About a bad change in the fide rules

[Uri Blass]

This is a link to the fide rules of chess:
http://www.fide.com/official/handbook.asp?level=EE101


8.1 says the following:

"In the course of play each player is required to record his own moves and those of his opponent in the correct manner, move after move, as clearly and legibly as possible, in the algebraic notation (Appendix E), on the `scoresheet` prescribed for the competition. It is forbidden to write the moves in advance,unless the player is claiming a draw according to Article 9.2 or 9.3."


Note that "It is forbidden to write the moves in advance" was added only in the last year.

I think that it is a very bad rule that may reduce the level of chess players
with relatively bad memory by 100 elo or even more than it.

The point is that usually chess players record the move that they plan to play before they play it so they can safely analyze another move and later if they forget the previous move that they analyzed they can look at the paper to help them to remember.

If players are not allowed to write moves before they play it then they have a problem in case that they forget the move that they planned to play.

I wonder who are the people who supported the idea of changing the fide rule in order to reduce the level of humans.

Note that I consider chess as a game of thinking and not as a game of memory so
I am against rules that increase the importance of memory in the game.

Most chess players are also against the rule and in a poll that I did in the
israeli chess forum 14 players voted against the new rule and only 1 player voted for it.

This forum allow polls so I decided to discuss it also here(I already wrote a similiar post in the CTF and most of this post is simply what I copied from the CTF)

Uri

[Graham Banks]

I always found it annoying and a distraction when my opponents wrote down a move before playing it, so I'm happy with the rule change!

[Olivier Deville]

The point is that usually chess players record the move that they plan to play before they play it so they can safely analyze another move and later if they forget the previous move that they analyzed they can look at the paper to help them to remember.

Uri

Hi Uri

Thanks for the poll.

The behaviour you describe above was always frobidden by FIDE rules :

[i]12.1.a : #

During play the players are forbidden to make use of any notes, sources of information, advice, or analyse on another chessboard.[i]

Writing a move in advance when you are not sure yet that you will play it is clearly taking notes.

This new rule is very good in my opinion, and I approve it as a chess arbiter.

Olivier

[Uri Blass]

The point is that usually chess players record the move that they plan to play before they play it so they can safely analyze another move and later if they forget the previous move that they analyzed they can look at the paper to help them to remember.

Uri

Hi Uri

Thanks for the poll.

The behaviour you describe above was always frobidden by FIDE rules :

[i]12.1.a : #

During play the players are forbidden to make use of any notes, sources of information, advice, or analyse on another chessboard.[i]

Writing a move in advance when you are not sure yet that you will play it is clearly taking notes.

This new rule is very good in my opinion, and I approve it as a chess arbiter.

Olivier

I disagree.
I did not understand the rule of not making notes in that way(maybe making notes is something that different countries understand in different ways).

I see making notes as writing more than the move that you plan to play.

writing a tree of variations that has more than the move that you plan to play is making notes.

Writing a move that you plan to play was never considered by me as making notes and I believe that the behevior of writing a move that you are not sure that you are going to play is used by most chess players(at least most chess players in Israel).

Note that in the discussion in the israeli chess forum I suggested simply to have different rules in Israel for chess and not to follow the fide rules.

My opinion is that we cannot expect rules that change the nature of the game and I think that rule that forbid players to write moves before they play it change the nature of the game(like rule that changes the way that the knight move).

Rules that can change significantly the rating of players relative to previous rules are rules that changes the nature of the game from my point of view.

Another opinion is that I can ignore the new rule because in most cases(95% of the cases) the opponent is also against the rule and he is not going to complain and even in the rare cases that the opponent is going to complain the rules say nothing about the panelty for players and the referee in israel will decide only to warn me.

Uri

[Olivier Deville]

Hi Uri

I see your point. I can only say that in France the new rule is strictly observrd by arbiters and players, and generally well accepted.

Let's read what says article 8.1 of the Rules :

8.1

In the course of play each player is required to record his own moves and those of his opponent in the correct manner, move after move, as clearly and legibly as possible,

This article was there all the time. If you write down a move, change your mind, cross it out and write another move, your scoresheet will be a mess. This is against the rules.

Olivier

[Uri Blass]

I understand your point oliver.

I guess that in some countries players are used not to write their moves before they play them even before the new rules.

The previous rules were not clear and needed changes to make them clear but the change that I prefer(to allow players to write moves before they play them even if they are not sure that they are going to play them) is probably something that can also cause an objection of people who are not used to do it.

Note that based on reading what other people said
I believe that writing the moves before playing them is something that even helped some GM's.

I remember that one of the religious GM's who played in the israeli league(He believes that he is not allowed to write moves in saturday)said that the fact that the israeli league was in saturday was a problem for him and the fact that he was allowed not to write moves based on his religion did not help him because he is used to check move after he writes them.

As far as I remember it was GM Leonid yodasin

Uri

[Uri Blass]

addition about that rule.

This rule that you should write the move only after playing it is simply against what GM kotov suggests in his book and I think that it is a good reason to change it.

I am surprised that fide got a rule probably against the opinion of russia that is the leading country in chess.

Kotov in "Think like a GrandMaster" page 73-74

"When you have finished analyzing all variations and gone along all the branches of the tree of analysis you must first of all write the move down on your score sheet,before you play it. I have observed the practice of many of my fellow grandmasters and I have noticed that great majority write the move down first before playing,though a minority do it the other way around"

Uri