If an organizer of a USCF rated event wanted to have a immediate forfeit for 1st offense on a cell phone ringing in the playing room, would this be considered a major variation on the rule? Would this have to be announced in pre-event publicity such as the TLA for the event, or is it enough to announce it before the start of round 1?
Personally, I’d consider pre-round announcements and signs sufficient notice. (IMHO that ought to be the default rule anyway.)
How many people might choose not to play in an event because of that rule variant?
Ditto. However, it does amaze me that there are some who will answer a cell phone in the
middle of a tournament playing hall, and have an ambiant conversation as if they are in a
park. For them, it seems as though they do not mean to be rude, but, somehow, are
not ‘aware’. I have found that booting them helps this awareness.
Rob Jones
I wish we could boot people on public transit who talk loudly on their phone. This lack of awareness is certainly not limited to chess players. Sadly, it has become a part of our culture.
I think a good way to handle loud phone-talkers on public transit would be for everybody to join in on the conversation. “Oh, yes, I’d like to join you and your wife for dinner tonight.” “Are you serving steak?” “How is your wife these days?” If enough people do this loudly enough, with any luck the offender will soon get the message.
Bill Smythe
And with enough bad luck, you’ll get shot by the cell phone user.
There is the old hypothetical of the Doctor or person with a job or some situation that requires they be contactable. Would that person stay away if they knew it would be a game forfeit if the phone rings?
Another part I’ve been pondering is: Really this is talking about changing what the penalty is, rather than the cell phone itself. Are there any other circumstances where a penalty changes objectively in which it would be required to announce that in pre-tournament publicity? Maybe where the stakes are raised to forfeit, also.
The last consideration I have is: I know that my phone still uses a tiny amount of power even when switched off. And I know from experience that if it drops below the low power threshold the darn thing is going to beep. This also happens when it is in vibrate mode and I think silent mode - the thing will beep. While there is a solid case to say, “Leave your phone in the car,” I don’t know if I’d think that being forfeited for that is fair. Penalized, sure. But forfeited? I believe this very thing happened to a GM at a FIDE tournament within the last couple of years, though.
For all that, I don’t think it’s as big a deal as the length of my post indicates. Just trying to go beyond, “Here’s my opinion about cell phones,” into what would a TD consider.
As long as they keep it on vibrate and leave the tourney room to answer it, I don’t see the problem.
I have to agree with the two previous posts. The current penalties are sufficient. You are never going to prevent cell phones from going off during a match or tounament, even if the death penalty is imposed; however, recidivism will go to zero. :mrgreen:
Recently, my wife accompanied me on a weekend tournament. She’s a cell phone maven and was off doing other things locally. I forgot one time to switch my phone to silent mode. It went off, and I was penalized 5 or 10 minutes; I can’t remember. It was fair, and I deserved it. But I can’t say it won’t ever happen again. I forget what I had for breakfast and won’t always remember to switch off that little devil.
But in general, I am pretty good about it since I play on a weekly basis, and it only happened one time, where it is more likely to occur: on a multi-day tournament where one turns on and turns off his cell phone ringer.
My phone went off when I was attending the meeting of the Rules Committee in Dallas, 2008. Thought they were going to impose the death penalty then but just got off with probation 
.
The idea of massive penalties for a cell phone going off has gotten out of hand. Sometimes people forget to set them properly; sometimes the phone beeps when it goes low power; important calls have to be taken. If you are so “shocked” when a phone goes off, then you are not concentrating on your game.
At the Pittsburgh Chess League we have a number of doctors who play. We also have firefighters, police, paramedics, etc. who may be called away at any time. Rather than penalize them, we have them sign a list before the round concerning their need for the phone/pager/Blackberry to be on. We give a warning to others on a first offense and then impose a time penalty on a second offense. We have not had to impose any penalties.
The real problem is not the phone going off – it is the ring tones. Is it necessary to make the “1812 Overture” or a riff from a heavy metal band your ring tone? Keep it simple and people won’t bug you about your phone. Besides it is the spectators whose phones go off and who hold a loud conversation in the plaing room who are the real problem. Oh, and how embarrassing when the TD’s phone rings! 
Many, many people hold this sentiment. I find it amusing.
Because, where’s our outrage when 2 chuckleheads are babbling too loudly in public about their insignificant personal doings? We tend to tolerate that. But it is double the noise of a lone cell phone user.
Personally, I think our intrinsic snoopiness overrides our logic. I think we subconsciously become irritated by public cell phone users because we can’t hear the whole conversation. We have inquiring minds. But we rationalize our angst by claiming the “noise factor.”
That’s my opinion of public phone use. In tournament halls, though, I think zero tolerance is appropriate. “Turn off your cell phones,” not switch to vibrate, is in my pre-round briefing script. Every round. That gives benefit of the doubt to those who forgot between rounds.
I disagree about vibrate mode. As mentioned earlier, some players have jobs that require them to be accessible at all times. One or two people near them might hear it for a second, but it’s not a major distraction. They just need to leave the room to answer it.
I think in most cases this would be acceptable, but there are definitely circumstances, such as events with prize money, where it shouldn’t be allowed even on vibrate.
Surely any individuals who MUST stay in touch are used to having to make other arrangements for other situations where cell phones or pagers aren’t permitted or won’t work, no reason chess tournaments couldn’t have similar procedures.
In my case, that’s not true at all. I normally am not bothered by cell phone use on public transportation. The case which disturbs me is when the guy with the phone is talking much louder than the person on the other end needs him to be. That tells me that he is so full of himself that he wants everybody to hear, and to know he’s a big shot.
It’s even worse when somebody walks through an office area, not stopping at anybody’s desk in particular, talking loudly the whole time. Such a person appears to be on a mission to emphasize his own importance to as many people as possible in the shortest time possible.
Bill Smythe
As a TD, the excuse I hear most often is “I thought it was off”. To combat that, I have changed my pre-round announcement to: "please look at your cell phone and make sure it’s turned off or to ‘silent’ ".
There’s no way to be sure that changing the announcement has any effect but when I get the same old excuse, I tell the player: “if you had followed my instructions, this wouldn’t have happened”.
I get the occasional player who somehow thinks the TD is more at fault than the player possessing the phone. I once had a player whose defense was “it’s a beeper, not a cell phone, so I shouldn’t lose 10 minutes”. I had another who claimed he shouldn’t lose the time because the phone was in his coat pocket on the coat rack, even though the coat rack was in the playing room and it rang several times before switching to voice mail.
Sometimes the bigger problem is the spectators. They often claim they didn’t know about the requirement, even though they had to walk past multiple signs reminding them to turn it off. The only penalty that could be imposed is to ban them from returning to the playing room. In the case of parents, I have considered the idea of penalizing their child but that would create more problems than it solves.
Perhaps the biggest problem is the player that finishes his game, leaves to post the result and analyse, and then returns to watch at the worst possible time for it to ring; the time scramble. In those cases, I have imposed 10 minute penalties at the beginning of their next round. That doesn’t work when it’s the last round of the tournament, so I make them leave.
If anyone has a better way to handle cell phone violations, I’d like to hear their suggestions.
Require the offender to dial a 900 number and leave the connection open for 10 minutes.
– Hal Terrie
I announce for everyone to look at their cell phone, pager or any other messaging device and make sure they are turned off or to vibrate only.
I think a much stricter cell phone rule would cause some people to stay away from the tournament. I think any such rule should be announced in pre-tournament publicity.
It might very well keep ME away from a tournament, depending on the exact rules (the ones the rules committee recently tried to impose, for example).
I think the biggest tournament organizers agree with me – otherwise they’d have stricter rules themselves. I’m sure they have some pressure to increase the penalties for ringing or to simply ban cell phones completely. They don’t do it because it will cost them in attendance.