Keeping Score of a Chess Game

Running Chess Tournaments
1

Personal Mode: ON

I decided to start a new thread on this topic. Other threads discuss specific scorekeeping methods, MonRoi, hard cover score books, spiral bound score books, single score sheets, no-carbon-required scoresheets, and so on and so forth. I want this thread to discuss the score keeping itself along with the rule(s) and penalties surrounding it.

It has been noted that it is a rule to keep score during a game. In fact the rule says that the player is to notate each move after it is made. I don’t want to discuss the write the move down either before or after your move. Instead, the focus needs to be on the necessity to keep score while the game is occurring.

I own a DGT Board and could use that to keep the game score. It is possible to have the board keep the game score while it is not hooked up to a computer, but just power. If the TD wanted the game score from me, I would fire up the computer, plug the board in, and show the recorded game score to the TD and even be able to print him a copy. From what I have read, this is legal. This would be the only legal manner that I know of to have a recording of the game moves without the player manually inputting the game score as it progressed. The problem is that I don’t want to have the bother to connect my board to power for every rated game, and then to have to hook it up to a computer any time immediately after to give a hard copy of the game score. So, we are down to some type of manual notation of the game moves as they progress, at this time in history.

This, score keeping thing, really has nothing to do with playing the game of chess itself. Some might argue the clock is similar, but there is a time control to the game and the clock is the integral part of that. No, the score keeping will only act as a “memory” of the moves of the game played. It does not have nor should it have anything to do with the actual game itself.

So, why do we have to keep score? “What?!? How dare he ask such a daring question!”, you say? Well, honestly why do we need to keep score if we don’t want to?

If we say that not keeping score will disallow the player from making certain draw claims and the like, then that is what the person deciding not to keep score has chosen. Why do we need to penalize someone for not keeping score? This is the question that I say needs to be revisited as a philosophical re-genesis of the game in a rated style.

Oh, I know that the recording of the game moves is important to be able to recreate what happened in the game if something goes awry. But that really is not a good argument for forcing people to keep score.

The penalties for not keeping score are also not even in their impact on different game situations. If the rule is an important one to obey, then the penalty for violating this rule should be commensurate in all game situations to the violation of the rule.

The penalty is basically a time one. The player that has not been keeping score has an extra 2 minutes added to his opponent’s time available for his part of the game, and that offending player must copy his opponent’s score sheet on his own time to get his own score sheet updated and accurate. This is only time, nothing else.

Also, it really does matter at which part of the game this penalty is assessed. If it is assessed in the first 5 minutes of a G 75, it really is a piffle of a penalty. If it is assessed when the time on the clocks is well under 10 minutes, then this time penalty is more onerous on the violator. If there are only a few moves that have not been notated, then it really is nothing of a penalty.

Some have mentioned reducing the player’s time down to 5 minutes so that he is legal in not keeping score. That would be too stiff a penalty for someone that didn’t write 2 or 3 moves in the very early part of the game when there is, say, over 70 minutes on each clock. It also would do nothing too much to the player that has 6 minutes on his clock to his opponent’s 2 minutes.

So, here are the salient points I want to make:

  1. Do we really need to have a rule that people must keep a game score, or would we be better off saying that if someone chooses to not keep the game score, they would simply forfeit the right to certain privileges like specific draws and the like?

  2. If we decide that the rule must be one that is followed and/or enforced, we need more appropriate penalties for the specific rule violation of that particular game situation.

  3. Also, it is not a player’s responsibility to constantly police his opponent to insure he is keeping a score. Whenever a player notices his opponent has not kept score, the burden of the problem needs to be on the violator of the rule no matter how many moves he has not notated, even after the game is over or near the end of the game.

  4. Also the player that has been following the rules by keeping score should not be penalized in the least bit. For instance, he should not have to share his work of game notation with the violator that has not done his job in keeping it. The player that has been keeping score has done his job by keeping the score, and should benefit by that information. The player that has violated the rules should be the adverse affect of his rule violation and should suffer the consequences of his not keeping score. If he didn’t keep the score, it is not right that he should be able to copy from the one that has done the chore of score keeping. This violator should have to do without the written score that he has not kept.

  5. The penalty should also be commensurate to the violation and the amount of the violation. I suggested in another thread the possibility that the violator should be made to reconstruct the game score, on his time and without the benefit of his opponent’s score keeping and without the benefit of a chess set where he can move the pieces. If the violator did not note 2 or 3 moves then that would be a relatively easy task. If he did not note 20 moves, that would be more difficult. Some said that this was harsh. I don’t know. I will say that if someone were forced to do this one time at, say 10 moves or so, he would never not keep score again.

