them to the tournament room. Why have your cell phone in the tournament room if you can’t even have it on vibrate so that an emergency call can get through? These days, seems like most people expect to be 100% available for an emergency. With teenage daughters and an elderly parent, I’d want to be available at any time. If I ever have to forfeit a game because of it, I guess I’ll have to live with it. I love chess but it’s less important to me than being available to my family if they need me.
At the Pittsburgh Chess League, our policy has been that if you need to have your phone on for any reason, you should note that with the tournament director. There is a sign in sheet available. We have a number of doctors and other first responders who play chess. We make announcements about the cell phone policy each round. All other players are asked to turn off their phones or put them on vibrate, which usually receivers titters of laughter and giggles from some of the more sophomoric in our chess community. Of course, we are not playing for thousands of dollars in prizes.
The problem with cell phones is not that you might be able to cheat with them. It is the ring tones. Is it really necessary to have your phone play a symphony, the opening music to Star Wars, or obscene lyrics? A simple beep or two should suffice.
So, I’m here at the Chicago Open, where TDs explained the new cell phone policy in painstaking detail before round 1. If you have a cell phone on your person (completely turned off, as required), you must still leave it with a TD before going into the player bathroom.
Then Bill Goichberg announced a refinement: to discourage cheaters even further, they will randomly select some of those who do not turn in phones before entering the bathroom for scanning by electronic detecting hand wands. Of course, it immediately occurred to me that a cheater should have two phones. He turns the first one in to TDs to avoid being wanded, then - well, you get the picture. I guess they should select randomly from among ALL those entering the bathroom, even those who turn in a phone.
I find this whole thing very amusing. There is always going to be some loophole or other. This is an arms race that will never end.
The thought occurred to me that unless Bill has contracted with the hotel that the washrooms are exclusive to chess players, not the public or non-playing fans, that he may run into a problem with a non-player using those facilities.
As I drove home from my visit to the Chicago Open yesterday I mused to myself that no TD at any level was really necessary to do “Cell Phone Duty.” I suspect after a few miscues CCA will stumble on an economically feasible policy that meets their goals, effectively use the TDs, and meets the players needs.
Just curious. After the TD read the new cell phone rules in “painstaking detail”, did the round start on time?
Did they make the detailed announcement every round?
The CCA could make the announcement once per tournament. The TDs usually have a pile of paper with rules for the players to pick up. These are also posted in the room by the wall charts. That should give sufficient notice. Reading the rules out in excruciating detail and delaying the round taxes the patience of the players, especially for the evening round. I can imagine some wag, just for his own fun, then asking equally detailed questions of the TD for clarification which require even more detail to answer.
Round 1 in the 4-day schedule (which was supposed to start at 7:00 PM) started at 7:26 PM. Subsequent rounds were all at least 5-10 minutes late.
They made the “detailed” announcement at the first round of each schedule, 4-day, 3-day and (I presume) 2-day, though I wasn’t present for that. At other times they merely reminded people of the policy.