I know what my answer would be: wait until the kid can write a game down before you introduce the monroi. Otherwise, the kid will never learn to write games manually (and probably won’t learn how to read through algebraic notationl.) The day will come when this kid is 14 or 15, and the monroi breaks, or the batteries fail, etc. S/he needs to be able to write moves like it was second nature.
This comes back to the whole question of how essential it is to have a record of a kindergardener’s game–the big videotape discussion. I believe that in the big scheme of things it is not. Accurate recording will happen by the time they’re eight or so. Getting to be a great player is a long process. Be a little patient. Everything they do doesn’t need to be analyzed when they’re five years old. They need to develop a love for the game.
And we, as parents, need to back off a bit. It’s their thing, not ours.
Mark why not go with the simple solution of (Since score keeping isn’t required you can use the Monroi but only for record keeping-just like during the last 5 minutes of a game when the TD allows someone else to keep score of a game so that the score won’t be lost)? If anyone is put at a disadvantage then it would be the Monroi user because they will lose time scoring.
Of course one could make the argument that using the Monroi slows the player down and makes them play better because they are playing slower.
On the other hand wouldn’t it be great if you ended up with game scores from one of your higher scholastic players that you could later publish in your local or state newsletter?
It might even be a good idea to assign some people to do this manually the hardway just for that purpose.
Then everyone wins.
There’s nothing wrong with a parent deciding not to use a MonRoi with his child. That’s the decision I made and I don’t think anyone should second-guess me on that decision.
Likewise, some parents have decided that using a MonRoi is a GOOD thing for their K-3 aged chess players. I think we should respect that decision and not try to force everybody into the same mold. Maybe I’m reading too much into the whole discussion, but it just sounds suspicious to me that you’d propose this rule. You have ONE parent that I know of that is a big MonRoi proponent and it sounds like there’s been some friction there in the past – so it kinda sounds like he’s being singled out for a special rule. Does anybody else think aiming special rules at individual parents might just be a BAD thing? ARE THERE ANY OTHER PLAYERS THAT YOU KNOW TO HAVE A MONROI AND THAT WOULD BE IMPACTED BY THIS RULE?
How about wanting to avoid future problems with someone with who you have had a problem with in the past and who did not take it well when he was told no. The big argurment we got the last time was “We’ve driven this far and you did not tell us in advance that I would not be allowed…”
Well, I am trying to save everyone the trouble of making the long drive, and expecting special treatment because he made the long drive. I guess I could choose to not advertise it and have the same bad scene in front of the kids that took place the last time, but I prefer not to have that happen again.
You know, I tried to write a very generic variation based on the idea that we do not want to have the MonRoi device being used in our tournment in the sections where notation is not required to be kept because we want our kids to learn to take notation by hand and do not want to introduce that crutch into our tournament environment. Additonally, I was attempting to address the write then move or move then write issue with kids who are young and who have been taught to write then move. We do not want to go through an entire chess season with 5 and 6 year old kids being distracted by that set of issues. We want them to attempt notation. We will worry about the order of when you write it down at a later age.
As far as this being a personal thing, that is what I am trying to avoid. I want it understood that these are the rules here and until we change them, that is the way it will be. Someone else has made an issue of it being personal.
You are probably right. They haven’t made it into the sticks yet (Bloomington IL) At least no one has tried to use one in a tournament as far as I know (MonRoi). We did have a DGT board at our last local non scholastic tournament and I understand the game was projected on a big screen.
Everyone was pretty impressed.
We may try to do that in our Jr. High sections locally this year.
I was ready to give you the benefit of the doubt, but I’ve got to call you on this one. You know good and well that you have a (relatively) local player that would want to use a MonRoi in your tournaments. I say relatively local because you’ve got the closest (to him) scholastic tournaments in the state, even though it’s a bit of a drive for him. You’ve as much as admitted that making this rule public is because of “problems” you’ve had with him.
If you’re going to stretch the truth, you start to lose the presumption of fair and impartial judgement. So now I’m going to ask: Are you also a coach as well as an organizer? Do “your” players have to compete with this guy’s kids? Do you really just want one parent to not come to your events? Are you more concerned with the principle or are you just tired of seeing some of the “big trophies” heading south with someone else’s players?
But shouldn’t the parents of those players make the decision on their own?
If the issue is about one player having a score of the game and being able to use it in the case of a dispute, isn’t this a good thing? I have had many scholastic disputes where even a partial scoresheet has come in handy. For the claims that require a complete scoresheet such as three fold repetition and 50 move rule I am not sure many 1st graders whould even know about these rules let alone recognize when to make the claim.
I played in the Miami International this past weekend. Or attempted to play anyway.
There was one player, a master from NYC, who used a Monroi to record his games. When he got up from the board to watch other children play he did leave the Monroi at the board. Players leaving the board with their units was one of my early concerns with electronic scoring devices.
I am not sure 1 out of 140 players gives any indication that move recorders are or aren’t coming, but I still don’t see the average player finding all that much of a need to purchase a dedicated unit for keeping track of chess games.
As to who won the tournament…I played my kindergartener up in the 3rd and under section instead of K-1 because he went 5-0 in the previous K-1 section and got 1st place. The tournament in question Ian went 4-1 and got 4th out of 81 kids as a kindergartener in the K-3 section. In pre-k he went 4-1 in a few of the K-1 sections in Marks area. He does have a reputation that preceeds him. When Ian was in Pre-K and my older son Josh was in Kindergarten they were named the #1 kindergarten team in the All-Grade State Championship. Josh got 2nd place that year and Ian got 5th while in Pre-K.
