…with all the TD feedback on 15A enforcement or lack of, I’d like to hear how TDs are dealing with what players do with their Mon Roi when they leave the room during their game.
The other night at a local club I had a discussion with another player who uses one. I had noticed during his game he was using the opponent’s scoresheet to fix fix errors in the position on his device. After the game I mentioned that I also still make notation errors using it. He casually told me that he had stuck it in his pocket when he went to the bathroom and that the position got messed up due to sensative nature of the screen. I told him that I leave mine on the table when I leave the room. He said that he likes to look at it when he’s out of the room. I told him that he should not do that since he’s getting to look at the position away from the board. He was viewing the situation as being the same as somebody walking out of the room with their scorebook. There seem to be no rule prohibiting taking one’s scoresheet with them when they leave the board.
I feel that players should leave the device on the table during the game, and should not take it out of the playing room until their game is done. I have no problem doing this in my chess club, but in a large tournament hall I really don’t want to leave a $300 + piece of equipment lying around where I can’t see it. At one large tournament I played at recently I would give it to the floor TD to hold unto until I got back. If the floor TD was not around I put it in my chess bag that was sitting under the table. I figured no one would be as brazen as to crawl under the table and go into my bag while there were games in progress.
Because of the small number of these devices there has not been enough experience with how to deal with the issues you raise here. So, we might have to wait for a TD TIP. Nobody wants to leave an expensive piece of equipment where it can be taken. But, no one wants to think that their opponet is using a device outside of the tournament room to maybe gain an edge. TDs need to eat, etc., so they are not always available to watch equipment (playing TDs really will not be available for that task). I suspect that whatever happens we will probably see to it that while a game is in progress that those devices will not be allowed out of the playing area at big $$$ tournaments.
You could chain it to a table or chair. That’s what I usually do with my computer when directing. I suppose someone could steal it if he were really willing to run down the street carrying a table.
100% correct. We don’t allow the player to leave the playing hall with their score sheet and the Monroi is a score sheet. The reason they should not leave the site with the score sheet is due to several possible nefarious purposes and it also distresses the opponent who immediately suspects cheating.
Would you have a problem with the player putting the unit in his bag that’s sitting under the table while he leaves the room?
Or are we going to have to have a “Mon Roi Check” where players can leave their unit while out of the room? Do they have to tip the Mon Roi check girl when they get it back.
It wasn’t clear to me that Ernie was talking specifically about National Scholastics.
I wonder how many Chief TDs would have someone to spare to watch over someone’s MonRoi? I doubt I would because I usually have at most 2 certified TDs for my summer event, with about 100 players spread out in 4 different rooms. (I usually have additional room monitors for the scholastic section, but they’re not TDs and they don’t make rulings.)
In the February Chess Life you responded to a reader’s letter regarding Jerry Hanken’s Mon Roi article . The letter writer made the statement “It does leave a TD with the onus of keeping abreast of what electronic scoresheets are certified. For example how many TDs could list the devices currently certified? News to some of you, there’s more then just the MonRoi.”
This is certainly news to me. I have not heard of any other devices being certified for electronic scorekeeping, except the DGT board. I’m sure if there was competition for the Mon Roi we’d know about it by now.
The only onus on TDs is trying to know how to set all the different digital chess clocks that are on the market currently. I should see if Mike Atkins has updated his digital clock page lately.
I was actually thinking about large money events when posting. Hopefully, if you ask, your opponent will keep an eye on the very costly score sheet while you go. I have no intention of taking responsibility or asking my staff to assume that responsibility for an electronic score sheet. Monroi needs to add some security featurs such as a security cable or strong password protection which would make stealing it worthless - but it would still happen.
The one anti-theft feature they do have is the user name can not be changed once put into the profile. So if someone swiped Joe Smith’s Mon Roi all the games would have Joe Smith’s name on it. Also if someone showed up a tournament that had the tournament manager the TDs would know that someone using Joe Smith’s Mon Roi was at the tournament.
Locking in the name would limit the usefulness for clubs that get them for members to use, for families with multiple players, or for organizers that use them for the top boards of their tournaments.
A security cable is more obvious than a security setting, and would thus seem to be more useful for deterring a casual theft. A security setting may be more useful for deterring a more determined thief.
Tournament organizers/clubs can purchase a special type of unit that can have it’s profile reprogrammed over and over again. Obviously this is less secure than the personal units that are hard coded with a person’s name. I guess there’s always some give and take in everything.
Some sort of security cable type feature may well be the way to go. I don’t want to tempt fate, but in all the tournaments I have used the “M” device, I’ve yet to hear of one being stolen.
