There have been many heated debates about the MonRoi device. Some of the arguments have been to the points. Unfortunately, some are completely fabricated and off the mark.
This reminds me of the time when digital clocks just came out. The younger generation embraced it immediately. It took young players no time to learn how to use or set these digital clocks while the older generation looked at it as device from hell.
MonRoi is going through the same process right now. I have used it. I have seen it. I have inspected it. I believe this is the future of chess recording, especially with the younger generation. The only drawback that I see is the price. However, that is expected with any electronic gadget in the early phase.
Here is an interview with Brana Malobabic Giancristofaro, Chief Operating Officer and Founder of the MonRoi. It was conducted by Mr. Jerry Hanken, President of CJA. This is interview is published on Chess Life Online.
Jerry Hanken (JH): When did this idea for an electronic scoresheet first come to you?
Brana Malobabic-Giancristofaro (BMG): I played at the Canadian Open, in the summer of 2002, and I mixed up my score-sheet. Later on I wanted to reconstruct my game and show how I did, but I couldn’t because the score-sheet was illegible. I went to an arbiter and asked if I could use my PDA to record moves, and he said, “No, you would be cheating.” So, then I said, “Oh, it would be wonderful it there were a possibility to create a secure device that could be used for the recording of chess moves, so I could make a readable notation, and I could transfer it right away to a computer without spending hours typing it.”The arbiter said, “You are kidding, of course. You know, this would be very difficult to do, all the certifications, and all the laws of chess…”
JH: So it was actually a personal experience that brought you to look for this technology then?
BMG: Yes, it was. Of course, it would have been easier to improve my penmanship.
JH: Prior to this, you were in another kind of technical field – you told me something about your background in optics, am I right?
BMG: I used to work for Nortel Networks, a company that develops optical backbone switches, and voice and data high technology equipment.
Click here to read the entire interview on Chess Life Online.
The MonRoi gizmo seems like a nice improvement over writing down moves by hand. However, it seems like the best solution would be a sensing board that records moves as they are played, eliminating the need for the players to do any scorekeeping at all.
But I haven’t played any tournament chess. Is there reason why the players should write down the moves, rather than something else doing it automatically?
I realize that the current generation of sensing boards probably aren’t accurate & reliable enough. If someone were to come up with one that had a lower error rate than two players writing down moves by hand, would there be any reason not to do away with player scorekeeping altogether?
This interview was disgraceful. Hanken flirting with the female president of MonRoi, not addressing a single one of the issues surrounding the MonRoi.
I called Susan’s previous post on the MonRoi “puffery”, but this interview makes Susan’s post look like tough-minded journalism.
You have to keep in mind that the USCF has “endorsed” the MonRoi in return for 1% of the US revenue from the product. They did this before any technical committee had the opportunity to investigate or verify any of MonRoi’s claims around security, anti-tampering, etc. All of those claims have been accepted so far simply on MonRoi’s say-so.
It may be that the MonRoi is a great device, but the way the USCF and FIDE have handled the introduction of this device to the chess-world smacks of corruption and incompetence.
I agree that devices like the MonRoi are likely to be the future of chess. However, digital chess clocks did have issues to work out when they first appeared, and the same will undoubtedly be true with electronic scoresheets.
Right now, the biggest issue is specific to MonRoi: the question of MonRoi’s asserted copyright on games. It would seem that something’s been worked out, but it would be nice if MonRoi themselves would issue a clarification.
the interview specifically discussed the copywrite issue which was the only issue I was concerned about.
Concerned no more.
Yes, I noticed that too, having commented before reading the interview.
“This disclaimer is for the purpose of propriety software, chessboard viewer, collection of data and for live games functionality. It does not pertain to individual game copyrights.”
Collection of data and live games are very important.
You won’t easily be able to get individual games of Monroi-recorded events except from Monroi — unless other entities have the right to release collections of games and live games. MonRoi is asserting that other entities must obtain “permission” from MonRoi for this.
MonRoi are being pretty dishonest about this issue. If it were really a “non-issue”, as they have stated, their Terms of Use wouldn’t have asserted these rights in the first place, or they would be changing the wording of the Terms now that the issue has been raised.
Will Chessbase, chessgames.com, ICC, etc be able to include MonRoi-sourced games in their databases or as part of “live” tournament commentaries/feeds, without payments to MonRoi? That is the issue/
Cell phone and other rechargable batteries weaken over a year or two.
Best would be if the device could take either regular or rechargables.
I am convinced some companies look forward to their customers having to buy new rechargable batteries from them, as a continuing revenue source.
Often the batteries are shaped in a way that no other company makes them, so excessively high prices can be charged for replacement rechargable batteries.
I dunno if that is the situation with MonRoi, just a general observation.
I hope I am wrong, but…
It may be difficult to generate an eye-pleasing printout of a game score, if one uses MonRoi.
Suppose you upload your MonRoi captured game onto your home computer. I presume this could give you a .PGN file. PGN files do not list the plies in nice White-Black move-pair columns. Rather PGN is in the clunky paragraph format, as if chess moves were textual sentences. Chess magazines use the paragraph format for moves, but only because it saves money (not because anyone is pretending it is a nice format for the eye).
You could open the PGN file into Fritz, which will display the move-pairs in nice columns on the screen. Ah, but on the screen is not our goal, a printout is our goal.
Unless I am mistaken, Fritz is incapable of outputting a simple textual file of a game score, with the move-pairs nicely aligned in columns (to approximate the nice layout in my hand written score books).
So, how does one easily generate an eye-pleasing printout of the game one reorded with MonRoi?
GeneM
CastleLong.com
I was wrong — because MonRoi has software to can print your game score in a very eye-pleasing manner.