2

I disagree with this. Whose responsibility is it to police the players, if not each other? Surely it is not the TDs responsibility to go around making sure that all of the players follow all of the rules, is it? The rules even explicitly prohibit the TD from telling the players that they have moved pieces illegally in sudden-death time pressure. The game of chess is between the two players. Without an opponent complaint, the TD isn’t going to interfere when one player is touching pieces without moving them, or playing on after the flag has fallen, why should he make the player keep score?

Alex Relyea

3

I think Ron was trying to say that nobody should have to police the opponent, and that the opponent’s failure to keep score should have an automatically-imposed penalty (such as loss of certain privileges).

I disagree with his conclusions, but the question on the table boils down to whether or not failure to keep score needs any penalty in addition to the loss of rights to some claims.

For that matter, even if he feels that way and nobody else agrees with him, then if he keeps score he could opt to follow his premise in his personal games and NOT request any additional penalties for his opponent (balancing the imposition of those penalties that result in prodding the opponent to keep score, versus the automatic loss of rights if the opponent does not keep score). Since the player is the one to call lack of scorekeeping to the TDs attention, the player currently has those two options right now (call it for one type of penalty or avoid calling it and thus get a different type of penalty).

Of course, then you have a different question of whether or not a player should have the choice of penalties.

4

I recall being nearby when a NTD walked by a GM’s game and pointed out that he was not keeping score. He protested with “is a sport”. She replied with “is a rule”.

5

“And that’s the bottom line!”

6

But why is it a rule? What does it accomplish? Isn’t the rule for Action Chess that scorekeeping isn’t required? What harm would be caused by making scorekeeping optional?

7

:smiley: :smiley: sounds like carol j :smiley: :smiley:

8

I find it interesting that Ron’s thorough post addresses the question of whether a player has to keep score – yet the topic thread that prompted the discussion addresses whether players should be allowed to keep score, or at least to keep score on anything except an officially furnished score sheet. Which makes me wonder whether this is a solution in search of a problem.

Are there many players chafing at the responsibility of keeping score?

9

Yes Tim it is the bottom line at this time, but what do you do if someone violates it?

Alex, my point was as Jeff pointed out, the player should not have to, as his constant duty, to keep watch on his opponent keeping score each and every move.

I just made a suggestion as to a possible penalty that would be more commensurate to each individual violation of the rule.

Also Tim, if it is a rule, then what do you do about it except add 2 minutes to the opponent’s clock and force the innocent non-violator to share his work and effort of keeping score with his opponent that totally neglected this duty?

I am asking you to start from scratch on this rule, as if it never existed. With this premise, I ask for your patience and answers of the following questions. I will provide my personal viewpoint answers as well:

  1. Why do we need a rule forcing a player to keep score after each move? What good does it serve?

My answer is that we should not force a player to keep score if he chooses so. If he chooses to not keep score he will need to accept some “limitations” to his game such as giving up the right to the draws and so forth.

  1. If you do decide that it should be a rule forcing the player to keep score, what penalties would you levy to be just to each and every violation of this rule?

My answer is that the more minor violations deserve more minor penalties, and the more major violations deserve more major penalties. This is why I suggested the penalty of having the violator reconstruct the game moves by memory. The less moves need less memory, the more moves need more memory and work. I’m not saying that this is the only manner to give a penalty, but I am saying it is a way to consider in coming to a more just one.

  1. What responsibilities should the regular player have in regards to monitoring his opponent for score keeping? I do recognize that the game is between opponents, however this is the only thing away from the chess board and clock that is necessary for the play of the game. Does the player need to check his opponent is keeping score at every move or every 4 moves or what? Understand that if you are forcing the player to monitor his opponent for notating, this now adds to his responsibility in the play of the game.

My point is that the regular player that is not violating the rules should not be penalized in any way, shape or form for his opponent breaking the rule, if you want it to be a true rule forcing notation by the players. In fact forcing this opponent that has followed the rules by keeping notation to share that information with the rule violating opponent is a penalty to the rule abiding player and a help to the one violating the rule.

So, my final suggestion is to make it that the keeping of notation is highly recommended and if the player chooses to not keep notation, he simply forfeits some rights and privileges in that game.

10

For the same reason that, when I worked for a weekly newspaper, every article on every page had to be proofed by two different people. What one person misses, another, hopefully, will catch. Thus, in the event of a dispute – any dispute – about what move it is and where the pieces ought to be, you have two separate records of the moves played so far, allowing you to trace the origin of the error from the point at which the two accounts diverge.

