There is a experienced local player in my area who touches squares on the board during his move without a piece in hand.
He does not touch random squares. He touches relevant squares while clearly analyzing. Sometimes he is mumbling to himself and then moves on to touch the next relevant square while continuing to analyze.
The local players all give him a “pass” on this. Someday I expect a non-local player to call him on this.
I warned him this week-end that I don’t know how I would rule if a claim was made. He replied that there is no rule in the rule book against touching squares. Personally I feel that it is a serious violation of the intent of the touch-move rule and would warrant in order: Warning, Time Penalty and as a last resort, loss of game.
Touch move does not apply, but “annoying behavior” does.
I think you would do him, and everyone else, a favor by complaining (politely) to the TD when this happens and get the TD to explain that this is not correct behavior at the board. No - there’s no specific rule against it, but it should be stopped. Someone, sometime, will make an issue of it when it really matters, and it might get messy. Better to make a small issue of it (and keep your cool while making the complaint) than to wait for the eventually blowup.
When teaching new players, I tell them that the only time anyone’s hands should be over the board is for the (very brief) time it takes to pick up the piece and move it. The rest of the time, the board belongs to both players as a visual aid in analysis. When this player puts his hands out over the board, he’s distracting his opponent and making it difficult for the opponent to see the position. Again - I don’t recall a specific rule against this - but a good TD will put a stop to it, if you complain.
I would have warned him that I definitely would rule in favor of any opponent who protested this behavior. (The only allowance I would make is if the guy plausibly had some psychiatric problem such that he was unable to control himself.)
There could not be a rule for every conceivable action. That does not mean all things not mentioned in the rulebook are therefore legal. (Him making this argument also removes the psych defense.)
I don’t think it’s touch-move, and to rule that way might just be inviting an appeal. It’s annoying and distracting, and Ken’s answer was right on the money.
Sometimes I will play someone who “hovers” their hand over the board before they make their move. If it keeps happening, I go shake their hand while they are “hovering” and they usually stop doing it.
Last summer I watched a young man make “figure-eights” around his pieces with a rolled-up dollar bill, both during his move AND his opponent’s. It was not only distracting to his opponent, but to everyone around him. Finally, the TD came in to observe and it stopped shortly after that.
In the following round, I was sitting beside the young man’s opponent and leaned over before our games began to tell him that no jury made-up of chess players would have convicted him if he had poked the kid with his pencil just to make his point.