With all the excitement about infants in diapers becoming grandmasters, I feel somewhat neglected. I am 78 years old and have just again taken up chess after a 25 year layoff. Back in the good old days, I would study chess informant for the latest ideas in my favorite openings, and I could even remember the move sequences OTB. Today, I feel lost after the first one or two moves. I simply cannot remember anything. So the youngsters have a real advantage.
Here is a modest proposal. Since other accommodations are made for handicapped players, how about allowing anyone over 75 to use an opening book for the first X number of moves, X being determined by rating perhaps, or rating difference between players. Since the TSA lets me keep my shoes on at the airport I am obviously not a security risk and having some opening moves in my pocket would only put me on an equal footing. I could be trusted not to use an engine, sort of like move based online games in chess.com where opening references are allowed but engines are not.
Or maybe someone knows where I can get a brain transplant.
So, would running a tournament where the conditions of the OP were posted in advance be considered bad form to rate? (If outright illegal, I’d like to hear the rationale.)
I’d bet this is a question that has been discussed here before to death. But in a continuum of the following, at what point should an ethical line be drawn as “shouldn’t be rated” in your opinion:
By the current rules (no written material / electronic devices / need I go on?)
Thematic opening tournament
Personally taken notes (prior games, etc.)
Commercial written sources (books, magazines.) Either ‘must bring to board before start’ or can bring a suitcase with to the table?
)