Rule 20C states that “The use of notes made during a game as an aid to memory is forbidden …”
If a note is made on the score sheet after a move has been played, is that forbidden? If so, how is that an “aid to memory”?
Steven Craig Miller
Lincoln-Way West High School Chess Coach
Technically, yes, making notes on the score sheet after making a move is forbidden. As you know, the text of rule 20C is clear:
Yes, I understand your question is “what if the recorded note does not seem to have anything to do with being an ‘aid to memory’?”. The answer is simply “don’t do that.” There are just too many possibilities for a player having “codes” in their notes that it is best to avoid even a whiff of suspicion. Don’t do that. Stick to what 20C specifies: actual recording of moves, draw offers, and clock times.
(I personally know a player who uses a system of dots after his moves and his opponent’s moves. Depending on the location and number of dots, the note could mean “I played this move too quickly”, “the opponent played a move I did not expect”, “the opponent played the move I expected”, and so on. I have advised him that this runs decidedly afoul of rule 20C and that I would uphold an opponent’s claim of a violation.)
I once had a player who was on move in a last-round game and who made a note of “$50” on his scoresheet and then handed it to his opponent. The opponent looked at it and tossed it back to the player. The player took back the scoresheeet, crossed out the “$50” and wrote underneath it “$100” and then gave it back to his opponent.
Did you make them stand up and read the note to the rest of the class?
Should we also require that the player use only one color pen to write his moves down? I know of some players who write out moves in several colors. If it is a move they wish to look at later, they write it in green ink. Particularly good moves are written in red. Bad moves are written over with a deep black Sharpie. Regular moves are written in blue ink. There are also players who use silver gel ink to hide the moves from their opponent as gray/silver is almost invisible on the page in certain lighting.
I could care less what my opponent writes down, as long as long as he is not writing out an analytical tree of future variations to consider. If he puts a dot down by a move to to remind him to look at it later at home, that is fine with me. It is no help to him in the present game. I find it funny when players hide their moves while writing them down or put pens on the move. I don’t waste my time looking at someone else’s scoresheet. I was taught that it was rude to look and that they might change the move anyway before making it. It was better to pay attention to your own business and ignore your opponent’s quirks.
It can be in several ways. First of all, the position can be repeated. Second, even if the position is not repeated, the position of the relevant pieces may be. Third, even if neither of those occurs, the theme of the note could be.
My standard way of handling it, even when unsolicited by the opponent, is to issue a warning to the player for the first offense. I have yet to catch a player doing it twice.
I recall going to a Chicago Open to spectate one day, about 10 years ago or so.
I saw a number of GM’s and IM’s playing. I remember watching an elderly gentleman on one of the top 10 boards playing and using his pen to cover his written moves before making them. He did it just the way lower rated players do, hiding his written move and doing a sanity check before making the move.
I looked at the wallchart to find out this gentleman was GM Leonid Stein. Now that I think about it he was playing an IM at the time.
Yes.
Okay, explain that to the little girls who like to write out their moves in different colors, too. And don’t forget to talk to the irate mom who is unhappy that you disturbed her little girl while she was playing. Go ahead and quote 20C to her and the other mothers. I have seen that happen. The poor TD wished he was involved in a dispute involving GM Walter Browne back in the day.
Thanks for the picture. I can just see the little girls now with their different color pens: lavender, pink, aqua blue, etc.
At national scholastics, Carol Jarecki is deployed to deal with chess moms. Frequently, the parents end up wishing they were in a dispute with Browne. 
Carol Jarecki has never seen some of the chess moms that zealously guard their little angels, both girls and boys. They would frighten her little dog, too.
If you want to hide your moves, the yellow color gel or regular ink is more adequate to the purpose. Makes the TD job more difficult when he is checking out a repetition or 50 move draw.
As I have related before, there was once a Pgh area player who used to write out in-game analysis on a roll of toilet paper that he set by his board. Throughout the game he would scribble his thoughts down in 2 point size script on the tiny sheets while mumbling to himself. It was all useless gibberish. Usually no one said anything because he was a good “customer”, that is, he paid his entry fee and lost most of his games. Finally, someone complained it was a distraction and the TD told him to get rid of the notes. He tore the tiny sheets of toilet paper into tiny pieces while his clock was running and left them by the board. The TD came back with a waste paper can and swept them all away. The odd little guy never came back to play in tournaments.
Uh----no.
You work enough national scholastic events, you see every time of chess parent. And most are just fine.
If you were to meet me in person, you would understand that I do not have difficulty enforcing the rules … all the rules. If an opponent complains of a rule 20C violation in this case, I will uphold the claim and issue a warning to the player. Irate mothers are spectators. Spectators have no standing to make claims. I can explain this very clearly when necessary.
It is about setting expectations correctly for both players and parents.
Famous last words!
Really, you would apply 20C in such a trivial matter? You would tick off a bunch of parents, ie. payers of entry fees, just so you can officiously apply a rule just because it is a rule? You have no discretion or common sense? Like to hide behind the Rulebook and don’t wonder at the intent of the rule? Rule 20C was designed to stop players from writing moves and analysis on their scoresheets as prompts for future action. That’s it. When you start applying it in other ways, such as stopping a little girl from writing her moves in green ink just because it disturbs her opponent who cannot see her moves, or he is a little rules lawyer and just wants to use the rules to bother her, then applying this rule so strictly seems absurd.
