On Friday, July 4, 2008, I posted on the BaconLOG an entry entitled, Monroi don’t work! Sometime later I learned that another chess blogger had written some negative things about Monroi. (chessconfessions.blogspot.com/20 … -evil.html)
Because of the US Open I decided last week to try Monroi again. But when I clicked on the link provided by USCF, all I got was a blank page. This has occured every time I have tried during the US Open, unfortunately. A few days ago I tried the site on another 'puter. I managed to receive a page, sort of…I could see the name of the player having the White pieces, but not the one on the right with Black. I actually received a chess board, but only the ‘a’ through ‘e’ files. I will admit I could see half of the ‘f’ file, little good it did me.
It is past six pm EST, meaning the last round of the US Open has begun. I tried Monroi again, for what will be the last time ever. Once again I received a blank page…
Many other tournaments from around the world broadcast games live on other, better, servers. It is a crying shame USCF continues to use such a poor excuse of a website when there are so many that work well.
I would like to know who is responsible? Get rid of them and maybe we can get rid of Monroi!
I just logged into Monroi via its homepage (not via the uschess.org articles’ link), and got to the Board 1 game (Seirawan-Hoyos, Benko Gambit, 5.b6 line).
There don’t seem to be many games from the Open in the news items posted to this website. Was I supposed to find somewhere a notice about such games being posted in the manner here supplied? Will I be able to find Vancouver games at the USCF website?
I’ve only used Monroi handhelds as a director/organizer once. It was for the selection tournament for the US Navy Chess Team last year, all players used a Monroi for scorekeeping, and we had it broadcasting on the web. Despite the fact that I had never used them before as either a player or director I had no significant issues, and all of the games were available on the web in real time.
I don’t know why you are having difficulties, but before calling out for the banning of a company’s product, I’d at least think about other reasons for a problem. You say that there was an issue seeing the games when following a link from the USCF website. Was the correct link posted? Did you try to go directly to the Monroi website?
Certainly I tried going directly to the Monroi website, also to no avail. Evidently I am not the only one who has had problems with Monroi, judging from what I have read on the web. I have heard from others recently that they, too, had problems. While they wish to remain silent, I have reported what I found. This is a response I received from one NM, “I stopped going to Monroi years ago.” I too stopped going to the website. I made an exception because I would have liked to have seen some games from the venerable US Open. I hereby vow to NEVER, under any circumstances, go to the Monroi website again. It has continually been a waste of time. I will admit that I enjoyed reading about Monroi yesterday concerning the controversy about game score copyright I found on the Boylston CC website (which can be found in the first post to this thread). I would have much rather spent my time watching the top board games from the US Open. Alas, it was not to be…
I just went to the Monroi web site, clicked on the chess games link, then clicked on the U.S. Open link and clicked on the Round 9 - Seirawan - Hoyos game and watched it. I did all this with no problems. I did have to also log in, but I had registered a few years ago when watching some high level tournament.
Perhaps you need to register or something like that.
In my limited experience helping with MonRoi broadcasts (this year’s Philadelphia International and World Open), we had no transmission problems. Also, I have watched games on the MonRoi site for the last few years, and I have never had to register on the site to watch games.
Jon Haskel handled the MonRoi at this year’s US Open, as he does for many major US tournaments. The projector screen he used to show top games in progress was generated directly from MonRoi scores. That screen operated without incident for at least the last two days of the US Open.
Also, I watched several last round games while I was at Voodoo Doughnuts in Portland on my MacBook, using the MonRoi feed. Again, the feed operated properly.
Here you go. There are actually three Voodoo Doughnut shops in Portland. I went to the original in Old Town, and bought a rather tasty cruller, along with the bumper sticker I showed you yesterday.
Greg Yanez of Chess 4 Less emailed me yesterday, saying that he and Shelby Lohrman hit up Voodoo in the morning. They reported that the maple bacon donuts were excellent. (Where’s Epic Meal Time when you need them?) If the US Open returns to the area, I’m buying a coffin of doughnuts for the Delegates’ Meeting.
I had no trouble watching US Open games MonRoi. Just now, I went to the Chess Life Online articles and clicked on the link. Again, no problem. MonRoi has been around a long time, and I’ve heard few complaints about being able to view games.
Registration is not required. When you get the popup to sign in, just leave it blank and click Login and then OK. If your browser blocks popups, that could be a problem.
