The recent note taking issue and violation in the US Chess Championships has put the note taking rules of both FIDE and USCF under a light of scrutiny. On Chess.com many are debating and questioning the spirit, letter and application of the law, specifically what penalties should or should not be levied against an offender.
In reviewing the rules I have a question.
I understand about not writing anything. What about doodling? By this I mean not writing words or letters or even numbers but lines and shapes.
I have been watching the live stream of the Championships. The vast majority of times the players sit looking at the board and position. Sometimes they stand up and walk away from the board when it is not their move.
And yet some other times a few of them sit staring at the ceiling or looking around. Sam Sevian noticeably did this when it was his turn, interestingly enough. I have seen a couple of other players looking up into the ether on their move as well.
They are obviously analyzing or something else pertaining to the position by looking away and there certainly is nothing wrong with that.
But, could they doodle? My wife, who is not a chess player, will doodle by drawing circles, hearts or other shapes while contemplating some concept or idea. I have also doodled in my time.
I expect that this doodling would not be allowed per the rules. But what do you tournament directors say?
Please don’t pull the ‘distracting the opponent’ thing out on this. I could show how easy it would be to doodle in plain view of my opponent with no mystery of what the pencil or pen was putting on the paper as far as designs, words or anything else.
Sometimes when my pen isn’t writing well I scribble at the top of the score sheet until the ink flows. Could I get forfeited for that? The possibilities are endless. Of course if I got warned first I’d ask for a better pen and padding to put under the scoresheet.
The rules regarding notes in aid of memory specifically restrict what can be marked on a score sheet for a reason. There is precedent for people making doodles during the game that turned out to have meaning related to the game. (A team at a previous national scholastic was discovered to be doing this as a group.)
A few other things have come to my attention since I started this thread.
Would it be legal to have sayings or writings written or printed, on something that is not the scoresheet, before the game? For instance, a player could write, “Stay calm and use your time.” on an index card with a Sharpie, before the game even begins and either lay the card flat on the table or prop it up. Any way it is done it would be visible to everyone. These suggestions could also benefit the opponent of the person writing them as well as other players nearby.
A friend of mine pointed out there are different ways of writing down the moves that would be note taking. One way would be to write a move in either far edge of the box on the scoresheet. If looking for a repetition each move that signaled the repetition could be right justified in the box, for instance.
Another way would be to use a multicolored pen and write different moves in different colors.
Yet another way would be to write the time only on a move that had significance to a particular need. For instance a player could write all his pawn moves in red to keep track of these in the opening.
Ron, the rule is designed to stop people from writing chess analysis on their scoresheet. All of the little dodges have been mentioned before, but I like some of your new ones. Do any of them constitute an “aid to memory”? If they do, is this aid during or for after the game? Most of the notes on time, for example, on the scoresheet are useful only after the game when you are doing a post mortem trying to discover why you wasted so much time on simple moves or why you did not spend more time on a critical position. The time notes don’t do much for you during a game; they can even be distracting and be a waste of precious time to write them down. For some reason time notes are legal, but little dots on moves so that you can look at the moves next week are not.
I have seen numerous people, especially kids, wear arm bands with positive messages on them. Do they really help all that much? Would looking at an armband that says “Be Strong” help you to improve your game or remember the forty moves of analysis necessary to play the Exchange Variation of the Grunfeld Defense?
Self-help gurus often encourage people to write their feeling down. The pop psychologists and even real psychologists have no problem with the idea of writing positive notes to oneself. They may not help very much, but they do no harm. Except in chess, where we have specific rules about such things that must be pounded into the souls of chess players so that they do not follow the false idols of common sense. Heaven forbid that some child write, doodle, or draw on his/her scoresheet when bored waiting for the other player to move. Such doodling must be stopped! Doodling is an aid to memory, so sayeth the keepers of the holy Rulebook! It must be crushed. Other rules which have “moral principle” attached can be ignored, but rules on notetaking must be applied with swift justice and might. Most of this is just tempest in a teapot, until you see someone get forfeited for doing such an innocuous thing as writing, “Stay in your seat.”
Not correct. The plain language of the rule indicates it is designed to prohibit the use of notes of all types not explicitly required or permitted by rule.
Mr. Mulford, there are two distinct prohibitions, against extra marks on the scoresheet, and against the use of notes.
