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BGonline.org Forums
Manual match recording in New York
Posted By: Jason Lee
Date: Monday, 14 January 2013, at 12:15 a.m.
I played in the New York Metro tournament this past weekend. It was a very efficiently run tournament, and the venue is spectacular. We played on the 9th floor of the hotel, with a spectacular view of the Hudson River and the Manhattan skyline. What a wonderful venue.
I played ten matches over the weekend, and the results were forgettable. But, the unusual thing I managed to do is to hand record all ten matches. I secured the permission of all ten opponents. Nearly everybody seemed to not care. One opponent stopped after the first game and commented that the recording felt distracting to him. I offered to stop, but he said something like, "No, the problem was I was trying to change my pace to accommodate you. I'm just going to play at my ordinary pace." I told him to do whatever he's got to do.
In the end, I got all ten matches with no gaps or problems with the transcription.
I've gotten good enough with the manual recording that I ask my opponent for help ("What was that roll?" or "What play did you just make?") less than once per match, on average. I use a hybrid of a smidge of nactation along with the "destination point" method, making appropriate assumptions along the way, and expanding to full notation once in a great while. So a play like 33 b/22 13/10 8/5(2) might be written simply 33 10 52 (the forced play b/22 is omitted for expedience). When my opponent moves, I often can have his play written down with just about no delay in rolling the dice. I write down my move right after ending my turn. Essentially, I'm hardly bogging down the match at all. When playing clocked matches, I incur a slight loss of time, but my opponents didn't care, obviously. In unclocked matches, this really didn't hold things up much at all. The one time when things seem to slow down is when I close out my opponent. I have to stop to write down my play, with no opportunity to do so while my opponent is playing.
Nobody gave me any grief. I would have desisted immediately if an opponent had asked me to stop, and I wouldn't have started if an opponent balked at the beginning. There's no doubt that anybody could invoke the "written aid" rules to prevent me from hand recording. Given that I'm doing the work to record, transcribe and email out matches, you, dear reader, have every incentive to let me carry on with my hand recording when you and I sit down to play.
Was it distracting to myself? SQUIRREL!!! I've got all ten matches into XG, and while I'm not quite done with the analysis, the results seem to be on par or maybe slightly better than my usual standard (which I don't think is terribly great to begin with). I don't believe for a second that it's actually HELPING me over the board. I hope it helps me in the grand scheme of things.
I think I'm going to continue with the manual recording. The more I do it, the more it will become second nature -- it nearly is at this point. I found videotaping so painful and cumbersome to reenter. I've probably got 40+ matches videotaped that frankly, I'm never going to get to. Here, all ten matches got transcribed into XG before I even got home. Transcribing matches into XG is SUPER fast. There are some tricks (there's usually no need to click on the dice to pick them up -- just type in the next dice roll) and keyboard shortcuts. A few opponents have already received their match by email. I have a big rig loaded up with whoppers that I don't understand. I've already posted a few, and there are more to come.
JLee
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