It looks like for this year’s World Open people in contention for big prize money can’t be on phone at all during round. Cell or otherwise.
“in contention” is a pretty fuzzy criteria. Everyone is “in contention” for the first round, but I don’t expect any different enforcement than I see in other tournaments. I wonder what they’ll do if somebody gets a legitimate emergency call. Maybe they’ll have some procedure for getting TD assistance.
I notice they also forbid leaving the “tournament area”. Does this include the bathrooms?
My personal take on rules like this is that they’re covering themselves if they suspect somebody of cheating. If somebody starts behaving in a way that makes them suspect cheating, they can give a warning and then strictly enforce the new “rules”. This way they won’t have to catch somebody “red-handed” (pretty hard to do). Most of the time, though, I would expect them to just continue as normal.
Hopefully, I’m right. I’ve enjoyed the CCA tournaments I’ve played in – I’d hate for things to get worse for average players because of a (very) few cheaters.
At the HB last year a player was caught using their cell phone to communicate with an accomplice with a computer.
I would submit that this has already happened. Quite a few of the changes to the rules and the ratings system have been to try to forestall sandbagging and other forms of cheating.
More such changes are in the works, I fear. I think the next set of programming changes to the ratings system, some time this summer, will include some measures designed to help identify cases of players playing well below their true strength to lose rating points.
Interestingly enough, many of the CONFIRMED cases of cheating I’ve heard about were at scholastic events, not at the big money tournaments. I heard there was a case of roster-packing at one of the National Scholastics this year: a player on a team for a school that he does not attend.
I think the ‘no cell phones’ rule for national scholastic is more to try to keep the players from being disturbed, otherwise there’d be a cell phone going off every few seconds. BTW, kids should be used to this, most schools have similar policies. I know of at least one school that requires students to leave their cell phones at the office every morning and pick them up on the way out the door.
Look around you in the real world. History over and over indicates that a few bone heads always abuse any sytem of rules and regulations and make life hard on the other 99 percent of us. What is the 99 percent willing to give up in order to stop the bone heads from taking advantage of them?
In this case how much cheating or tournament room disturbance are the 99 percent willing to accept in order to still have use of their own cell phones?
Tough call!?
Tim
For now, I’ll plan on taking my cell phone and pda with me to every tournament I play in.
If I get “caught” and penalized, then I guess that’s just the price I’ll have to pay. I don’t think I have that good a chance at a major prize anyway, and the consequences of ignoring a real emergency phone call could be a lot worse than giving up a (hypothetical) chance at a prize. I’d consider this my “civil disobedience” of rules I don’t agree with, execpt I doubt if anyone will even notice.
You know, I’m in the same or worse boat.
The problem with me is neither my opponent nor the tournament director would care if I used a cell phone or my PDA. They would look at my play and laugh. 
In fact, if they thought I used the cell phone and/or PDA in my game(s) my opponent would actually encourage me to keep using them…
I had my cell phone with me at the Chicago Open for the entire tournament. One of the TDs made a point of mentioning the penalty for having your cell phone ring (10 minutes for first offense, game forfeit for second) and said that the CCA’s was a fairly liberal policy compared to other tournaments.
I didn’t notice any real difference in enforcement from other tournaments. Hopefully we’re not going to have TOO overbearing a cell phone policy in the near future. It seems like I heard a cell phone ring SOMEWHERE in the playing room every game. I don’t know how many penalties were handed out. I know that at least of couple of the offenders weren’t caught (one was sitting next to me when his phone rang ).
I was sitting next to a player whose phone went off during the round. The tournament director was not around. I was curious as to what was going to happen next. The opponent was a junior high school kid. The player’s opponent went and got the TD who did take the 10 minutes off. It was a game/30 tournament so that was a major bite out of his time. He did end out losing the game. The time difference was a factor.
A 10 minute penalty seems much harsher in G/30 than in 40/2, SD/1. (On the other hand, a few seconds of distraction at G/30 is generally a bigger inconvenience than at the slower time control).
I’d like to see the penalty get standardized for the first infraction. My suggestion is 20 minutes or 1/4 of your remaining time, whichever is less. Answering a phone (on vibrate) in the tournament room would get the same penalty.
I’d consider 20 minutes to be a substantial penalty even at 40/2 – it certainly would be for me! I don’t think 1/4 of your remaining time is too harsh, especially considering that the disruption for other players grows as everyone gets shorter on time. I think losing 1/3 or more of your time is too big a penalty for a first offense. After a certain point, I don’t think a harsher penalty adds any value as a deterent.
I’ve got no problem with forfeiting the game as the penalty for a second infraction.
BTW I noticed 4 or 5 infractions at Chicago, but most of these were at the very start of the round (when there was a lot of noise anyway). Hopefully, none of these infractions caused anyone to be too distracted.
Also BTW I have a little more sympathy for this issue now than I did. While in Chicago, I had my cell phone’s ringer and its alarm both set to vibrate for the entire weekend. My phone rang once ANYWAY (I still don’t know why). Fortunately I was away from the tournament room when this happened.
I have that happen too. If it’s on vibrate and goes to voice mail, I get an ring that I have voice mail. It hasnt happened to me in a tournament yet, but geberally I’ll turn the phone off to avoid that happening.
Yes, thanks, that’s what it was. There’s a THIRD setting on my phone “MSG ALERT” that I have to set to vibrate. And, of course, it’s nowhere near the OTHER two settings (both under “Setup” - “Sounds” - “Volume”, logically enough). Well, now that I’ve found it, I shouldn’t have any problems. Until, of course, I get some FOURTH type of event that causes my phone to ring! 
I guess I’m lucky that this issue doesn’t affect me while playing. My hearing isn’t the best in the world and I find it easier than most to “tune out” playing room noise.
I do not have and have never had a mobile phone. If someone wants to reach me, they can call me at home and leave a message! Ah, the joys of being single, childless, and paid by the hour. 
When I direct, it’s another story. In the small tournaments I direct, we usually don’t start penalizing players unless their phone goes off more than once. Last time I directed a bigger tournament the announced policy was loss of 30 minutes or half of remaining playing time, whichever was less, first time and forfeit second time.