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61 Posts in 24 Topics by 20 Members
Latest Member: rupertdo
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1  General Category / General Discussion / Re: Annoying behavior while playing on: February 11, 2010, 08:05:38 PM
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 r
easons 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.
2  General Category / General Discussion / Re: Annoying behavior while playing on: January 16, 2010, 11:51:01 PM
I had an opponent that would never resign, no matter how far behind in material he was.  What made it even more annoying is that I would lose patience with him, make some bad moves and he would escape with a draw or even win the game.  I was playing against him for the fifth time and I was up a solid piece and I had over an hour more on my clock than he did.  After he made his move, I wanted to destroy him.  I wanted to push him off the board.  I wanted to use one piece to destroy his pawn protection on his king, then mate him with my remaining pieces.  The trouble was that my attacks against him never worked in the past.

Then, I realized that he was a piece down and my pieces surrounded his king.  It was a lot easier for me to look at this position than he could.  I decided to spend fifteen minutes before moving even if I knew what I was going to play.  I waited those fifteen minutes before playing my next move.

He made his move quickly.  I spent another ten minutes.  I didn't have to make another move.  He resigned.

His behavoir was annoying to me but it was in no way unsportsmanlike.  He did have a right to play on and he saved a lot of half points and full points by not resigning.
I can't fault him.  I will also say that in subsequent games, he had a new respect for me and resigned when he was beaten.
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