Mark is actually the reason I got the Monroi in the first place. He was one of the few tournament directors that didn’t let me videotape Ians games. When video taping I set the camcorder up about 20 feet away and press record and leave the room. I never used it to prove touch move or anything. I only wanted to make every one of my sons games a learning lesson. Ian, this is why you lost. Let’s fix it. Another reason we were playing Ian up against harder competition is were were planning on going to Greece in a few months to play in the World Under 7 championships. I wanted every game to be important to prepare for that tournament.
When Mark refused to allow videotaping he said for “privacy issues” I said “What if I get the other parents permission”. He said “No…unfair advantage then”. But I’m not using the tape to prove anything, I don’t even look at it until we get home. What about a DGT Board ? “NO” again from Mark “We supply the sets and boards”. Basically, anything I came up with would have a rebuttal from Mark to the point of " If I hear another word from you, your son will be disqualified from the tournament". At that point I shut up. To be fair to Mark, BOTH us were speaking very heatedly by that point. Later that day we seemed to cool off and spoke ok to each other. I didn’t think at that time that there was still animosity from Marks part.
This isn’t about Monroi is it Mark? It’s about me. If one of your students had a monroi I doubt if there would be a problem.
I am saddened by this whole thread that a beneficial product that the World Chess Federation (FIDE) approves and the USCF wants and has approved may not be allowed in your tournaments. Ian played in Greece and Monroi was there to broadcast the games. Ian played in the State Illinois K-1 championship and the TD’s were fine with it. He played in the National K-1 Championship in Denver and the NATIONAL TD’s there were fine with it. Garry Kasparov and Susan Polgar like it. The world open used it. Why do you have to be so stubborn just so “I” don’t get my way and can help my son improve his game by using the Monroi. If it is to eliminate competition from Southern Illinois, Ian actually would probably play better without notating. He takes his eyes off the board. We do it to make him better in the long run. We aren’t trophy hunters, most of last spring I played him up in older sections. A 5-0 score in a K-3 in Louisville. 1st place in a K-5 in St. Louis. Not as hot in a K-12 in St. Louis. We want Ian to be the best he can be. Monroi lets me see all of his games. If you let me videotape I won’t use the monroi in your tournament. He uses more time than his opponents who don’t keep score.
Once again: Many federations, USCF and FIDE like monroi. What do you know that they don’t?
Actually I believe Dave actually had problems with me at one tournament and with another TD at the second tournament. I was one of the first to send my congratulations to Ian and his father when he tied for first inthe Kindergarten National All Grade. We don’t give any priviledge to the National Champion who lives in our community and we don’t give any priviledge to the one who has driven 100 miles to play here. The kid living here doesn’t seem to have any problems with the way we run our tournaments.
And believe this, the two trophies that have been taken by the young man over the last year are just 2 of hundreds. The only real thing anyone in town remembers about the young man was the stink made by his father.
I was in the middle of a long response to someone when another post covering the same information that I was responding to was posted. I chose to instead respond to the second post and deleted the first.
This thread started out sounding like he had some high-minded (though WRONG, IMO) principled reason for not allowing a MonRoi to be used. Now it sounds like a personal grudge.
mnibb said that everybody should have to follow the same rules. That’s a nice sounding principle until you realize the RULE IS BEING WRITTEN TO TARGET ONE PLAYER.
Or maybe I should say that it’s to target one PARENT.
So Mark are you saying you don’t care if someone wants to use better equipment because it might upset the others that they don’t own it themselves?
If I had a child that were K-1 and was interested in a serious fashion about chess, I would certainly buy him a MonRoi device and have him use it.
To say that he will use it as a crutch to not learn algebraic notation is silly. That’s like saying the use of calculators in math classes will handicap the student in learning math.
If my son owned a Chronos clock and a MonRoi he would be using both in every game he played. Understand if his opponent is playing Black and does not own a digital clock with delay capability my son’s Chronos would be used by the rules.
Just because you choose to not enforce the notation rule at the very primary level does not mean you should ban a graphical notation device. You said you actually encourage the students to take notation in a written format if they would like. The graphical device is indeed a nice gradient to using the written format. Be assured, the child will learn the names of the squares and so forth to get better.
You can certainly run your local scholastic tournaments as you wish. By making such absolute statements like this though, you are advertising that you are into socialistic chess, let each do only what all can afford. When you look at it like that it does look silly doesn’t it?
Above is the original post. Judge for yourselves if this is written to be able to properly advertise a tournament or not. Again, we welcome Ian to play in any of our tournaments as long as his father will abide by the same standards of decency we expect all the parents of our scholastic players to abide by.
As I said before, I have only had one incident with Mr. Gilchrist. We asked a national TD about the appropriateness of the Video Camera in the tournament room and he said it was innappropriate for privacy reasons.
Another subsequent confrontation Mr. Gilchrist had was with another TD from our area who with the knowledge of our National TD ruling stated that he would not be allowed to use his video camera. Another confrontation ensued.
This is only through K-3 sections and for the reasons of making sure children learn how to take notation, learn the names of the squares and yes, to no sooner than needed, not introdude kids to the concept that priviledge buys success and lack of priviledge dooms you to lack of success.
Those Socialists did pretty well in chess for quite a while
or something like that