What if someone writes an app for it that looks just like the chess clock app, and works about the same, except it provides hints to its owner in some clever way. Oh, and it runs the opponent’s clock just a bit fast.
When you’re directing a room of 200 games, can you detect one of those, if you don’t even suspect it’s there?
I think we cannot use general purpose devices. The device must be clearly crippled so that it cannot do much of anything other than its specific purpose as a chess timer or recorder. Otherwise, someone will use the extra capabilities to cheat.
None I’m aware of - I’m not aware of many docks that lock. But it’s a big wide world of peripherals out there.
One possible solution: Many PDA’s/Smartphones have a spot for wrist strap attachment. Put on a regular wrist strap (or a small zip-tie… or small steel cable if you can do it…) Then use any number of cable/lock attachments through the loop of the strap.
But, from what I have seen, I could probably crack a MonRoi’s shell, install the guts from a Palm T|X, and then build a helper app that looks just like the MonRoi’s interface. Unless someone checks the security sticker (if any,) and/or has the WiFi hub and tries to authenticate it that way, how would you know?
You can go too far in security. Really.
MUCH easier would be to strap my Palm T|X to my leg and then visit the bathroom in key positions. (Thanks to Jeff Smith for that one.) Or collaborate with someone on the outside and wear a “hearing aid”, or an MP3 player with FM radio and have someone with a car FM broadcaster rigged to a laptop (and analyzing the position.) Those would be actually far easier to achieve than to build an app that looks ‘just like’ the other devices.
And the best defense to all of the above is our current rules. The device must be in plain sight on the table. Anyone can (and did, at my last tournament,) look over my shoulder to see what I was doing / how I was using it. If there was any suspicion of collusion, I would happily turn over the device to the TD or organizer to show them the recorded PDA file from eNotate and/or help them to verify my device’s authenticity through the NACA website.
It’s one reason that I haven’t installed a playing program to the PDA. Not because I couldn’t, but because I wouldn’t want to have to explain it’s presence on the PDA.
But I agree that any ‘helper’ kind of app would need to be built after the fashion of eNotate, where once it’s running that is all you can do with it until that function is finished.
. .
I believe electronic scoresheets are potentially great, but…
In serious chess tournaments, where all note taking is illegal (including erasing your prematurely written planned move after you change your mind), this eNotate program would be further flawed IF it allows you to take back a move without leaving the withdrawn move in side notes in case the TD wanted to verify you were not taking candidate move notes with it. These side notes would be the analog to the erasure marks from a pencil.
The rules of tournament chess could tolerate this IF the device never showed a 2D diagram of the position; but alas the device does show a 2D diagram. Else the owner could see what the position would look like IF he made this or that move.
The USCF Delegates seemed technically unsavvy a couple years ago when they changed the anti-note-taking rule to allow the player to write then erase a candidate move on every one of their turns. This form of note taking interacts in bad ways with scenarios involving electronic scoresheets. (Besides, allowing note taking is wrong for fundamental reasons of chess purity.)
This is probably a contradiction. You should not be allowed to walk the electronic device across the playing hall to find the TD. In all cases it is essential that the electronic device remain on the table in full view, regardless of bathroom visits etc.
Even if there is the fullest trust and no suspicion of rule bending, no player should be enabled to view a representation of the current position by any means beyond looking at the live game board.
(I know in the 1970’s that Spassky & Korchnoi were given monitors far away from the board so that they would each not have to sit near the other – I gather they hated each other for awhile. But that was a special and not-since-repeated trial.)
I know this will never happen, but perhaps the easiest solution to the potential problem of electronic cheating is to go back to the cheap, low tech solution. That is, to be rateable, games would have to played using analog clocks; no time delay or increment; players would be required to use paper scoresheets. All electronic devices would have to be turned off.
Of course this won’t happen. Players would then be required to know all of the rules again. They would have to relearn time management. Everyone would know how to set a chess clock. Games would come to an end rather than drift into the lingering death limbo of the increment system.
Ah, for the soothing rhythmic sound of the ticking of analog clocks! It would cover the junk music the kids listen to on their ipods while they fidget and bang out 30 moves of book in the Najdorf.
Sure. But one could also be annoyed by that incessant tick-tick-tick. So why not get rid of clocks altogether? Chess had a long history before clocks. Now those were the Good Old Days.*
And, as I posted above: That will not stop cheating. So let’s go all TSA and require full body scanners at the entrance to the playing hall. We can disallow hearing aids, and just in case somebody figures out a way to send signals via programmable shunts and implanted defibrillators, we’ll disallow anyone with medical implants from playing.
Then, to combat that iPod kid with a full opening book, we’ll just expel any member who is found to own a database program at home. We could also require that the only allowable format for personal music players shall be 8-track tape. And we can always disallow the following opening moves for White: e4, d4, c4, Nf3, and Nc6. Or just remove the two-move rule for a pawn. That’ll take care of all those nasty people who study openings.
Then our chess enjoyment will be perfect.
[size=90]*One could always agree with the immortal words of Billy Joel, “The Good Ole Days weren’t always good, and tomorrow ain’t as bad as it seems.”[/size]
Some felt the “TICK TICK TICK TICK ticka ticka ticka ticka TICK TICK TICK TICK ticka ticka ticka ticka” soothing. Or at least they got used to it after a while.
I agree. White should never be allowed to open with 1. Nc6.
