I have been accused of annoying behavoir while playing. I have a habit of writing down my moves before making them over the board. This is the way I have been doing it for almost forty years. I don't know why this should annoy my opponents or why it is anyone else's business but I was surprised that one of my opponents complained to the tournament director about it. Even more surprising was that the tournament director upheld his complaint and gave me a warning.
This happened in 2006 and there was a provision in the Official Rules of Chess that specifically stated that writing down the moves before making them over the board was acceptable. I didn't know about it at the time and I tried to write down the moves after making the move at the board. I won the game but my concentration was lost as I not only had to think about my move, I had to think about moving before writing it on the scoresheet.
This rule is totally arbitrary. The reasoning is that it is forbidden to refer to notes while playing chess and by writing down the move, you are referring to seeing the move written on your scoresheet as a note. (I've heard that writing commentary or even putting a question mark or an exclamation point after a move is forbidden under the rules.) While I agree that the players shouldn't resort to books or outside notes, this is not what the kind of behavoir that a TD should enforce.
I call this the "Sore Loser" rule because I've never had anyone call me on it unless their position over the board was resignable. Currently, the newest edition of the ORC says that you have to write down the move after making it at the board. One of the reasons for the change is "to make the rule conform to FIDE." I am not so sure that we should even worry about conforming to FIDE, an organization that awarded Karpov the title of World Champion in 1975, consistently ruled against Korchnoi in 1978, annulled the Kasparov-Karpov match in 1984-5, and played politics at every turn.
I agree with you. The rule is pretty stupid. The rule was conceived most likely after electronic gadgets for score-keeping came into the market. I'm thinking MonRoi. I think that with those players were able to input their move and see graphically the resulting position after that move. By applying the rule to all players, including those keeping score on paper, they just created this idiocy. The problem is that every TD must uphold the rules as spelled out in the USCF rulebook. Failing to do so can result in a TD losing his/her certification. TDs are advised by that rulebook to give a warning the first time, as it happened to you. I think most TDs think that rule is just crap and shouldn't be imposed on players that aren't using electronic devices. Actually, I would just rule out the use of any electronic device for score-keeping, but I guess MonRoi has too much clout over official chess organizations.
Your opponent was simply an idiot to invoke the rule and call the TD. Now that we'e talking about idiots summoning TDs unnecessarily, I remember a tournament game.
I was a clear piece up right out of the early middlegame. The guy just kept playing while I kept up the pressure. Lots of pawns were on the board and at least two minor pieces plus queens on each side, plus we were playing with my Chronos and a 5 second delay. My opponent was on time pressure with only two minutes on his clock in a SD time control and he suddenly told me: "Stop the clock". I looked at him bewildered while he raised his hand to summon the TD. Since it was he who decided to summon the TD, it was obviously he who should stop the clock by the rules. I just ignored his command, made my move, and hit the clock. The TD came over and this guy claimed a draw by insufficient losing chances, which can't be called with a 5 sec delay. Seeing that I had ignored his command, now he was in the funny and pathetic situation of discussing his claim and making moves. I covered my ears to muffle his chat with the TD, and after the TD dismissed his claim and an extremely pathetic position on the board with a few seconds left, he resigned. That's the worst case I've faced of a sore looser.
It later dawned on me that he may have not known how to stop the Chronos. Had he asked me to stop the clock because he didn't know how, I would have done that for him. That's why I always explain to my opponent before the round starts how to stop the Chronos if he needs to when I play in a tournament. I also ask my opponent to explain to me how to stop his clock if we're using his equipment.
btownchess.com
