Doug,
This is not a new rule. See 15F of the 4th edition.
Then I stand corrected. With the 4th edition (my 4th edition), that old book is in the city dump.
If it was borrowing from a scoresheet, it could take a minute. If it was borrowing from a PNC, and the person does not know anything about it, … it could take five minutes. If you think four minutes is laughable, next time you have a event, set one clock at G/60, and the other at G/56.
Yes it is laughable. You’re trying to give blame for something that’s your fault. Do you expect to mess up your notation every game? I rarely do. Why would I take 4 minutes out of a game for?
It’s not my fault my opponent doesn’t know how to notate. If I don’t want to notate, should I be held responsible for it? If I were handicapped and wanted a better alternative to notation, should I be penalized for it? According to you, I should be.
For argument’s sake, I’m going to dig my heels in about how this idea is unworkable.
What does this PNA interface look like? Does it have an 8x8 board on its screen or do you only write text using the stylus shorthand? I should think that the former would be illegal like having an analysis set in your lap. The latter would be barely better than paper with error checking. I used to own a Palm and I found the Palm script shorthand unnatural.
I’ve heard in a previous post that everyone would buy one, but I foresee a chicken and egg problem. No one buys one unless they’re legal. No one manufactures them because no one will buy them unless they’re legal. No one succeeds in making them legal in the laws of chess because no one has manufactured a widespread standard model that has earned the trust of players and TDs alike. The manufacturing hurdle is surmounted if you use existing PDAs, but then the trust issue of software comes into play. Thunderchicken talks of an app that will alert if the user switches to Pocket Fritz, but my original contention was that on Day 2 of the tournament, I could have a PDA and software that look just like the standard versions, only I’ve hacked the software so that a Fritz engine will tell me on each move how to defeat my master opponent.
I DID enjoy the DGT or whatever technology was used to provide the US Championship games live to their website. And I have put together games bulletins for two tournaments, laboring to enter about 100 games each time. But I was recently unnerved by a description on ChessBase.com of the North American Open where amateurs in the audience watching the GM demo boards were analyzing the games in progress. What if one of the players happened to see the analysis on his walk to the bathroom? I’m not entirely against technology in that I applaud the American Foundation For Chess for conducting great real-time game records. But if cheating via PDA begins to pervade over-the-board chess, then I would say that technology has hurt chess more than helped it.
First, you would make the PNC (Personal Chess Notator, or whatever you want to call it) about the size of a Gameboy advance. It needs to display a legible screen and a space for notation to appear, either at the bottom or the side of the board, and it would be scrollable.
As for writing the moves, in my version you wouldn’t have to. Using a stylus, you would simply touch the screen to move the pieces on the board, and the notation would be generated, as it is with many other interfaces of this type. Thus you could verify the notation was correct by looking at the screen display, and if it wasn’t you could easily change it. When your opponent needs to see your scoresheet to correct his own, you simply find the moves he’s missed, scroll to them, and hand him the device.
Good point. The devices would probably have to be created under the auspices of the USCF, since they are the entity charged with enforcing (and thus making legal) the rules.
No, software won’t come into play. Because the device we’re talking about would be a dedicated device. And as for it looking like a regular PDA, all such devices would have to either look alike (but different from other PDA’s) or have the USCF “Seal of Approval” (is there such a thing??) on it before it can be legally used in play.
There are ways to get around such problems. Since you aren’t using any existing devices, you can manufacture it any way you want, with any feature you want.
Radishes
Concerning the Personal Chess Notators we had been talking about…
So, you figure Excalibur has been watching this and now are secretly at work implementing our ideas?? 
I know I’d be first in line to get such a device. For one thing, it would get rid of all that clutter of paper scoresheets usually found after a tournament…especially at scholastic ones!
Radishes
I also worried about coaches (or parents for scholastics) in the audience recording moves on a tablet pc. I saw this at a scholastiic event at one of the top boards. It’s too tempting and just seemed wrong when the kid is 10 feet from his parent and in this case, kept looking up at his Dad who was lookign at the game in ChessBase.
I think PDAs, tablet PCs, other handhelds/mini-laptops and text cell phone are all bad ideas
I’ve thought for several years that someone will eventually partner with USCF and make an appliance that has no capability to load software to it only it would have a chip in it with the code burned in that would have an engine which has the board and chess pieces appear on the screen and drag and drop would be the mode.
The appliance would be only capable of recording games and not doing any anaylis. It could even be capable of using a jump drive of memory card as a means of downloading games to a PC later but incapable of uploading games to the appliance.
The device should only be able to be used if it is official USCF and be limited in its functionality.
One of the points I made was that the graphical drag-and-drop interface may be illegal even if there is no computer attached. If you make your move on the drag-and-drop screen, you have added advantage of seeing how the move looks before you actually make the move on the chessboard. Presumably, the interface would have error correction and takeback, so a player could move a piece on the board, see how it looks, make another move or two and then take back all three moves after he has determined that his three-move combination is sound. Does anyone want to sit across the board from someone who has this to make sure they’re not moving pieces around?
Rule 20D. Use of additional chessboard or computer prohibited. A player who analyzes a game in progress on another chessboard or consults a computer about the position is guilty of a serious violation of the rules. Though the director still has discretion, the usual penalty is loss of the game.