But, in serious chess tournaments, I think this behavior could be spotted by anyone with experience.
Permit me describe how I use mine: Player makes move. I power on unit or tap the screen once (depending on if it’s in powered-down mode or if the display is just dimmed.) I tap the screen twice (piece moving square, piece moved to square.) Then I put my stylus down and ignore the PDA. I move. I pick up the stylus, tap twice to record my move. Normally, this is all an opponent would see. On a move, the move is recorded. Me, personally, I move then record always.
Now, I mis-move. I recognize this because the diagram doesn’t match up to the board. (Or, I’m an idiot and tap twice and see I’ve moved the piece wrong.) A short flurry of taps to get to the bad spot, two taps to correct the bad move, and a series of taps to step the sheet back to current position. (And, honestly, I don’t think my unit has the battery power to let me stare at the screen for extended periods. But you can stare at your paper scoresheet all you want to, to look at the flow of moves and visualize your response - see below.)
This is a very different sequence from someone trying to use the scoresheet for analysis purposes. There, you’d consistently see tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap on multiple moves. (Just like if you saw someone scribbling furiously on their paper sheet, you’d wonder just what is up and could tell they’re not just recording moves.) Yes, it takes practice and playing against opponents who use e-Scoresheets. But that will happen.
Let’s say you REALLY suspect (or know) someone is analyzing using the e-Scoresheet by tappa-tappa-tappa-tappa. That would require stepping the unit past the current board position. You summon or go to the TD and report your suspicion. The TD could come over and ask that the player put his device into the Scoresheet’s text mode. The TD can then see that, while your sheet shows an accurate board position at move 10, the other player’s sheet has moves stretching down to move 20. (Alternatively, the TD uses the ‘forward’ button and is able to step past the current board position as shown on the device.) Bang. Player is dead.
(Or, the TD can simply observe your game for awhile and see how the player is using his or her e-Scoresheet.)
True. My only games so far have been in smaller environments - and I have just left the thing on the table when I left. Hopefully, my opponent would be paying the same attention that would occur if a third party walked up to the board and grabbed my paper scoresheet off the table. (Though I am intrigued by the cable-lock possibilities above.)
But in any big-league event, you do have the graphic representation of the board sitting right there, courtesy of DGT.
AND, the written moves are a, “representation of the current position.” Indeed, more so. All you have to do is write the moves of openings or key endgame positions in the same format as a paper scoresheet, and have a live 3d board next to it. (Same text height / width, etc.) Then memorize the text image along with the image of how a board looks at that point. That is not as hard as it initially sounds.
Test of that:
e4 e5
Nf3 Nc6
Bb5
Now, what opening are we in? Can you visualize the board? And can you visualize the response move(s) that you would write after Bb5?
And yes, I am actually learning various Sicilian variations this way currently. Owning an e-Scoresheet actually messes up this method a little, as I can’t look at a blank scoresheet and visualize what moves are going to be filled in there.
In the perfect world, no scoresheet would be necessary, ever. Given that they are, e-Scoresheets are a useful tool. Nothing more nor less.
But, but but… that’s my FAVORITE opening!!! Right after the one where I take my first move and simultaneously put my Bishop at h5 (because Bishops are equal to Knights and therefore can jump pieces,) and take my Queen and take the pawn at f7 (because Queens are more powerful than Bishop and Knight combined and if the King can Castle, this move is a “Citadel.”)
See… Notation typo. I don’t have to worry about that with my e-Scoresheet. :mrgreen:
Can the eNotate device (or MonRoi for that matter) give assistance in verifying a three-fold repetition? From what I know so far, I believe yes. Was this considered by the rules committee? Sorry, I’m too lazy to go look in the new rules…
If you mean will it indicate, either visually or through writing, a 3-fold repetition, the answer is no (for both eNotate and MonRoi). You would have to do it the same way you do today, mentally walk through the transcribed moves.
Nor will it point out stalemate, nor that you’re in check, nor that you’ve given check, nor that checkmate is on the board.
(For check, you can indicate that… but you’ve got to push the button on the program’s bottom rail showing a move is check. There is no check made if the move is actually a check. What I’m saying there, I think is… wait for it… wait for it… The Check is in the Rail. )
Actually what I meant was: Is it possible to arrow through the move list and have the board position on the device follow along? I think having a possible repetition visually represented would be assistance.
Valuable assistance. Once I was playing an NM (now IM) in a complicated queen ending. He gave a check, I thought and thought, and made the only good move. Wait a minute, didn’t we have that position before? So I started studying my scoresheet to figure that out. Sure enough, many moves previous he had made the same check and I had made a losing response! Just then I looked up to see my esteemed opponent also studying his scoresheet. Then he looked up and our eyes locked. Here we were, both hunched over our scoresheets trying to solve the same puzzle! Good for a laugh later. (BTW, I managed to hold the draw.)
So if the device will show only the current position, no problem. If it will show a previous position, there may be a problem.
There are two views - the graphical view and the scoresheet view. Yes you can go back and forth on the graphical view however your opponent will notice that you are tapping around which you can claim that he’s using as a visual aid. When looking at the scoresheet view you see a great number of written moves so the need for tapping constantly is not there and they can legitimately view.
It’s up to the opponent to stop the clock, get the TD and state that the player with the e-scoresheet is using the graphical view as an aid. Just as its up to the opponent to stop the clock and get an TD for any other claim they want to make against their opponent.
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