Live Boards

[Andy Howie]

For the benefit of any doubt. Oban did nor request the boards. I took them with me to do some testing. There was no prominence on the cs webpage as ftp was down on Friday night

[KMcGeoch]

Well what I was meaning by prominence on front page was something slightly different. I guess it's easier to illustrate with a picture like <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://img40.imageshack.us/img40/6277/example2wq.png">http://img40.imageshack.us/img40/6277/example2wq.png</a><!-- m --> (I used link since image sizes for forum are fairly small) where you can see a shabby photoshop of what I was suggesting it should look like that would raise profile of digital boards.
General idea is that you can get latest games and ideally an archive format by tournament a bit like you would find at <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.chessscotland.com/scottishchampionship2012/livegames.php">http://www.chessscotland.com/scottishch ... egames.php</a><!-- m --> but with difference that it's easily accessible and viewable so if I wanted to tell a friend to watch one of my games regardless of competition I would tell him/her to go to chessscotland site and click on live games link since currently location of games is quite variable depending on event.

[Andy Howie]

If you have no upload it is pointless

[Phil Thomas]

Indeed arbiters are best placed.


Trickier situation is when draws are made by a computer. Ideally if you had access to code all you would need to do is to add an opt out variable and then have computer populate boards as per description above. Unfortunately it's quite likely that source code isn't readily distributable so two options available are either the inelegant solution of scoring out and rewriting board numbers or alternatively writing a small program that takes data exported from program that makes draw to reorganise it according to digital board preference.

If doing a draw by computer and you wish to have the board 1 players use the board 5 equipment there is an easier solution.

(a) Pick up the piece of paper that says board 1
(b) Pick up the piece of paper that says board 5
© Swap

[KMcGeoch]

I had considered moving bit of paper although there are three problems

1. Arbiter has to presumably go to every event and rearrange boards that is time consuming and will require a fair bit of walking to locate boards and probably a list of boards to swap
2. It's quite possible that boards will switch every round that means board consistency will be a problem since for example board 5 could end up being board 1, board 2 and board 5 in consecutive rounds
3. It's also possible players may end up having difficulties finding their board and if venue is tight for space it could be problematic locating board

I'll also note that with no upload point either it's a reference to oban that I haven't really referred to other than in general terms or it's slightly different implementation to how I was interpreting it. I was imagining something closer to a mirror or alternatively imbedded flash as you can see often in videos making it more accurately a relay of the live.

[Andrew McHarg]

Easier just to force everyone to play on live boards to be honest. ;P

[Andrew McHarg]

If you have no upload it is pointless

True, sorry Andy. Partly my fault - I forgot about your email and have only just remembered!

[Andy McCulloch]

Since when was Chess Scotland run by a dictatorship?

Easier just to force everyone to play on live boards to be honest.

This does not sit well with my understanding of the situation. The use of the live boards was not advertised in advance, and I do not like the idea of 'forcing' someone to play on a live board in such a situation, or indeed in any situation.

As recently as the Prestwick Congress Steve took part, and played on the live boards in each of the 5 rounds. The difference being that the use of the live boards was advertised in advance.

Let's get this in perspective, although one or two people have been concerned, it is a very minor event, nobody died. Please get off your high horses.

[Andrew McHarg]

Since when was Chess Scotland run by a dictatorship?

Easier just to force everyone to play on live boards to be honest.

This does not sit well with my understanding of the situation. The use of the live boards was not advertised in advance, and I do not like the idea of 'forcing' someone to play on a live board in such a situation, or indeed in any situation.

As recently as the Prestwick Congress Steve took part, and played on the live boards in each of the 5 rounds. The difference being that the use of the live boards was advertised in advance.

Let's get this in perspective, although one or two people have been concerned, it is a very minor event, nobody died. Please get off your high horses.

You misunderstand. I didn't mean actually tying someone to a chair in front of a live board and making them play a game of Chess on it. They are entitled to go home if they wish. But if the Congress organisers decided to take Andy up on the offer of live boards being used then the odd player shouldn't disrupt proceedings because they don't want to play on it (I'm not saying that's what happened - but I'm saying it shouldn't). It doesn't state on an entry form that air will be available for breathing either, but it's assumed for the smooth running of the event. It becomes silly if organisers have to write a terms & conditions page on each entry form, purely to satisfy those who look for intricate details. People went to a Chess tournament and there were Chess sets there. It's not too much to expect people to play on the equipment which has been made available. It should be hardly surprising to people that others might actually want to watch some of the games. Why wouldn't they? You wouldn't turn on the Olympics and have the 100m sprint broadcast turned off because Usain Bolt didn't want anyone watching on TV, would you?

And there are no "high horses" to be coming down from Andy. We all have our opinions on the matter and the above is mine. I don't see it as a dictatorship that an organiser would want to supply the best equipment available and expect the players to play on it. If that is a dictatorship in your eyes then you'd have to conclude that every congress is the work of a dictator.

[Andy Howie]

As you can imagine, there were a few jokes yesterday about not playing on the boards along with one player praying his board had malfunctioned....

As I pointed out to someone if we allow this them we also have to allow people to decline playing on the plastic esets...