An effort to get a pen to work cannot be construed as a use of notes (absent a doodle with meaning, as Mr. Reed has pointed out). As to the extra mark, I would construe what you describe as a good faith and necessary effort to comply with the requirement to keep legible score. If you kept having a problem, I would provide a new pen.
We ought not imagine hard cases in order to call into question the easy case that was unfortunately but correctly adjudicated in St. Louis.
This is also ridiculous. Watching Nakamura during the tournament, and the others, shows the simplicity of it all.
Hikaru used a pen that the top twisted to extend the nib out for writing and retract it into the body of the pen so it could not write. Every time he would pick up the pen, twist it “on”, write the move, and twist it “off”. He would then lie the pen on the score sheet. He never used the pen during the game for anything else.
The other players also only picked up their pen to write the moves down and then put it back on or next to the score sheet.
When Wesley used his pen in the Akobian game he also picked up his pen and wrote the move. Instead of putting the pen down he visibly went from the upper part of the page where he had written the move to the bottom of the page and wrote something else. And that something else was noticeably more writing than used for the move notation.
This extra writing is the thing against the rules.
Therefore, during the game it is only necessary and legal to use a pen or pencil to notate moves, no more than that. Yes, time notation and draw offers are included in the legal things.
But Brennan, I have a serious question. What about the use of different colors in notation?
And an observation is that someone could the placement of the notation as an aid to memory. That is a hard one to stop.
Very interesting, Ron. I may use that idea of placing the written move in a different place on the line if I want to look at this move later. That would be a very good “aid to memory” during and after the game. This way I will not have to put a teeny tiny dot by the move.
I noted in another thread that one of my students likes to use several different color inks when writing down the moves. She just likes the colors, but a devious sort could use the colors to note when the 50 move rule comes into play, or a repetition. The opening could be in one color, new moves in another, transitional moves in another color. Then there is the color yellow, which can be used to hide your moves from the opponent. You can also use yellow to write out a move you are thinking of and then write over it with another color if you select another move. That eliminates erasures or scratching out a move.
What to do about the person who brings multiple pens or pencils to the table? Placement of the writing instruments can be used to set up candidate moves. Taking a pencil and setting it aside might mean rejection of a move. Direction of placement of the pencils can be used to indicate which part of the board one should be focused.
One opponent of mine used to bring a coin to the table to help make decisions on which candidate move to play when he got stuck. That certainly helped in move selection. Not sure if that is permissible under the rules, but it was funny.
I wonder if you will be able to use the stylus on the Monroi to access the chess apps or even a word processing app through the new Apple watches. Imagine being able to tap the watch to see encouraging phrases or helpful bits of behavioral advice.
The So incident may be applicable to those listening to music. Music can have a calming or stimulating effect. A song like, “Don’t worry. Be Happy,” can have just as much effect on the quality of play as a phrase jotted on a note card in plain sight. This should be ample justification for TDs to ban the use of listening devices in tournaments. Why should aural learners and users be given an advantage over visual learners?
What about me? I bring at least three pens to every tournament I play in, in case one runs out of ink during the game. Is that a violation? (The three pens are all the same color, and identical.)
Or, what about the fact that I don’t write the players’ names (mine or my opponent’s), round number, board number, etc at the top of the scoresheet until after a few moves have been played? Is that note taking? In the event of a last-minute pairing change, or an opponent no-show, I don’t like to waste one of the organizer’s valuable score sheets by writing on it before I’m sure I’ll need it.
There was a player like that in Illinois a while back. He hasn’t played since 1991 (deceased??), as his MSA rating history is empty. Every so often, after thinking about his move for several minutes, he would leave the table, go outside the tournament hall, flip a coin, return to the table, and immediately make his move. Yes, it was funny.
According to the FIDE rule 8.1 b, it’s OK to notate “matters relating to a claim” on the scoresheet. I read that to mean it’s all right to number possible repetitions, mark where a potential 50 move claim might begin, etc. so potentially switching pen color every time a capture or pawn move is made might be OK.
I don’t see any similar language in the USCF rules.
Heaven forbid that some child write, doodle, or draw on his/her scoresheet when bored waiting for the other player to move. Such doodling must be stopped! Doodling is an aid to memory, so sayeth the keepers of the holy Rulebook! It must be crushed. Other rules which have “moral principle” attached can be ignored, but rules on notetaking must be applied with swift justice and might. Most of this is just tempest in a teapot, until you see someone get forfeited for doing such an innocuous thing as writing, “Stay in your seat.”