I have an interesting question. While playing in a tournament recently I asked to see my opponents score sheet as I had missed a move. With some reluctance he gave it to me. I saw that he had made come cryptic notes on the sheet indicating that some of his moves were suspect or that he thought another move might have been better. It didn’t particularly bother me as I will note moves that I’m unsure of on my sheet, but in my case I just put a dot by the move to make sure I remember to look at it in my post tournament analysis. I mentioned to him that there was some possibility that a player could complain that he was making notes on future plans. (as far as I could tell he wasn’t). As TD’s what do you all think of this practice? What should be done if there is a complaint? My personal opinion is that as long as I couldn’t see any sign of the notes pointing to future plans I would allow it.
There’s an eponymous thread on the subject of Rule 20C, which applies in this situation.
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The following link is to a ChessPub .com forum thread titled - “If legal, would note taking be legal ?”:
http://www.chesspub.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1385405961
(Link is provided merely as loosely related background.)
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One time, I glanced at my opponent’s scoresheet as he gave himself exclams and me
question marks, but knowing this opponent, I knew that he was a bit of a clown, and I
did not let that intimidate me. So if you were to ask your opponent for his/her score-
sheet to fill in missing moves, don’t let that bother you either! (LOL)
David A. Cole, USCF Life Member, Franklin, NJ