It also prints the time for each move, which is a giant step forward for most scoresheets!
GeneM
It took young players no time to learn how to use or set these digital clocks while the older generation looked at it as device from hell.
Older people are more cautious, that’s all, based on their longer experience – they don’t run in all directions trying to follow the latest fad. For example, I’ve tried out electronic personal organisers but found pen and ink much faster and even more secure – Filofax is simple, uses a traditional lo-tech idea and works!
I also think these articles do leave some doubts about copyright and access to games. How could one access all the games in a tournament if MonRoi collected them first?
lsur
Monroi website:
Notice: This disclaimer does not pertain to individual game copyrights, which are non-copyrighted materials. It however strictly prohibits re-broadcasting of chess matches. Using content for the purposes of selling or charging a user fee is strictly prohibited. Media, chess players, organizers and spectators are legally permitted to download a PGN file from the MonRoi World Databank of Chess for purposes of printing and reviewing the game and publishing chess articles. We kindly ask media to include http://www.monroi.com source.
“You won’t easily be able to get individual games of Monroi-recorded events except from Monroi — unless other entities have the right to release collections of games and live games. MonRoi is asserting that other entities must obtain “permission” from MonRoi for this.”
This doesn’t yet seem to be the case, however. I’ve just checked the Foxwoods tournament, which had games broadcast through MonRoi, against online databases. Chessgames.com had, within a day, games that were collected by MonRoi on its site. (As evidenced by the earliest comments on Chessgames.com) In other words, MonRoi doesn’t seem to have been much of a roadbump on the path to getting the games widely, and freely, distributed.
Brad Hoehne
Brad is right. MonRoi has no problem giving out games. It’s the same 10-12 people who whine and complain about everything and lying about MonRoi.
Here’s a case study:
This game, Nakamura-Sulskis, was played on Jan 31. It was posted to the Chessgames.com website on Feb 1. It was first commented on on Feb 3.
http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1449751
And it was one of the games broadcast on the Monroi website:
http://www.monroi.com/wdc/round.php?round_id=1014
and here, MonRoi seems to have been okay with Chessbase.com using their material:
http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=3650
I’m not sure that, in practice, the assertion of rights by MoiRoi is amounting to much.
Brad Hoehne
MonRoi is asserting these rights in their Terms of Use and obliging people to agree to them. They aren’t (yet) trying to enforce these rights because (a) there is a lot of precedent against them doing so; (b) it would kill their product, which has barely been launched.
It is a few years down the road when/if MonRoi becomes a defacto standard and the chess world is locked in that you have to worry about.
So meanwhile, they have these terms in their contract, but they pretend they aren’t really there: “Don’t worry, we claim on our website that we own these collections of games and people can’t copy the collections without our permission or use them for live broadcast; but see, we aren’t really enforcing these claims. It’s just lawyer stuff for our protection. Don’t worry your little heads about it. People saying you should be concerned are just evildoers stirring things up. Just sign here.”
Sorry, the only thing that will make this a non-issue is for MonRoi to remove these clauses from their terms. Until they do, the Terms say what they say, and it is an issue, no matter how much Brad Hoehne cares to say otherwise.
A lot of those early digital clocks were devices from hell.
People from Ches base are thieves. They steal live games and ask players to pay for viewing them. They also steal PGN files from players and ask them to pay for databases.
The interview does not answer these two questions:
1. The unit is an additional chess set. The owner can explore candidate moves to help analysis, which is against the Rule 20B;
2. The owner may consult current position with others (directly or by cell phone). The unit is a valuable near $400, you cannot expect the owner to leave the unit on table when he walked away.
No complaint about theft? Joking. That’s just because the owner took good care for their babies. Who would have know that my unit has name “John” on it but my name is “Mark”?
There are some issues that players need to be aware of. Rules for the handling of the unit will help dispell some of the fears.
The USCF scholastic regulations have added an entire section on the MonRoi. Go to http://www.uschess.org/tournaments/2007/elem/ and click on the Scholastic Regulations link. Page 26 of the document has very clear guidelines both for the players and the TDs. These rules should also be posted at open tournaments.
The theft issue is a big concern for me. My name is hard coded into the unit, and if someone swiped it from me and showed up at a tournament that was using the central hub he would get caught. However if he uses at local event where there is no central hub noone will know if it belongs to him or not unless they look at the databank list of games.
At my local club I’m not concerened about it getting stolen while I’m in the bathroom. At larger tournaments when I’ve left the room, I’ve put it in my chess bag that does not leave the room, or if a floor TD is close by I have given it to him until I return. After looking at the new regulations I will probably always give it to a TD.
When the unit is in record mode you can’t analyze with it. Though in theory you could input a series of moves and then “take them back”. You can go back to fix errors. However if the rule of keeping it in plain sight is enforced your opponent would certainly notice that something pecular was happening if you’re tapping in a lengthy series of moves, and would be with in his right to ask to see what the opponent was doing.
One of the first tournaments I used it in, I made recording error and discovered a number of moves later that my Mon Roi position did not match the board position. I ended out borrowing my opponent’s scoresheet to reconstruct the correct score. I ended out back tracking about 5 moves and then reinputting from his score sheet the correct moves. (I learned later there was a much easier way of fixing errors!) All of this occurred on my own time just as it would if I was trying to fix a mistake on paper scoresheet.
The argument of someone getting assistance from someone who is watching the game live or on another unit to go both ways. My opponent could have his GM friend watching the broadcast of our game and give him moves via text message or whatever new technology will be there for cheating.
I did find the interview too much of a fluff piece. I’d love to see an interview with a computer geek hacker type who can answer the million dollar question. Could he break the code, and put in a chess engine that would be undetectable?
Is in any way MonRoi related with MonSanto?