DGT Board, Set and Clock

Running Chess Tournaments
21

Of course you can create a scenereo where webcams would be less effective. But at nearly $700 per board, you could hire someone to stand next to each board and notate the game. And if you can’t find a data entry center to transcribe the games for less than that price, send them to me and I’ll do it for half that.

If it takes a clerk 5 minutes to transcribe and verify a game from a scoresheet, who gets paid $6/hr, you’d have to run 1400 rounds of tournaments to break even. And that’s assuming no failure rate, and the batteries never run out.

Of course that’s not real-time, but no matter what your goal is, the price of these things is so high, it would be nearly impossible not to find a cheaper way to do whatever it is you want.

22

My argument isn’t whether DGT or webcam is more practical. I don’t think webcam is POSSIBLE for more than a handful of games. For a decent sized tournament you’d be talking bandwidth equivalent to a cable TV provider.

Of course low-tech solutions are possible. Demo boards have been used in tournaments for years to display games. Most games are still recorded with handwritten scoresheets that are then (post-tournament) typed into a computer. If you want real-time display and scorekeeping, though, then you need a higher-tech solution. Why are poeple using DGT boards at tournaments unless they are better?

23

OK, I was thinking of buying a DGT board system. After reading what people posted in this thread, I decided that it wasn’t worth the $650 dollars that the system would cost. Yes, I include the clock and carrying case in this system.

Over the last weekend my brother-in-law went to an auction of the estate of a guy that I knew was a chess player. To make a long story short, I now have a DGT system as described above. I got the system together today and my report follows.

Wow, this DGT system is awesome! The downloading of the software went very quickly and smoothly.

My friend and I got the applications working on three internet venues, ICC, FICS, and ChessLive. It was amazing how easily the system works this way, unbelievable!

We then used it on ChessBase, Junior 8, and Chessmaster 10. The only imperfection was that in the Chessmaster program, I could only get the moves off the computer monitor instead of being displayed on the clock or announced via the computer. Once again, wow!

We then played a game with only the power hooked up. We then connected the board to the computer and the program to extract the game from the board’s memory. Yep, it did it with no problems.

The operation of the program was exceptionally accurate and easy. The “Timeless” pieces were very nice and “played” very well.

Both Wayne and I were and are really impressed.

Now, if they could just repackage the electronics in a plastic set and vinyl/synthetic board, getting the price down to a human range, this would easily become a system that the vast majority of chess players would buy. When I say chess players I mean tournament, internet, speed and casual. The technology is simply amazing. Oh yeah, they also need to come up with a portable/battery power supply for the board when not connected to power via the computer or the adapter.

In a real tournament, the board would only be connected to a power source with the players still keeping notation in the legal way. After the game, the board would then be connected to a computer with the game extracted and printed for all interested parties.

This would work great for the kindergardners as well as completely literate adults.

24

We played a 5 minute game with just the power connected. (One possible advantage to the serial port version of the Board vs the USB version) and nary a move was dropped. Sliding pieces wasn’t a problem. The only problem I had was in being checkmated. :slight_smile: