This month makes 20 years that I’ve been playing in tournaments, and this never occurred to me until recently. How does one offer a draw to an opponent who is wearing headphones? I’m even wondering if thoughts differ between those who wear headphones and those who don’t. I can’t remember anyone ever offering me a draw when I had headphones on, but I’m pretty sure that I’ve taken them off to offer a draw before (rude?). In any case, as I plan on wearing them again, I’m interested in hearing your input, and especially the input of how those who wear headphones, would prefer that a draw be offered. The best idea that I could come up with was to write “Draw?” on the back of the score sheet and put it in their line of sight.
I would think that getting the opponent’s attention somehow (reaching out to shake hands?) would be enough to get the person to realize something was going on and take off their headphones long enough to hear the draw offer.
Well, that’s why I said it would be a good way to get the person’s attention, so they’d take off the headphones and hear the offer. Shaking hands itself should NEVER be the only form of communication.
I wear headphones. I think a wave of the hand or some other gesture should get the person’s attention to have them remove the headphones. Usually my opponent would just look at me with an expression on his face that he wants something. That’s all that’s usually needed.
Now if the person is literally bent at the board with the headphones on and never looking around or at me, his opponent, then I would wave my hand in his line of sight to get his attention. Seeing that the Draw offer is going to be done on my time there would be no problem with him saying I was distracting him from his move or whatever.
As a headphone user, I’ve become somewhat overly paranoid about this issue – I played a very long and hard-fought game a few weeks back (5 or 6 hours) that was even for a while. We got down to rooks and I had an edge of a pawn, but it still might have been difficult. Eventually I play a trap and in time pressure he goes for it, giving me a couple of pawns in the ending with what looks like a clear win. After thinking the position over, he says something that I can’t hear and sticks his hand out. Overly paranoid, I take my headphones out and, in an accidentally rude voice, say “what?” My younger opponent says “you win” and I realize that “what?” in a harsh tone is probably the wrong way to handle this situation… (“excuse me” is better)
It can be difficult to talk to people who are wearing headphones; I’ve seen opponents have trouble indicating draw offers to me in the past. Usually simple eye contact and mouth movement can be enough. I don’t listen to music very loud, so I can almost always hear an offer when it’s made. If push came to shove, what I’d do if I was worried my opponent couldn’t hear me is to make my move and than indicate a hand gesture towards my opponent to try to signal him to take his headphones off. By hand gesture I don’t mean a hand extended (as you might guess, I think this is an absolutely awful and potentially problematic solution) but just something over the board like sticking out a pointer finger or motioning “come here” with the fingers.
As a hearing disabled player, I have been known to miss draw offers from my opponents. They ask later why I didn’t take the draw and that’s when I find out that I simply didn’t hear the offer. I prefer that my opponent make some sort of hand signal, but most people do not.
It isn’t a big deal for me personally because I rarely accept draws except in obvious endgames.
I also listen to music when I play. I think a few times opponents have offered me draws that I have not heard. Usually I notice the opponent appears to be asking me something, so at that point I’ll ask “Did you say something?” I try to keep it in such a tone that the opponent won’t misinterpret my attitude.
My “tell” when I’m on the verge of resigning or offering a draw is I take the ear buds out and turn off my iPod so that I can hear the response from my opponent. Even though my resignation is mostly non-verbal in that I knock over my king, offer my hand for a handshake, and the few words are limited to “Good game” or “I resign”, I still feel it’s more respectful to come out of the “tuned out” mode when ending the game.
The advice has indeed been helpful and I feel better prepared when doing this. If I ever have an opponent who alerts me that they are hearing impaired, then maybe I’ll write the draw offer down and briefly put it in their line of sight. I’d do this while my clock is running of course.
Your opponent is wearing headphones and cannot hear your draw offer. You write down ‘Draw?’ and show it to your opponent and your opponent then goes to the TD claiming that you are making notes in violation of USCF rules?
