Due to widespread of sickness, I think we should have a mandatory clean hands or hand sanitzer rule?
I am not a germophob or anything of the such. I just think this can stop someone from getting sick.
Just my opinion, what do you think?
-SGupta, IL
So the move sequence is determined, sanitized, and completed now?? :mrgreen: :mrgreen:
Have you ever played with a grungy chess set?
It would be hard to impliment. Maybe tourmanent TD’s can provide a station with a bottle or two of hand sanatizer for people to help themselves.
While it’s a good idea and may be worth a reminder to organizers, I don’t think trying to create rules is the right answer.
It would also be wise to have a firm policy that you’ll send home anyone who shows up with flu symptoms, for those who don’t excercise the common sense/courtesy of staying home.
A couple weeks ago at our last scholastic, we had a much higher withdrawal rate than usual, mostly due to illness. We choose to liberalize our refund policy out of appreciation that they stayed home (that is, for those who told us, not the simple no-shows).
In addition to frequent reminders and making hand sanitizer abundantly available, afterward we wiped down all the sets, boards, tables and chair backs with sanitizing wipes. I’m told the virus doesn’t live for more than a few days on a hard surface and we won’t be using the sets again for awhile, but we felt better about being extra cautious. Plus I think it gave some confort to those who saw us doing all that, that we were aware of the issue and taking it seriously, rather than being oblivious or taking no action at all.
You don’t have to make it individually mandatory, but I think we should have it available at all tournaments. It should be a moral thing to use it.
If you’ve read the recent book “The Age of the Unthinkable” by Joshua Cooper Ramo, you know it’s pointless to try to construct impregnable defenses against every imaginable threat; there will always come along an unimaginable threat to make a fool out of you. Instead, rather than try to prevent threats from manifesting, it’s better to build the kind of resilience that will allow you to survive any threat.
People aren’t sticking chess pieces in their mouths, noses and eyes – they’re sticking their fingers in their mouths, noses and eyes. Hand out packets of germicidal sani-wipes at the registration table and tell people to clean their hands between rounds. Don’t waste time sanitizing the pieces.
Should the sanitizer be time-delay capable? :mrgreen:
I had my flu shot, can I deduct half a squirt per game? (Or should there be an extra squirt add-back for those who haven’t been vaccinated?) 
Absolutely not. That does not kill us makes us stronger (Conan)
Redundant.
There is already a time delay between exposure and onset.
My earlier humor aside, I think it an excellent idea for organizers to buy sanitizers and have them in locations where they could be used by any who wish. For that matter, I think I’ll contribute by buying an extra pump and bringing it with me, and then offer it up.
My gym and our local hospitals have all posted signs which state something like, “If you are not feeling well today, please do yourself and everyone else here a favor and go home.” I looked around for weblinks for such signs and couldn’t find one handy - I know they’re out there, though.
OK, granted, one should be adult enough to realize this, someone already to the door of a tournament probably won’t pay it any attention anyway, and yes it might mean a few less tournament entries. But if it kept someone away who would otherwise infect others, is it worth it?
Just a thought.
If the tournament is a club tourney with a game a week and the flu or whatever plague is running around gets ‘bad enough’, can the local TD let some or all of the games for the round (or several rounds) be played online?
(Leaving ‘bed enough’ to be defined by the local TD, hopefully with input from the club players).
If allowed, would the players have to agree since it is a change to what they signed up for.
----- Ed
I think one question (which has come up before) would be: How would the TD assure due diligence that the online players are not cheating? So it might take an environment where computer cheats are at least nominally identifiable. (And still, you’d probably need assurance that the players involved aren’t consulting other reference besides “computer” cheating.)
One could make a case, of course, that cheating could conceivably occur during the OTB play - but it is still fundamentally different from online play IMVHO.
That aside, if no players / TD / organizer in the club were to file an objection (or if all in the tourney actively consented,) then why not? I don’t mean that as an answer, but as a question: Why not?
I think one would have a harder time trying to convince the club / all other players of this, however.