It’s not so much a matter of fixing blame as it is a matter of fixing mistakes.

11

If you are interested in changing the rule have some delegate make a motion that you have drafted (send a copy to the Rules Committee). No, I am not your man for that task (perhaps your friend Mark?). I advise TDs to have two pieces of evidence whenever possible when they make a ruling. A scoresheet is often one of those pieces of evidence. I can’t support eliminating evidence.

12

Two words: Nurse Jackie

13

I get Mr. Suarez’s point, but he seems not to get my point. Scorekeeping is one of the rules that is only enforced if the opponent wants it to be. Period. How is that different from most other rules that don’t involve disruption of the playing site?

Alex Relyea

14

Is there anything preventing an organizer from pre-publishing as a “major variation” that a tournament will not require game scoring? If so, the rule is “optional” at the tournament level.

My opinion is that game scoring goes beyond just the players. Even if it’s stipulated that scoring has nothing to do with the game-in-progress as such (which I’m not sure of,) that doesn’t mean that the score doesn’t have redeeming value to the TD, the organizer (if separate,) the other tournament players (to assure that the rules are being followed among others,) to post-tournament appeals hearings, or to the body of chessplayers as a whole (for theory development, again reassurance that all concerned in the tournament commit to the rules, a tournament environment which makes it fair to both players for either player wanting a record for self-improvement, etc.)

There are also other rules which assume that game score is being kept. (Illegal moves and board setup come strikingly to mind.) Finding equitable solutions might become very challenging in these cases.

I do agree that given the “rule of thumb” for time penalties for players excused in advance from score keeping, the minimum penalty for willful failure to score should be at least equal to what the deduction would have been if an exception were granted. Doesn’t that fall under TD discretion?

And finally, player policing questions aside, is there anything that prevents a claimant for making multiple objections during the game to a player failing to keep their score? (Progressive penalties within the same game? Warn, penalty, penalty, forfeit?)

15

Like many of the rules in the rulebook, enforcement is up to the player. If the scorekeeping player wants to make an issue of his opponent not keeping score, that’s up to him. If he doesn’t want to, that’s OK as well. I’m not sure where you get that the scorekeeping player is forced to monitor his opponent for non-scorekeeping. You can do that if you want your opponent’s clock to get docked, but you don’t have to.

I have had second thoughts about the expectation that the scorekeeping player share his scoresheet with the player who either messes up his sheet or blows off scorekeeping entirely. I ought to go look it up in the rulebook and see what’s mandated; however, the prevailing expectation seems to be that you share your scoresheet, but can insist on doing it on the opponent’s time or after the game. Sometimes that feels unfair. Maybe players should be allowed to withhold their scoresheet from their opponent.

This thread is an interesting “think out of the box” question. Why do we players keep score, anyway? We do it for our own improvement? That doesn’t belong in the rules. We do it for the TD? Ah…that reason is harder to get around.

16

Maret, that should be under:

17

The purpose of mandating scorekeeping is to create an equal setting among all players. Most players prefer to keep score, but it is, indeed, a chore sometimes, and distracts a bit from the board. An opponent who decides not to take score has an advantage over his/her scorekeeping foe. So, to make an equal setting, and to accommodate the players who prefer (and have a right) to take score, the rules require that all players take score.

18

Thank you for looking that up and typing it in, Terry. Seems like I never have the rulebook next to the computer. (Hey, it’s two floors down in the bag that goes to tournaments, OK?)

One is “urged to comply”, but compliance is not mandatory. Still, one “may not refuse” if told by a TD to comply. Is it me, or is this a little odd?

19

No. Nothing at all.

Alex Relyea

20

You can change just about anything except “how the horsie moves” if you announce it in all pre-event publicity.

The time deduction for players “excused in advance from score keeping” is not a penalty - it is an adjustment. The penalty for refusing to keep score is whatever the TD wants it to be, up to and including forfeiting the game.

That is the intended course of events for a player who flat-out refuses to keep score. The first time, you warn them, make them bring their scoresheet up to date (or tell them to start with the current move), and assess a standard penalty (see the rulebook on standard penalties). The second time, you warn them more sternly and point out that they can be forfeited, make them bring their score up to date… The third time, you forfeit them.

Of course, each and every one of these events must be instigated by the opponent. If the opponent does not object, it’s probably incorrect for the TD to step in and require the player to keep score. But, that is an issue related to the type of tournament, and the particular TD’s style.