Slightly off topic, I am a subscriber to the advice given by many chess teachers that writing a move down before you play it cuts down on blunders. Rule 15A specifically permits writing the move before played, although I know of statements by NTD Carol Jarecki (USChamps 2005, chesscafe.com/text/geurt82.pdf who say this is not permitted. I don’t think demo boards are a violation because they only follow moves on the board, not lead. But allowing a player taking notation to see how his move looks in his PNA before playing it on the board is going too far.
What’s really needed is a two-player version of this drag-and-drop device. Let’s call the two-player version a Game Monitor.
A single Game Monitor would replace the board, pieces, clock, and scoresheet for BOTH players. It would consist of two computer screens (one per player), two mice (one per player), and whatever circuitry was necessary in a central box. Optionally, it could also include a third monitor for spectators, and/or a printer to produce hardcopy game scores at the end of the game.
Opponents would still sit face to face, but with a Game Monitor instead of a chessboard between them. Players would make their moves with the mouse, just as though they were using Fritz or playing online. Illegal moves would be impossible, just as they are with present-day software, and takebacks would be physically impossible, as well.
Bill Smythe
Whatever the final design, and the final term for this non-paper scoresheet: it will be years before the federation will accept the idea. When that day does happen, I’ll be in a box as creamated ashes.
Okay, let’s take this one at a time.
First, the device can be designed so takebacks aren’t allowed. What’s wrong with doing that? And if you do allow takebacks, how is that so different from allowing a player to write the move on a scoresheet before making the move? That seems to be allowed, although I disagree with it because of the very same reasoins you cite for the device. Players don’t always make the move they write down the first time, and you never know if they are writing just one or many moves. I’ve had players cover their scorsheet so I can’t see what they are writing. So by not allowing takebacks on the machine, you eliminate the problem you are talking about.
Yes, but you have to have a device capable of analyzing a game first. That wouldn’t be the case with this device. It could neither analyze nor consult on the game any more than a scoresheet with a move written down before making the move.
Do you mean writing the move down before it’s played cuts down blunders because you get to analyze it before making the move? And then if you don’t like it you can erase it? How is that different from your complaint about the PCN? As I said, you shouldn’t be allowed to do it at all. I consider it to be a form of making notes to yourself, which is illegal.
Radishes
I understand facilities for tournaments don’t always have the room needed to take care of all your needs, but the TD does have the discretion to require parents to leave the room. Even if they have to stand outside of the building, which I’ve had to do in some places. Then it wouldn’t be a problem.
Radishes
And this is exactly what we’re looking for here!
Radishes
It’s ridiculous to assume that a human operating a drag-and-drop stylus device is never going to make a mistake such as dropping a pawn on the third rank when he meant to put it on the fourth rank. When the inevitable mistake comes, what does the user do? Takebacks to correct errors have to be part of this device.
I think that seeing a future position with all the pieces on a board in front of you is an order of magnitude much more help than writing down a three-character representation of the move you intend to play. The USCF rulebook SPECIFICALLY ALLOWS the latter (15A) and SPECIFICALLY FORBIDS the former (20D). However, the rulebook is silent about a player changing his mind before he plays his written move. Mr. Geurt Gijssen, enforcing FIDE rules, says he would warn a player several times about writing moves first before he would forfeit that player for defying the TD’s authority. The USCF rulebook calls the use of another board a serious violation and suggests immediate forfeiture is appropriate.
I was speaking of analysis in the more general term, the kind of analysis chess players did before computers were everywhere. Moving pieces around, seeing the resulting positions and possible plans more clearly is something that you don’t want to see your opponent doing in the skittles room, even if he doesn’t have a computer to crunch evaluations. Again I ask, would you trust your opponent NOT to move pieces around on his PNA device?
Regarding Bill’s two-screen interface, why not go full out and use the Fritz X3D virtual reality space for an entire tournament? Then we could do away with long drives and expensive hotel stays altogether and meet in cyberspace. I realize now there is a purist streak in me that reacts negatively to suggestions that we can “improve” this great game. I’m of the opinion that playing chess, like engaging in conversation, is best done face to face with the classically sculptured pieces arrayed between the human generals on a board of eight by eight. You meet as gentlemen to play a beautiful war game and use the best of your mental skill to master the problems of space, time, force, and material. A totally bastardized version of chess has us all at home pretending to play chess on the internet when secretly we’re just pitting our computers against each other. Instead of handshakes before and after, there is at best stilted silence or at worst, insults. See Steve Lopez’s article in ChessBase on the state of internet chess. chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=2161.
I WOULD be in favor of more widespread use of DGT-type autosensory recording of games like they did in the US Championships, but chess players and tournament organizers all have to get a lot richer before this happens.
Blech!
The only thing that interests me in chess is face-to-face competition. I don’t like online interfaces (with or without computers ‘helping’ with the moves.)
Being able to stare down your opponent is part of the fun, and yes it DOES sometimes affect the results.
I once freaked out my opponent by taking about 30 minutes for a pretty obvious move. She spent an equal amount of time on her next move trying to figure out what I was looking at, and missed the best line.
I swindled a win out of a dead lost position in the US Open once by hanging a piece and then acting upset about it. However, taking the piece uncovered an attack against the guy’s queen on the long diagonal.
I also remember a local expert hanging a piece on a several move combination and spending a lot of time staring at the ceiling waiting for his opponent to miss seeing his blunder.
You guys go play in cyberspace all you want, just don’t expect me there.
What about using a sensor board that is attached to a thermal printer(no posibility of a computer being used by either side)? 