You could start silently mouthing something to them, pretending that you were actually saying something, and they might take their headphones off to hear what you’re saying. The other players might wonder what’s going on, though.
The FIDE rules actually require you to indicate a draw offer on the scoresheet, though I’ve never heard of anyone trying to enforce that in the U.S. The ruling ought to be that a draw offer in an “objective fact,” like the time, not a note.
I’m not sure why this is a big deal. There seem to be two possibilities: 1) The opponent would like to accept the draw but doesn’t hear it. Tough. He was the one who put on the earphones. 2) The opponent doesn’t want a draw and keeps playing. What difference does it make to you if he declines the draw because he didn’t hear it or because he chose not to hear it? No one is obliged to accept a draw offer, or even to think about it. The only want I can see this being a problem is if you want to argue that a player has a “right” to use a draw offer tactically, and that’s going to be a hard sell.
BTW, I had something similar happen once. I was playing my old crony Jerry Hanken at one of Lina Grumette’s invitationals. I had tried very hard to win, sacrificing a pawn and really pressing, but he defended well and it finally became clear it was going to be a draw. I leaned over and said quietly “I offer a draw.” Jerry ignored me an made a move. I shrugged and continued to play. After another 20 moves or so rather pointless moves, the game ended in stalemate. Jerry then started bellowing “Why did keep playing? Don’t you know it’s an insult to play that out against a master?” I looked at him strangely and asked, “Why did you decline my draw offer?” “Oh,” he said in a small voice. “Did you offer a draw? I didn’t hear you. I’m a little hard of hearing and you have to be really loud when you offer me a draw.”
What would be a suitable ASL sign for “draw”? The USCF could adopt it as a universal signal for hearing and hearing-disabled players alike. Personally, I’m in favor of every measure, however small, that keeps people from having to talk in the tournament room.
Maybe there can be a Draw flag or something like that to be used as a physical Draw offer.
Such flags or small placards could be made out of a plastic or cardboard. The player could even make his own.
I can see it now, a small placard like the folding Board number ones the USCF has available on the TD or affiliate page.
On this card, both sides, is printed “I offer a Draw.”, or even just, “Draw?” The person offering the Draw could take this from the side of the board and actually place it on the Board in an open area. If the opponent is wearing headphones or is hard of hearing, he would see this Draw offer. If the opponent is away from the Board and the person needs to go to the bathroom, the player offering the Draw would simply take the Draw offer placard, make his move, place the placard on the Board, hit his clock and then go to the bathroom.
This would make the Draw offer a physical thing.
The tournament director could also have a number of these made up and available.
Nice idea, but what happens if one of the players accidentally drops the card into the view of the opponent, without intending to offer a draw? The opponent might insist that the player has offered a draw, and all hall could break loose.
Simplest may be to treat something like this as an alert that a verbal draw offer is pending, but without the verbal offer it should not be treated as a solid offer. Otherwise you have the problem with players accepting a draw offer that wasn’t made (by accepting a card that they made themselves), or that was made a number of moves earlier (if the card was made by the opponent and the draw offer was declined at that time - adding the move number to the card might reduce the occurences of that problem).
On the other hand, not making the placard/flag a solid draw offer leads to gamesmanship with people posting it in the opponent’s absence and then denying that they posted it after the opponent spent some time deciding on whether or not to accept it.
This idea may work best in a friendly local environment.
Hey, I’m definitely into this. Here’s an idea that comes to mind:
Draw offer sheets (either separate from or included in regular scoresheet), with areas to write down a) who offered the draw (black or white), b) the move #, and c) the time on both clocks.
This could be completed in a few seconds, and may reduce the repetitive draw offers made by those who would normally make them (Those who do this to annoy will find other ways of course).
I’m not sure how well this would work with less than 5 minutes on one or both clocks, but with a 5 second delay (and definitely with a longer delay), I don’t see this being an issue.
I think the back of a regular scoresheet could be useful/convenient for this.