By all means apply it to the GMs who scribble symbols on their scoresheets all the time. Or are you too awed by their magnificence to notice that they do this? Waiting for a complaint, are you? Most players ignore this stuff and would find it really annoying for a TD to interfere with their business. How about making them write the moves in other than Russian Cyrillic? Can we make a 20C claim then? The forming of certain Cyrillic letters can be a code, too.
It was impossible to tell if Wojtkiewicz was ever writing down his moves.
I would suggest that 1A and 1C on page 1 as well as Rule 21K have their place in running a tournament as well as the other rules. The TD has more than one role to play in a chess tournament. He is not just an arbiter of the rules, a keeper of the sacred flame of the written law, bequeathed to us by eminent jurists and blessed by the solemn votes of the immortal body of delegates. He is also required to engage in public relations, promotion, education, and making sure that every player had fun. Happy players, happy wives, happy parents, mean you did a good job. You get hired back. If you are both organizer and TD, you get to make more money as they want to come back to play in your event. That is one of the unwritten rules.
At a small local unrated scholastic, I would use the occasion as a teaching moment, either during or after the game.
At the National Elementary Championships? Or at any open tournament? I absolutely would enforce it. That’s what I’m supposed to do. Any other response is begging for a (completely valid) complaint from the wronged party.
The venue matters greatly when it comes to scholastic players. If you’re working as a floor TD at a national event, you’d better enforce any rules violation that’s brought to you. You worry about the irate chess mom who is upset that you’re making little Susie write all her moves in one color ink. I would save my worry for the irate chess mom/dad/coach who quotes 20C to you and asks why you’re not doing anything about it.
Sometimes, as a director, you have a situation (usually in a higher-stakes event) where you will make someone mad, no matter what you do. The only way to avoid even the appearance of impropriety in such situations is to apply the rules as clearly and precisely as possible. Someone might get mad…but at least you’re on solid ground when you’re asked (by the tournament chief, the tournament appeals panel, the organizer, or the ethics committee) to justify your decision.
At a national scholastic, every game has a result sheet that must be signed by both players. If there is a complaint about any rule violation, a TD should log information about the violation on the reverse of the result sheet, and put a star in the upper right-hand corner of the sheet. These sheets are kept until the end of the tournament.
A player who is advised of a 20C violation in such a tournament would probably have a warning logged on their result sheet for that round. A future violation in that tournament would likely result in some sort of time penalty.
It seems relevant to ask the following question. If a rules violation is brought to the TD, regardless of how minor it may be, does the TD have an obligation to address it? If one answers this question with anything other than “yes”, I would strongly advise that person to not direct anything beyond small local events.
The manner in which it is addressed is where the aforementioned discretion and common sense can be fully applied. However, simply not addressing it - or worse, admonishing the aggrieved party - is a far more serious issue.
If a player is a “rules lawyer”…so what? One of the things I advise all players, is to know the rules under which they’re playing. This is true, regardless of the sport/game in question. Truthfully, I wish everyone was well versed in the rules.
By the time I made NTD, I’d already handled complaints involving GM games. My approach was exactly the same as it was handling a game between two E-players. Anyone directing at such an event either has no fear of enforcing the rules against a violator, regardless of their rating or title, or will likely not be working such an event again.
It seems that you’re asking some gratuitous questions here. Let’s boil this down a bit.
In a USCF event, if Player A is writing moves in multiple colors, and Player B doesn’t care, the TD isn’t going to say anything.
In a USCF event, if Player B complains, the TD is required to act. There is absolutely nothing in the rulebook that would give any director license to do anything else. Again, the TD’s exact response will most likely depend on the environment.
One last note. The smaller local events are actually a great learning ground for players who run afoul of rules, both large and small. It has always been my practice in such events to use situations like the one discussed here as teaching moments for the offender(s). That way, if/when they do move up to larger events, they’re more cognizant of the rules…as are interested spectators.
FIDE requires its arbiters to be very proactive in going after offending players who flout the rules by changing pens in the middle of the game. Somtimes it’s very obvious what they’re doing. They’ll start off with one color in the opening, like navy blue, switch to a completely different hue once they’ve past the time control, and then change to a totally different shade of aqua-marine once they’ve steered the endgame to a “safe” position. But other times these players are much more subtle. They’ll start the game by writing with clear, dark impressions on their scoresheets. But as the game progresses, their notation gets ever so imperceptibly lighter and lighter each move, until by the time they’ve reached move 90, you can barely tell what color they’re writing with at all.
FIDE will have no choice but to take a hard line against the chaos introduced into the game by players who defy the Rule of “One Game, One Pen.” There is a Zero Tolerance Policy with regards to players who are caught using a different color pen than that which they used to start the game (referred to in the arbiters’ nomenclature as “shade shifters”). The offending pens will be immediately confiscated by the arbiter and the offending player will receive a loss for the game. For the remainder of the event the guilty player will also be required to submit his game scoresheets marked with a Number Two lead pencil exclusively.
The importance of such matters cannot be oversated, in light of the FIDE principle, “Bic Una Sumus.”